New South Wales – Australian Popular Student Web Site: Kill all Jews

New South Wales – A Jewish group has criticised posters on an Australian student website who say provocative anti-Semitic material was published on the site as a joke.

The NSW Jewish Board of Deputies (JBD) raised a complaint after images of a burning Israeli flag and photos of a Nazi swastika accompanied by comments such as “let’s holocaust them” appeared in a thread on the Bored of Studies website.

One of the posts included details about finding synagogues in Sydney and instructions for making a molotov cocktail.

In another post, one user wrote “kill all da f**king Jews. Hate every single one of them … hope Iran nukes them.”

The site, Australia’s largest student website with over 290,000 members and an average of 7 million monthly hits, is recommended to students by many councils and schools as a useful study resource.

Managers of the site removed the material and banned those responsible for the posts.

Many users of the site applauded the bans, but others defended the comments, saying they were made in jest.

“Most of the posts … were satirical and humorous in their exaggeration,” said user Mirakon in a thread responding to the controversy.

“Those with narrow-minded senses of humour were actually foolish enough to take all of these comments seriously.”

Another user wrote that “slagging people off” is part of the Australian cultural identity.

“Not taking things or ourselves too seriously is core to this community,” user Philphie said.

“All the fun people are banned.”

But the JBD’s chief executive, Vic Alhadeff, says the comments constitute racial hatred.

“There is absolutely nothing humorous about encouraging people to kill people, and that is what many of the comments on that website said,” Mr Alhadeff told ABC News Online.

“There is certainly a place for humour in public debate. However, when those comments go into the area of encouraging people to carry out acts of racial hatred, that is wrong.

“There is an onus on all of us, as members of a country which celebrates difference and diversity, to show respect for others and in doing so we can expect respect in return.”

Mr Alhadeff says tighter controls on the site’s forums are needed to ensure the incident is not repeated.

“Taking action to moderate after the comments are posted is too little, too late, because the damage has been done,” he said.

The incident comes as a report shows the number of anti-Jewish incidents in Australia has spiked

The Anti-Semitism Report was compiled by the Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council.

The report reveals 962 accounts of anti-Jewish incidents in the past year, twice the annual average.

Physical violence accounted for 27 of the incidents in the report, with vandalism, harassment and intimidation accounting for the other incidents.

Mr Alhadeff says all racism needs to be condemned.

“We have concerns about racism, whether it is directed against Christians, Muslims or Jews,” he said.