Building Brave Spaces or Safe Spaces: Dilemmas facing History teachers in a post-Gaza, post Bondi World: An Australian History Teacher's Perspective.

This is an opinion piece written by Jenny Lee, Australian history teacher, who visited and volunteered in Eau Claire for the 2024 election.

It was the Whitlam government who established, more than 50 years ago, the pluralist, multi-cultural and diverse society that is modern Australia and in which, to date, most Australians have taken pride.  The assumption that immigrants to Australia need not divest their loyalty to and love for family and community from whence they came in order to build a new life as Australians, was fundamental to Whitlam’s understanding of what multiculturalism entails. For Whitlam and his government, multiculturalism went much deeper than food and the ethnic dress donned for traditional festivals.   Fifty years on, the question arises whether the tidal waves of distress washing out of the massacre at Bondi on December 14th will prove overwhelming to a nation struggling to maintain Whitlam’s vision for Australia as a nation of peaceful, mutually empathetic citizens willing to face the challenges inherent in cultural diversity. If diversity of culture and diversity is tearing at our social fabric, then the preoccupation of the nation is properly focused on how to remediate this division. In the summer of 2025-2026 we were repeatedly assured it was a surge of antisemitism that provided an existential challenge to a functional multiculturalism. How to respond?

 The murderous rampage of a lone wolf duo of father and son, acting under the banner of Islamic State but not, according to our security agents, at its direction, slaughtered fifteen Australians gathered to celebrate the Jewish festival of Hanukah and wounded forty more. In the weeks since the killings the nation has undertaken, along with the rituals of grief and mourning, a painful, passionate and searing self-examination of how deeply we are committed to our pluralism, the challenge pluralism demands of groups within our society and where we should draw the lines when it comes to cultural tolerance and forbearance.  We are rent, we are told, by persistent hatreds of historic origins and, unless we look at what has caused such division unflinchingly, violent episodes like December 14th will recur.  Such a rigorous self-examination requires courage. It also requires the provision of spaces wherein such examination takes place. The classrooms of this nation need to be accepted as rightful inclusions in those spaces. In those classrooms it is the nation’s teachers who are the arbiters of the debate. Consideration of how the last six weeks of national conversation, division, reconciliation and threat have impacted the social and ethical parameters of the work of educators is urgent. What conflicting expectations might impact as such an endeavour to track cause and effect might await teachers? What conversations should teachers be having regarding their professional practice at this febrile moment in our nation’s history?

In the first tsunami of shock and trauma the pervasive view abroad was that the nation’s leaders had failed in the first and fundamental responsibility of government – to keep their people, particularly Jewish people, safe. The demands for action were legion – a Royal Commission into Anti-Semitism and Social Cohesion, legislative action against hate speech, revised and renewed gun control, a careful supervision of ideas generated by institutions such as our universities and media outlets. The recommendations of the Envoy on Antisemitism, Jillian Segar were to be implemented. Another envoy to oversee what were purported to be by problematic institutions such as universities was to be appointed. Professor Greg Craven, past Vice-Chancellor of the Australian Catholic University was given that gig. To these demands had been added another quieter but further demand – that the nation needs to improve, not just our university sector, but our school educational delivery – particularly within the discipline of teaching history. Teaching history was in the frame, and by implication, it was to be the History teachers called upon to apply their professional skill set to deliver the hoped for. How this was to be done and what challenges might arise in multicultural classrooms was less clear.

Sam Lowy, the former co-chief executive of Westfield Corporation made it clear. “We need leadership in schools to explain why diversity makes us stronger. …..Education is prevention. We need comprehensive education programs about the Holocaust, the history and manifestation of antisemitism and the responsibilities of citizenship in a diverse democracy.”(Lowy; AFR; 12 Jan; p35) Lowy’s expectation is that a historical understanding of cause and effect can be harnessed to mitigate antisemitism. If knowledge of the millennia long history of European antisemitism is known, if the Holocaust is a mandatory study, then antisemitism will not flourish. Lowy did not, however, suggest a consideration of the Arab/Israeli conflict as an educational undertaking that could provide a further road to healing. Despite the increasing evidence as a bitter debate in the nation’s public spaces – the parliament, in every media environment, in our theatres and conference halls that concern over the impact Israeli/Palestine war was having on Australian society and why was at the heart of responses to the horror of Bondi.  Waleed Aly observed “Two years of carnage in the Middle East have left our nerves ruthlessly exposed”.  Studying the Arab/Israeli Conflict along with a study of the Holocaust as a tragedy of the twentieth century, a study of this intractable conflict in the C21st is a lens through which young Australians could come to understand peace and conflict in the modern world whose reverberations are having seismic impact on our shores. It was widely acknowledged in commentary from different perspectives, including Sam Lowy, that events after the Hamas kibbutz attacks of October 7th, had turbocharged the growth of antisemitism in Australia since 2023. However, it is that event, its causes and the subsequent war in Gaza have been notably absent from demands for historical study that could serve as a mechanism by which tolerance is nurtured within pluralism.

