A concert to raise money for the victims of the shooting attack on a Hanukkah party on Sydney’s Bondi Beach has been canceled after the Greek choir that was to take part voted not to sing with a Jewish choir.
A majority of members of the 50-member Australian Hellenic Choir “politically objected” to singing alongside the Sydney Jewish Choral Society. Others said they did not feel safe in a joint performance with Jews.
“I was not expecting this to happen at all as we’d performed with the Jewish choir without issue in 2022,” the Greek choir’s founder and president, James Tsolakis, told the Australian newspaper. He added, “The Jewish people are all into it, I’m into it, but the Greek choir was a bit anti doing it because of the political climate.”
The “Concert for Hope and Unity,” which had received government support, was to have featured “The Ballad of Mauthausen,” about a romance between Greek and Jewish prisoners at the Nazi concentration camp. The groups performed the piece together in 2022, but the reaction to the Gaza war has perceptions of Jews across Australia, including, Tsolakis said, within his community.
“There’s a bit of antisemitism in the Greek community; I didn’t realize the extent of it. Unfortunately, we have a lot of people in the community blaming the Jewish community for what’s happening in Israel, Palestine… that’s not correct,” Tsolakis said. “You want to hate [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu? Hate Netanyahu, but what have the Jewish people done to you? The whole antisemitism thing has got be wound back.”
Since Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel and resulting war in Gaza, Australian Jews have faced mass anti-Israel protests, exclusion from arts and other communities, and spasms of violence, including arson attacks on synagogues and the Bondi Beach massacre, which killed 15 people who were celebrating during a Hanukkah party on the beach in December.
Following the Bondi Beach massacre, and under pressure from Jewish leaders to respond more forcefully, the Australian government established a Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion to examine policies and practices that have contributed to anti-Jewish sentiment in the country.
Official complaint to Royal Commission
The Jewish Choral Society has made an official complaint to the Royal Commission, according to a letter sent by its chair, Anne Spira, to its 30 members informing them about the concert’s cancellation. Spira told the Australian that the incident reflected a broad dynamic that many Australian Jews have experienced.
“The result is, like many other Jews in the arts since 7 October 2023, we have been canceled,” Spira said. “We have been de-platformed, and it is deeply upsetting for us and for the broader Jewish community, who have been the target of anti-Jewish racism in this country for 2 and a half years.”
Australia’s largest Jewish groups did not immediately comment on the cancellation, but the Australian Jewish Association, a center-right advocacy group, tweeted that it was “pretty disappointing.”
The Greek City Times, an Australian publication, called the choir’s vote “embarrassing.”
The Australian said in an editorial that the incident was an appropriate topic for the royal commission. “The vote to opt out of the event almost beggars belief,” the editorial said. “In light of antisemitic tensions that have reared their ugly head in Australia since October 7, 2023, those who didn’t want to be associated with a Jewish choir event have displayed an alarming lack of historical empathy and understanding.”
