‘Terrifying’: political candidate violently abused and schoolboy thrown into bin, antisemitism royal commission hears

Violent antisemitic abuse was allowed to proliferate across a Jewish political candidate’s social media as part of a broader trend designed to intimidate Jewish Australians from public life, a royal commission has heard.

Joshua Kirsh launched a campaign as an independent candidate for the New South Wales upper house in late 2025 but found his advertisements online bombarded by antisemitic tropes, abuse and threats.

“The ads … were deluged with antisemitic comments of a nature that was particularly vitriolic, in the sense of … ‘Fuck off you Zionist cunt’,” he told the commission on Wednesday.

“And there were a range of conspiracy theories about Israel paying people to firebomb places in Australia, that the October 7 massacre was a false flag, that we’ve got enough Jewish politicians already.”

Kirsh catalogued the abuse and reported it to the Executive Council of Australian Jewry for its annual report on antisemitic incidents, a process he described as exhausting and distressing.

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Kirsh remains a candidate for NSW parliament but says Jewish friends have been intimidated from participating in public life.

“I’ve had a lot of conversations with people in the Jewish community who are incredibly bright and talented and would be perfect fits to be more involved in politics in this country. But their view is that they can’t bear the risk of receiving the kind of backlash I have received.”

Kirsh also gave evidence that in 2019 an Australasian Union of Jewish Students event he helped organise to celebrate Purim – often described as Jewish Halloween – was directly threatened with gun violence, years before the atrocity of the Bondi massacre.

He told the commission event organisers were contacted by an anonymous correspondent calling themselves “Kill the Jews”.

Their message said: “Me and my friends have already purchased six automatic rifles as we plan to kill hundreds of Jewish students on the eve of Purim festivals.”

The threat – which Kirsh described as “terrifying” – was reported to the Community Security Group and to police. The event ultimately went ahead, under strict security.

“There was just this lingering fear in the back of my mind. This wasn’t something we publicised to students … we bore the brunt of that threat because that’s our responsibility as leaders in the community. For me, it was terrifying to think that, by choosing to go ahead with this event, we could be putting people’s lives in danger … That’s a pretty heavy burden to put on a 23-year-old.”

The third day of hearings of the royal commission on antisemitism and social cohesion heard further evidence from Jewish Australians about the manifestations of antisemitism across schools, universities, workplaces and online spaces.