Rabbi Yehoram Ulman delivered devastating testimony as the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion officially closed its public hearings this week. The senior rabbi and father-in-law of Bondi terror victim Rabbi Eli Schlanger said the commission was asking questions of all Australians about what kind of country we want this to be.

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"This is not only a question for Jewish Australians," he said. "A society in which hatred and extremism are allowed to grow is ultimately a threat to the character of the country itself."

Rabbi Schlanger's youngest son, Rabbi Ulman's grandson, was just two months old when his father was shot dead beside Bondi Beach: "One day he will be old enough to understand what happened," Rabbi Ulman said, "... and I wonder what Australia he will know by then."

These poignant reflections contrast sharply with the restrictive framework of the inquiry itself. After the horror of December 14, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was dragged kicking and screaming to establish the commission. His government initially opposed the inquiry, instead prioritising gun control measures as if inanimate weapons, rather than radicalised Islamic extremists, were the root cause of the massacre.

Commissioner Virginia Bell has presided over four months of hearings, spanning 62 hearing days and featuring 346 witnesses. The inquiry received more than 20,000 public submissions, including the voices of about 14,000 Jewish Australians. Yet, as the hearings conclude, a question........

© Canberra Times