If motivation is a critical element of deciding whether or not a historical analysis of the policies and actions of the Israeli state is anti-semitic or not, then it is proper to consider what motives might inspire teachers to undertake what is undeniably The altruistic element of the teaching of History has been the focus of educational scholars over time. The extent to which a determination amongst history teachers to help build a better world by learning from the past is the academic focus of Sydney University researcher, Doctor Claire Golledge. Considering the motivations of teachers in their choices of content and pedagogical strategy as means to contribute to transformational knowledge, Golledge works with the concept of “praxis”-“ a teacher’s sense of teaching practice that relates to the way in which they see history as providing students with ways of thinking an understanding that enable them to make sense of the contemporary world” (Golledge; p63). Such skills are not just beneficial to the individual student. A historically literate population is elemental in a functioning society. Other academic endeavours have endorsed the Golledge analysis. “The discipline of History, applied thoughtfully can contribute to a stronger society.   At the heart of learning in a history classroom is building a capacity to construct and critique arguments. Argument is at the heart of the discipline. History demands of its practitioners a willingness to consider how to construct an argument, how to consider the arguments of others and how to assess evidence presented. A citizenry well trained in recognising and assessing historical argument is well equipped to understand public issues and consequently collectively positioned to good decision making” ( Banks; 2006).  These are the outcomes for which Sam Lowy was arguing. For those who teach History, explaining traditional antisemitism and exploring the Holocaust are regular endeavours. The teaching of the Arab/Israeli conflict is not so regular but perhaps now is the moment to make it so. However, after observing how the debate has raged in the last several weeks, it would be naïve to deny that minefields potentially await teachers who choose this content area for study.

Despite such convulsions it took the Condolence Motions spoken by Coalition leaders in the House to make explicit precisely the terms of the IHRA definition were being applied. Antisemtism was about the war in Gaza and the Palestinian cause. Sussan Ley put it most clearly  – “ Anti-semitic hatred fuelled the terrorists on December 14th, but it came out of the shadows in October 2023. It walked our streets, it marched over our bridges, it took over our landmarks, it camped in university quadrangles. Like a slow, creeping disease, it festered in plain sight. Jewish Australians had warned of this menacing storm but felt unheard. The Coalition heard you.” ( Matthew Knott; SMH; Jan 20; p7). In tying Coalition response so directly to Labor foreign policy willingness to recognise a Palestinian state, Ley was aligning the Coalition’s causal explanation of the Bondi killings with that of Benjamin Netanyahu. In Ley’s application of the term, anti-Israeli protests, demonstrations that were pro-Palestinian were therefore, by definition antisemitic and those participating antisemites. The protest walk across the Harbour Bridge in response to the war in Gaza was an event terrifying for Australian Jews.

Her front bencher, Julian Leeser went further. Of the three groups of antisemitic activists at play in Australia he claimed, following firstly Neo-Nazi groups, and secondly Hate Preachers and Radicalised Islamists, Leeser nominated ‘the cultural Left as a group engaged in persistent racist incitement.  “It is in the writer’s festivals that celebrate people who say their mission is to make sure Jews feel culturally unsafe. It is in the theatres where keffiyehs are donned and Jews are catcalled. It’s in the universities where Jewish students are harassed and Jewish academics are deplatformed. It’s in the conferences, where Jews are silenced, shut down, humiliated and called ‘mutt” and where the term “Zionist” is used as an insult.”( Hansard; Jan ……) The Jesuit social justice commentator, Frank Brennan observed, “ There is broad agreement about the first two groups. The new laws and policies announced will probably assist with the disbanding of Neo-Nazi groups and the shutting down of extremist Islamic prayer halls. There is no agreement about the third group.” (Brennan; Eureka Street; Jan 23) In the face such lack of community agreement as to the nature and impact of a so-called “ Cultural Left”, teachers run a risk of being similarly identified should they choose to enter the fray. To apply the syllabus requirements of a study of the Arab/Israeli conflict, teachers in NSW must incorporate perspectives critical of Israel. Including, as the syllabus requires, a Palestinian as well as an Israeli perspective, teachers must consider anti-Zionism. In a summer when protest banners have read “Anti-Zionism gets Jews killed”, a teacher would have to expose their students to different concepts of nationalism and colonialism. The syllabus, for example, in asking students to evaluate the impact of the election of Benjamin Netanyahu, students. Could that be the foundation of a complaint based on concerns for “cultural safety” that a citizen could make considered by a concerned community member to be acting in concert with the “cultural Left”?

There is as yet no dedicated envoy to schools to ensure no teaching practice contributes to antisemitism. There is an envoy for universities. Professor Greg Craven outlined the conceptual prism through which he would undertake his work when he wrote in “The Australian” on January 23rd. In Craven’s mind, the situation is dire. He argued that the nation is in a war against a murderous foe that is a “ vicious, racist, and murderous internal threat”. The lone wolf pair of extremists are not alone. “There is nothing more certain than this that there will be another Bondi and probably another and possibly another”. Craven’s analysis was in tune with Ley and Leeser - our problem is with left leaning cultural elites. “One great advantage for home-based jihadists is that they have a wide-ranging and noisy penumbra of progressive cultural elites constantly condemning Israel and spreading Jewish conspiracy theories……..These useful idiots are less spreading hatred than morally bankrupt intellectual effluent……They provide an indispensable authorising environment for evil”.   A Trumpian moment came when he mused how satisfying he would be if Louise Adler, for example was committed “to home detention for several years”. Australia’s “Lock her up” moment.  Despite employing such incendiary language through the bulk of his piece, Craven concluded by arguing that thinkers of his ilk are looking for “carefully modulated restrictions on the expression of hateful ideas”. Carefully modulated indeed!

