The Albanese Government has appointed lawyer and businesswoman Jillian Segal as Australia’s first antisemitism envoy. Source: SBS News.
Ms Segal will advise the Government on issues relating to antisemitism and social cohesion and engage with the community to increase understanding.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the position would be held for three years and said the Government would soon announce an envoy to deal with Islamophobia.
Mr Albanese said it was important to combat discrimination “in all its forms” and that Australia has seen a rise in antisemitic attacks since the Hamas-Israel war escalated in October last year.
“I have spoken with members of the Jewish community here (in Sydney), in Melbourne, right around Australia, who had not felt safe,” he told reporters at the Sydney Jewish Museum.
“Members of the Jewish community whose children are worried about wearing their school uniform in our capital cities. That’s not acceptable. Not acceptable, ever.
“The conflict that is occurring in the Middle East … has caused a great deal of grief for the Jewish community, for members of the Islamic and Palestinian communities.”
He added that Australians overwhelmingly want harmony and for people to be able to get on with each other.
Ms Segal said the creation of her role showed the Government’s commitment to dealing with the “evil” of antisemitism.
“Antisemitism erodes all that is good and healthy in a society. As such, it poses a threat not just to the Jewish community, but to our entire nation. It has the capacity to lie dormant through good times and then, in times of crisis like pandemic, which we’ve experienced, economic downturn, war – it awakens, it triggers the very worst instincts in an individual,” she said.
Ms Segal is a former president of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, a peak body representing Jewish organisations in Australia.
Acting Opposition leader Sussan Ley said the Coalition welcomed the move to appoint the envoy.
FULL STORY
Anthony Albanese announces antisemitism envoy, says Jewish people ‘do not feel safe’ (By Madeleine Wedesweiler, SBS News)
RELATED COVERAGE
Prime minister names Jillian Segal as first Australian anti-Semitism envoy (ABC News)
‘Get on with each other’: envoy targets anti-Semitism (Canberra Times)
