Michael Gencher | Australian Jewish News | July 19, 2026

StandWithUs executive director Michael Gencher has told the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion that Jewish university students are so fearful and disillusioned that many will not make formal complaints about antisemitism on campus, believing the process to be futile.

Gencher, whose education and advocacy organisation acts as an intermediary for students making complaints across some nine universities, said discomfort about coming forward was “far too common and far too frequent”. Students feared for their personal safety and wellbeing, worried about academic detriment, or had concluded there was no point because nothing would come of it.

“We’ve had students who have stopped attending campuses, simply feeling invisible, unheard, unhelped, and it is tragic,” he said. Faced with a complaint that might drag on for half their remaining time at university, he said, many simply chose to wait out their degree rather than pursue it.

He illustrated the reluctance with the case of a student who sat through what he considered a highly unbalanced lecture on the conflict in southern Lebanon this past March, in which the lecturer referred to Hezbollah as a “resistance organisation” and to Israel’s actions as a “land grab” and “ethnic cleansing”. The student, who had made a complaint the previous year and felt it had harmed her relationship with that lecturer, was unwilling to complain again, and asked Gencher to act on her behalf. He understood three of five Jewish students in the class had since complained to the university, but two had heard nothing from the dean of students since March.

Gencher described several confronting incidents on Sydney campuses. In one, three Jewish students sitting in a campus cafe — none wearing anything visibly identifying them as Jewish — were approached by three students in keffiyehs and “absolutely berated” with cries of “apartheid”, “colonisation” and “baby killer”. He said he had been struck that in a crowded cafe no one came to the students’ defence, on a campus where “conversation, debate should be part of academic life”. A complaint made that day, in June 2024, had still not been answered.

At a StandWithUs panel event featuring Israeli speakers of various faiths, attendees were locked in by campus security until police arrived, and left “under horrendous abuse”, he said. Gencher himself was photographed returning to his car, with his numberplate circulated alongside a message that he should be identified if seen on campus.

He said the organisation had since stopped setting up information tables on campuses — which carried signs such as “I stand with Israel, come chat to me” — because the atmosphere had become too aggressive and students were being treated as targets.

Gencher said responsiveness from universities had improved since the December Bondi attack, but that greater urgency had not translated into outcomes. He called for universities to maintain proper oversight and accountability mechanisms, including regular reporting, so that students were kept informed of the progress of their complaints.

Read the full article here.