So where does such language and intention leave the teacher in the classroom who decides to teach the Arab/Israeli conflict, motivated by the hope that a citizenry educated in the causes, prosecution and competing perspectives of that intractable conflict will be of benefit to the nation? Will, as the syllabus asks teachers to do, considering the different perspectives being offered for example of the impact of the election of Benjamin Netanyahu, find themselves consigned to the community of the “useful idiots” who spread “ morally bankrupt intellectual effluent’ that serves as comfort and cover for “vicious, racist and homicidal jihadists’? Just as Abdullah, Khalid and Wilcox were identified as problematic given their critical analysis of the Israeli state, could the same fate await teachers assembling the different perspectives the NSW syllabus document demands they consider.

One leading NSW educator with a long history of teaching the Arab/Israeli conflict believes not. Himself a post-graduate Middle Eastern scholar, he has long taught the unit out of a conviction that it offers his students powerful knowledge that is transformational. Exemplary of the motivations of which Golledge and Banks write, he believes he honours a moral imperative to widen his students’ experience of their world protection is provided by honouring the demands of the Modern History syllabus and by the rigours provided in the HSC marking process. Neither the professional application of the syllabus nor differences of historical argument, properly constructed and presented at HSC assessment should allow teachers to be prosecuted for antisemitism, or their students punished for offering a range of analyses. And yet! In contributing their own perspectives on their problems with the cultural Left, Rabbi Benjamin Elton, the chief minister of the Great Synagogue and Jack Pinczewski, a board member of the Great Synagogue, in outlining in a co-written piece for the AFR their concern for the impact of  groups such as left leaning academics, included very specifically, teachers. “In schools, groups of teachers brought blood libels into their classrooms and the response from education bureaucrats was to pass the buck as to who was responsible to discipline them”.(Elton and Pinczewski; AFR; 29 Dec; p16.) Somewhere in this state teachers have been accused of spreading the blood libel and await disclosure as to whether they are to be disciplined, by whom and with what consequences.

After Louise Adler’s resignation from the Adelaide Writer’s Week convenorship, one commentator lamented her loss as one Arts czar who had consistently championed “brave spaces over safe spaces”. Adler had designed writers’ weeks over years trying to allow conflicting perspectives to be aired. Another speculated that the Randal-Fattah imbroglio would never happen again because , far from being uninvited, challenging voices would never be invited in the first place. Careful risk assessment processes would see to that. The same consideration applies to History teachers in their classrooms. What if, fearful of transgressing ‘cultural comfort”, or worse, of being accused of employing a blood libel for reporting on United Nations statistics on rates of children’s deaths in Gaza, teachers decide the whole topic is to be avoided. What if, in our nation, inclusive of Palestinian Australians as well as Jewish Australians, one of the most significant conflicts spanning two centuries is rarely studied by students of History?  The nation has stepped up to join with the Jewish community in their loss. In being asked to perform a Mitzvah, an act of kindness for a stranger, on the Day of Mourning, more Australians than ever before presented themselves to give blood at blood banks. The synchronicity was not accidental. What if, Palestinians mourning their own lost nieces and nephews, uncles and aunts, grandparents, siblings become unmentionable? How will our so desired social cohesion hold together in such a scenario? What will happen to the teachers in our schools if they pose these questions?

Perhaps the last word should go to a Jewish writer, not Australian, but a man who articulates the dilemmas faced by so many in a post-Gaza world : On antisemitism, Peter Beinart writes, “ Jews do not need to search for hidden antisemitism in every nineteen year old university student, or Lutheran grandmother who condemns Israel because they can’t bear to see another Palestinian child die. Jews don’t need to see decent people fired - the same people who in the 1960’s were protesting Vietnam and in the 80’s Apartheid in South Africa, just because this time they are challenging human rights abuses being committed by a Jewish state. We don’t have to disfigure our communal institutions by suppressing open debate. We don’t have to close off that best piece of our Jewish culture and barricade ourselves from our finest qualities – kindness, compassion, fairness because that is the only way we can defend ourselves from what is being done in our name.” (Reinart; 2025 p 117)

Gough Whitlam, himself a champion of an independent Palestinian state, would agree with Beinart. Multiculturalism will only flourish when disparate groups, even when in pain, can recognise and empathise with the pain of their fellow Australians, when kindness and fairness sit alongside compassion.  Such empathy cannot exist in states of ignorance. We do need an educated, thoughtful and capable citizenry. History teachers have their work cut out. They must be allowed do that work without fear of condemnation for tackling that which is difficult and challenging.