Sydney, Australia – Widespread fear of anti-Semitic bias and harm within Australian healthcare settings has driven many Jewish patients to take extraordinary steps to conceal their religious and cultural identities, a senior Jewish community leader has told a landmark royal commission.
The testimonial was delivered by Rabbi Mendel Kastel, CEO of Jewish House and a Rabbinical Fellow, during the sixth session of New South Wales’ Royal Commission into Anti-Semitism and Social Cohesion – an inquiry launched following the fatal 2024 Bondi terror attack that sparked national reckoning with rising hate crime targeting Jewish communities.
Kastel told the commission that many Jewish patients have explicitly requested hospitals remove their religion from official medical records to avoid potential mistreatment. Beyond formal documentation, he added, some patients with distinctive Jewish last names or recognizably Israeli accents have altered how they present themselves to clinical staff, opting to omit last names or avoid speaking at length to keep their identity hidden.
The tipping point for these growing fears, Kastel explained, came after a high-profile 2024 incident that made global headlines. Last February, two Sydney nurses – 27-year-old Sarah Abu Lebdeh and 28-year-old Ahmad Rashad Nadir – were caught on video allegedly making violent threats against Israeli patients at Bankstown Hospital in western Sydney. Both have pleaded not guilty to charges of using a digital carriage service to menace, harass, and offend, and their trial is scheduled to begin next month.
“After that story broke, there was real fear across the community,” Kastel said in his evidence. “People are scared to go to hospital, scared to write that they are Jewish on their admission forms. Even people with Israeli accents hold back from speaking to nurses, because they don’t want their identity to be known.”
Kastel also shared that anti-Semitic targeting is not limited to patients: Jewish doctors and clinical staff have faced exclusion from professional group chats, and in one documented case, a Jewish doctor was verbally attacked by a patient who called them a “Zionist pig.”
In the wake of the Bankstown Hospital incident, Kastel noted he approached the facility himself to assess the climate of care, and was surprised by the warm welcome he received across all departments. “It didn’t matter what religion or culture someone was, everyone was welcoming,” he said.
That positive experience, however, has not erased systemic anxiety across the community. When NSW Health officials raised the idea of creating separate, alternative healthcare pathways for Jewish patients too afraid to access mainstream facilities, Kastel rejected the proposal outright.
“My answer was, absolutely not,” he said. “We don’t need separate care. We need to make sure every public hospital is safe, and every patient feels safe receiving care there. If people are allowed to push harmful agendas that change how a patient is treated, that is a line we cannot cross.”
Currently, the commission is developing new protocols, training frameworks, and reporting systems to address anti-Semitic conduct across three key sectors: healthcare, primary and secondary education, and the arts. The current session of public hearings is scheduled to conclude this Friday, with recommendations for systemic reform expected to be delivered later this year. A new confidential reporting system for patients and staff who experience anti-Semitism in healthcare settings is already in development, Kastel confirmed.