Antisemitism in New Zealand

[3] Some have attributed this attitude to New Zealand's geographic isolation at the time, to fear of economic competition, to the dilution of a perceived "white" culture.

[7] The trade union movement in the country was ambivalent towards Jewish refugees, with the New Zealand Federation of Labour preferring non-Jewish victims of fascism.

[8] In 1990, a woman with a history of psychiatric illness, reportedly screamed anti-semitic epithets before carrying out a knife attack on four Jewish children.

[9] In 2004, scores of Jewish graves, including 1840’s settler Solomon Levy’s, were smashed and spray painted with swastikas and other anti-semitic messages at Wellington.

[12] A 2007 book, Worlds Apart by Jewish academics Colin Tatz, Peter Arnold and Gillian Heller arrived at the "reasonable conclusion" upon studying evidence that in New Zealand there is “chronic, endemic anti-Semitism in the academe and its intellectual world.”[13] In 2012, a Jewish cemetery in Auckland was desecrated overnight with swastikas and anti-semitic statements scrawled across the grave stones.

[18] Despite negative views, the study suggested a high level of warmth toward Jews in New Zealand, with a surprising 32% stating they knew a Jewish person.

[21] The 2023 Hamas terrorist attack and subsequent Israeli counterstrike saw a rise in antisemitic sentiment in New Zealand as well, with Jewish community members and experts warning of real-life repercussions.

[30] The Green Party MP Chlöe Swarbrick drew criticism for her public usage of the slogan "from the river to the sea, Palestine shall be free".

"[31] In an ongoing study conducted by the Holocaust Centre of New Zealand, half of Jewish parents surveyed, revealed that their children had been subject to antisemitism since the 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7.

[36] Anti-Israeli rhetoric further escalated during a parliamentary debate and Question Time on a proposed call for an immediate ceasefire introduced by Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters: Israel's actions were labeled as genocide by Labour’s associate foreign affairs spokesman Damien O’Connor, Green MP Golriz Ghahraman, Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson, and Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer.