By: Nomi Kaltmann as seen in The Australian Jewish News

3 July 2026

Yesterday I listened to some of Sarah Schwartz’s testimony before the Royal Commission into antisemitism.

Sarah is the executive officer of the Jewish Council of Australia. Although I have never met her, I suspect we would disagree about almost everything when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But to me, that isn’t really the point.

What struck me most about Sarah’s testimony was when she described some of the abuse other Jews have been directing at her.

She described being called a kapo and a Judenrat. She spoke about being compared to a rat, and about images of her being superimposed onto trains bound for concentration camp. She spoke about the many comments on social media from members of our own community questioning her place in the Jewish community and accusing her of being a self-hating Jew.

I found listening to Sarah’s testimony extremely upsetting.

Of course, people are entitled to criticise Sarah’s politics and the Jewish Council. They are entitled to criticise the organisations the Council works with and the political positions it takes. If you think Sarah or the Jewish Council of Australia is wrong, say so. Write an article, write a letter to the editor. Make the argument.

But once you devolve into personal, and frankly unhinged, attacks by calling another Jew a kapo, you’ve stopped making an argument. You’ve started trying to humiliate another human being. What the hell are we as a community doing?

If you call a fellow Jew a kapo or compare them to a rat, you have lost the moral high ground. No matter how strongly you disagree with someone’s politics, using language like this means that you have become part of the problem.

I understand that emotions are running very high. Since 7 October, our community has been frightened, and since Bondi it feels as though we have been living in a state of perpetual grief. Many people feel that Jews who publicly criticise Israel are giving support to those who hate us. I understand why some people feel that way, even if I don’t always share their conclusions.

But none of that gives us permission to abandon our values.

One of the Jewish ideas I try to live by is Ahavas Yisroel. The idea that every Jew, regardless of politics, remains part of our people. I don’t always succeed in being kind and respectful to everyone. There are people whose opinions I find infuriating and there are people I think are deeply mistaken, but in my core, I never want to forget that they are still my people.

Calling another Jew a Judenrat is the opposite of everything I was taught in my Jewish home and my Jewish school. It is certainly not something I want my own children growing up thinking is a normal way to speak to someone you disagree with.

The timing of Sarah’s evidence also feels heavy because we are currently in the Three Weeks, the period leading up to Tisha B’Av. For nearly two thousand years, Jews have spent these weeks remembering the destruction of the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem. The rabbis asked a question that still feels relevant: how could a civilisation with so much learning and military strength collapse so completely?

Part of their answer was Sinat Chinam, baseless hatred between Jews. Different Jewish factions became so convinced that they alone were right that they stopped seeing other Jews as members of the same family. They became enemies with each other before the Romans ever arrived to destroy the Temple.

There is a teaching that says Derech Eretz kadmah laTorah. Basic decency comes before Torah. I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately. Because if we cannot disagree with another Jew without comparing them to collaborators with the Nazis, then we have lost our way.

Students of Jewish history know that internal division has cost us dearly before. During the Three Weeks we are not just mourning buildings that were destroyed thousands of years ago, but we are also mourning what happens when we forget that Jews are one people.

Looking at the way some Jews speak to Sarah Schwartz, I worry that we still haven’t learned these lessons. We are Am Echad k’ish echad, one people with one heart. Let’s not forget that.

And to Sarah, and to every other Jew who has been abused in this way by fellow Jews, I want to say: I am sorry. I am ashamed that you have been treated like this by members of our own community.

Nomi Kaltmann is an Australian lawyer and journalist.