There were jeers for Anthony Albanese in Melbourne and cheers for Peter Dutton in Sydney at events held by the Jewish community to mark the first anniversary of the 7 October Hamas attack on Israel.
Some 6,000 gathered in Moorabbin in Melbourne’s south-east on Monday evening for the Illuminate October event, which began with a procession of hand-painted lanterns, each dedicated to 1,200 Israelis killed and 250 hostages captured by Palestinian militants in the past 12 months.
The prime minister, the attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, the Macnamara MP, Josh Burns, the Victorian premier, Jacinta Allan, and her deputy, Ben Carroll, joined the procession alongside other state and federal politicians.
Albanese walked alongside rabbi Gabi Kaltmann and was met with some jeers of “shame”, though overall the event was peaceful and the police presence was minimal.
One man carried a sign reading: “Shame on you Albo. Photo opportunity only!!! No genuine support for Jewish community.”
Neither Albanese nor Allan delivered speeches at the event. Instead, it featured reflections from members of the community and families of the hostages, as well as performances from local schools and shule choirs.
Yossi Goldfarb, the president of Zionism Victoria which organised the event, drew cheers when he accused the federal government of being “weak and ambiguous” on the conflict in the Middle East.
Goldfarb told the thousands-strong crowd Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis were “enemies of Israel”, a “pernicious threat” that must be defeated and described the rise of antisemitism in Australia as “simply out of control”.
“[It is] a threat to everything that makes our country unique and great. There is a permissiveness that has led antisemitism fester, a permissiveness encouraged by weak and ambiguous expositions of our foreign policy,” he said.
“In our community’s view, they have weakened our social cohesion, leaving us to feel the state of Israel has been abandoned as a natural ally of the Australian people.”
In Sydney, Monday’s anniversary was ushered in with a sunrise prayer gathering to mark the moment Hamas’ attack on Israel began: 6:29am.
In the evening, a commemoration organised by the Zionist Council of NSW and the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies attracted a crowd of about 12,000 people to a clifftop park in the city’s eastern suburbs.
Peter Dutton drew a loud cheer when he took to the stage, decrying the antisemitism that he said had taken grip since the “horrors and heartbreak” of 7 October.
He said there had been a “vacuum of leadership”and “moral fog” in Australia in the wake of 7 October.
“In that vacuum, intolerable incidents have been tolerated, and each intolerable incident has emboldened the next. The last 12 months constitute one of the most difficult periods for Jewish Australians in our nation’s history. So in the interest of moral clarity, let me be clear, Israel has every right to defend its territory,” he said.
The New South Wales premier, Chris Minns told the crowd it would ordinarily be his job this week to wish Jewish people a happy New Year, but “we have come together not to celebrate, but to grieve”.
“We can’t lose hope,” he said.
Monday evening was also marked by sombre protest, as crowds gathered for a vigil “to honour and mourn and remember” Palestinian and Lebanese lives lost in Israel’s latest military campaign
At least 41,870 Palestinians have been killed and 97,166 wounded in Gaza since Israel launched its military response to the 7 October attacks, the territory’s health authorities said on Sunday, with thousands more likely lost in the rubble.
The Australian foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, told the UN last month that the death toll in Gaza included more than 11,000 children.
Other speakers at the Sydney event included Nova festivalgoer Michal Ohana, who described hiding under an IDF tank for seven hours while bleeding from a gunshot wound. She lost ten friends that day.
Guardian Australia spoke with 28-year-old Idan, whose cousin, Shahak Madal, was killed by Hamas at the Nova music festival a year ago. His friend, Almog Sarusi, was taken hostage and killed. He was one of six slain hostages found by IDF forces in mid September.
“We just need to stay strong. This happened before, it will happen again in the future, but we will pass this as well,” he said. “We just want to live in peace, to be safe, to bring the hostages [home].”
Another, Jaydene Tucker, said she wanted to be with her community despite being “paranoid” about the event being a possible antisemitic target.
