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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.

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.

A Jewish father known to the commission only as AAT said his 13-year-old son was bullied, called a “dirty Jew”, a “stinky Jew” and subjected to Nazi salutes at his Australian school.

“The physical bullying includes being squeezed until he couldn’t breathe … being dragged across the floor … being thrown into the garbage bin, being dacked,” AAT said.

Some students were suspended and AAT took his son out of the school, he said.

He felt the school offered his family “worse than zero support” while the bullies were supported – and the vice-principal did not refer to racism in his response, instead implying the behaviour was “play fighting”, he said.

His son is now suffering antisemitic slurs at his new school, including a boy putting black tape on his lip in imitation of Hitler’s moustache, he said.

Even as evidence was being given, a man wearing an antisemitic T-shirt was moved on by police outside the commission hearings in Sydney’s CBD.

The man – wearing a T-shirt that merged the Israeli flag with a swastika and bearing the slogan “antisemitism, proud to be accused” – claimed that he didn’t know the royal commission was being heard in the building behind him.

“I’m enjoying a cup of coffee in the streets of Sydney. Why am I being assailed in such a fashion?” he asked.

Speaking with reporters, he denied being disrespectful to Jewish Australians who were giving evidence to the commission inside.

“What’s disrespectful is what’s happening in Gaza, in Lebanon and overseas, the killing of innocent people and children.

“I have been asked to move on,” he said as police removed him, “such is the state of protest in New South Wales.”

The 68-year-old was later arrested, police confirmed.

The commission has heard evidence from several witnesses that Jews in Australia were being unjustifiably held responsible for the actions of the state of Israel, or the Israel Defense Forces, in Gaza.

The commission was established after December’s Bondi massacre, in which two alleged Islamic State-inspired gunmen allegedly shot and killed 15 people and injured 40 others as they attended a beachside Hanukah event for the Jewish community.

Royal commission hearings, before commissioner Virginia Bell, continue in Sydney.