The former treasurer’s organisation will focus on the targeting of Jewish Australians online and on university campuses.
The former treasurer’s organisation will focus on the targeting of Jewish Australians online and on university campuses.
By Matthew Knott
February 14, 2025 — 8.00pm
Former treasurer Josh Frydenberg is launching a high-powered foundation to tackle the national surge of antisemitism, with a focus on stopping the targeting of Jewish Australians online and at university.
The launch of the Dor Foundation, whose board includes prominent business leaders and philanthropists, comes just days after the NSW Health Department stood down two nurses for saying they would not treat Israeli patients, and a parliamentary committee called for urgent action to tackle “brazen” antisemitism in higher education.
Frydenberg, who will chair the foundation, said in a statement: “The frequency and intensity of antisemitic attacks in our country is unprecedented.
“The intolerance we are seeing is un-Australian and undermines our shared values of freedom, respect, fairness and equality.
“Combating antisemitism is not just the Jewish community’s fight, it is Australia’s fight.”
Frydenberg, whose Hungarian-born mother escaped the Holocaust to travel to Australia, has been one of the most outspoken voices calling for tougher action against antisemitism since the October 7, 2023 attacks and the subsequent war in Gaza.
Former Business Council of Australia chief executive Jennifer Westacott will serve on the foundation’s board, as will Reserve Bank of Australia director Elana Rubin, former Optus chief executive Kelly Bayer Rosmarin and philanthropist Jeremy Dunkel.
Tahli Blicblau, former director of strategic intelligence and capabilities at the NSW Crime Commission, will serve as chief executive of the not-for-profit, whose name references the biblical phrase “from one generation to the next” in Hebrew.
“We’re facing a problem on a scale we have never seen before in Australia,” Blicblau said.
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Blicblau said while existing peak Jewish groups were working hard to tackle antisemitism, there was a need for a dedicated organisation focused on evidence-based measures to address the problem.
Among existing Jewish groups are the Australia Israel & Jewish Affairs Council, the Anti-Defamation Commission and the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, alongside state-based organisations and Australian branches of international Jewish institutions.
Blicblau said the “horrific and very confronting” video of nurses at Bankstown Hospital showed the need to tackle the root causes of antisemitism.
“How did we get to the point where people in Australia can harbour those views and share them online?” she said.
“How can we prevent those views from being formed in the first place?”
She said the foundation, which has charity status, had secured some donors and would be seeking fundraising.
Former Australasian Union of Jewish Students vice-president Zachary Morris, who will serve on the foundation’s board, said many Jewish students felt scared on campus.
The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights this week found there had been an “alarming and abhorrent rise in antisemitism” at Australian universities.
Morris said a lot of attention had been paid to punishing antisemitic acts, including the passage of new national hate speech laws last week, but not enough on preventing antisemitic attitudes from forming.
“We have been addressing the symptoms but not the underlying pathologies,” he said.
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Matthew Knott is the foreign affairs and national security correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect via Twitter or Facebook.
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