Since October 2023, much has been said about what Jewish Australians think about Israel’s war in Gaza. If you’ve been reading the statistics quoted in media articles, you can be forgiven for thinking that the vast majority of Australian Jews support Israel’s war in Gaza and believe that the student protests on Australian University campuses constitute antisemitism and should be shut down. In reality, we have no idea what the majority of Australian Jews feel about either of these issues because there is no representative survey that has asked us.

Instead, the statistics that are stated in media articles, provided by both Jewish and non-Jewish contributors, are ostensibly drawn from a survey that was finalised prior to the attacks of October 7, 2023, the subsequent violence of the Israeli military in Gaza, and actions in support of Gaza on our University campuses. If you read these articles carefully, you will note that the oft cited statistics don’t even relate to the Israeli military actions and the fallout from them. Instead, they cite wide support for Zionism and Israel and conflate this with support for what has unfolded in Gaza over the past seven months.

Source: We don’t know what Australian Jews think about Gaza – Pearls and Irritations