"It would take a matter of days to complete that genocide"

On December 13, Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-CEO Alex Ryvchin gave a webinar, ‘Rising antisemitism and how to respond’, to more than 400 members of the Moriah Foundation, an association that fundraises for Sydney’s Moriah College.

In her introduction, Moriah Foundation president Judy Lowy OAM spoke of Israel’s “responsibility to defend herself,” of the “many Moriah alumni proudly serving” in the IDF, and revealed that Moriah College students are writing and sending letters of support to IDF soldiers.

“As Australian Jews in the diaspora, and indeed all Jews in the diaspora, we have found ourselves fighting the other war: the war on antisemitism, and the completely false narrative that took hold like wildfire of Israel as the genocidal occupier,” Lowy said.

“It beggars belief. It is beyond concerning that so many, particularly from the progressive left, have not only abandoned us, but are in fact supporting Hamas by jumping on the ‘free Palestine, from the river to to sea’ bandwagon.”

I’ve obtained the full video of the webinar, in which Ryvchin said a number of things that I think deserve a wider audience.

Apart from his conflating opposition to Zionism with antisemitism, his denial of Israel’s genocide in Gaza and his belief that “consequences need to be exerted” against people expressing solidarity with Palestinians or calling for a ceasefire, Ryvchin claimed that the University of New South Wales agreed last year to formally adopt the IHRA definition of antisemitism as policy in 2024.

Ryvchin also said that Zionist movements should “ensure that maximum pressure is brought to bear” on teachers who express support for Palestine or call for a ceasefire; that the arts sector is a “battleground” in which Zionist patrons and donors should withdraw funding from institutions that allow displays of solidarity with Palestinians; that progressives who oppose Zionism “like the optics of the Palestinians as being a besieged, beleaguered, smaller power”; and that antisemitism “is so powerfully ingrained in the Western consciousness” that progressive activists are “incapable of … actually seeing the Jews as victims of crimes against women, crimes against children and mass atrocities”.

Ryvchin also praised Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for being “very consistent in supporting Israel,” noting that “the position of the Australian government remains to not support a permanent and unconditional ceasefire,” and singled out NSW Premier Chris Minns’ stance toward Israel and Gaza as “exemplary”.

The full video can be found here, but I’ve broken it down into snippets by theme, which you can find below. I’ve included block quotes of Ryvchin’s remarks to try and best place them in the context in which they were spoken, although I’ve made some minor grammatical edits. Any questions included were asked by Moriah Foundation director Ryan Kassel in a Q&A that begins about halfway through the video. Emphases in bold are mine.