'Like many Jews in the arts since Oct. 7, we've been canceled'

Sydney concert to benefit Bondi terror victims canceled after choir opposes singing with Jewish group

Over half of Australian Hellenic Choir votes against joining Sydney Jewish Choral Society on stage; choir head: ‘Didn’t realize the extent of antisemitism in the local Greek community’

A choral concert fundraiser for the victims of the Bondi Beach terror attack at a Jewish event in Sydney has been canceled after local Greek singers opposed singing alongside their Jewish counterparts in the planned joint performance.

The two-hour benefit concert, titled Concert for Hope and Unity, was to feature the Australian Hellenic Choir together with the Sydney Jewish Choral Society in Sydney Town Hall on June 28, The Australian newspaper reported Monday.

However, last Monday, during rehearsals, a vote was taken and over half the Hellenic choir “politically objected” to performing with their Jewish counterparts, according to the report.

Others said they feared a possible attack on the event.

In December, Naveed Akram, 24, opened fire along with his father Sajid on a Hanukkah celebration on Sydney’s ‌Bondi Beach, killing 15 people. Sajid Akram was killed in a confrontation with police during the shooting. Their attack was inspired by the Islamic State terror group, according to police.

The concert was to raise money for the victims.

Jewish Choral Society chairwoman Anne Spira told members in a letter that the Hellenic Choir would not participate, and the concert was canceled.

“The result is, like many other Jews in the arts since 7 October, 2023, we have been canceled,” she told the Australian. “We have been de-platformed and it is deeply upsetting for us and for the broader Jewish community, who have been the target of anti-Jewish racism in this country for two and a half years.”

Spira made a submission on behalf of the choir to the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion, a government-backed inquiry set up to probe antisemitism in the country after the Bondi attack, The Australian reported.

“It’s not hard to imagine how we’re all feeling,” one unnamed choir member was cited as saying.

“There’s a bit of antisemitism in the Greek community; I didn’t realize the extent of it,” Australian Hellenic Choir president James Tsolakis said. “The Jewish people are all into it, I’m into it, but the Greek choir was a bit anti doing it because of the political climate.”

“Unfortunately, we have a lot of people in the community blaming the Jewish community for what’s happening in Israel, Palestine… that’s not correct.”

“You want to hate [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu? Hate Netanyahu, but what have the Jewish people done to you? The whole antisemitism thing has got be wound back,” Tsolakis told the newspaper.

He said factors that influenced the choir members’ decision were concern over the town hall performance and “the antisemitism that exists in the Australian climate.”

The performance was to include a joint rendition of The Ballad of Mauthausen, which is about a Greek prisoner of war and his love for a Jewish prisoner in the Nazi concentration camp of Mauthausen in Austria.

The two choirs performed the piece together in 2022.

Tsolakis said they had been expecting a sell-out show for 2,000 people and that two weeks ago, the government approved $15,000 in funding for the concert.

“Pretty disappointing,” wrote the Australian Jewish Association on X, along with a link to The Australian article.

Despite the setback, organizers say they hope to hold future joint performances, including one proposed for next year in Canberra, supported by the Greek diplomatic community.

Australia’s 120,000-strong Jewish community has been among the hardest hit in the world since the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack and the subsequent war set off a tidal wave of antisemitism across the globe.

A report published in December by the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) said the country saw 1,654 incidents during the 12-month period from October 1, 2024, to September 30, 2025 — about five times the annual average recorded in the decade prior to the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack.

In addition to the Bondi terror attack, Jews in Australia have seen synagogues, schools and homes firebombed, two nurses threatening to kill Jewish patients in their hospital, and the discovery of a trailer filled with explosives said to have been intended to cause a mass-casualty event at a Sydney synagogue.

Zev Stub contributed to this report.