Every Australian sports lover will suffer from the decision to ban International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) world championship qualifying matches in Melbourne in April.
That is the opinion of Alex Ryvchin, co-CEO of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, after Ice Hockey Australia (IHA) said it cancelled the games due to safety concerns surrounding the Israeli national team.
The Victorian capital saw a large number of incidents last year where Jews were targeted after the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks in Israel.
The most shocking of these incidents was the firebombing of the Adass Israel Synagogue in December 2024, later classified by the authorities as a terrorist attack.
Ryvchin was deeply disappointed when he found out about IIHF’s decision because he said it was the latest example of the Jewish community being negatively affected by the ongoing war in the Middle East.
He also warned of far-reaching consequences for the Australian general sports-loving public due to the decision.
“It won’t be the Jewish community that primarily suffers over this,” he told The Epoch Times.
“It’ll be sports lovers in Melbourne, the players and coaches who were ready to compete in this tournament.
“And today it’s ice hockey, which maybe of small significance to Australians.
“But tomorrow it could be football, the symphony orchestra—whatever these extremists determine we can’t see because it doesn’t accord with their view of the world.”
On Jan. 9, it was reported that Victorian Police Minister Anthony Carbines wrote to Ice Hockey Australia president Ryan O’Handley outlining his disappointment at the games being cancelled.
A Victory for Extremism: Ryvchin
Ryvchin pointed out that those who wished harm to the state of Israel would be elated at the news of the ice hockey world-championship qualifiers in Melbourne being cancelled.He mentioned the cancellation of the annual Myer Christmas Windows event in the CBD as another example of the authorities caving to pressure from radical pro-Palestine protestors, with Crash the Christmas Windows protest organiser Amy Settal saying she was “elated” this event did not go ahead.
Victorian Greens leader Ellen Sandell weighed into the debate, saying her political organisation “will continue to peacefully speak up for the tens of thousands of children who have been killed in Gaza.”
Ryvchin said it was time for everybody who values freedom and democracy to stand up and be heard, in order to arrest the trend of events being cancelled to appease people with anti-Semitic views.
“A couple of months ago, it was the Christmas Windows at Myer,” he said.
“This is the sort of obnoxious extremism that we’re seeing, and the message that it sends very clearly is they’ll be elated by this. This is a victory for them.”
He believes the IHA’s decision was shortsighted and will likely cause unintended consequences beyond the sport.
Calls for Stronger Government Response to Anti-Semitism
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the cancellation of the international ice hockey games in Melbourne was “unfortunate.”“This is a decision made by Ice Hockey Australia,” he said in an interview on Channel Nine.
“We’re addressing in every single way possible these issues because we understand that [anti-Semitism] is very hurtful for the Jewish community.”
But Ryvchin wants the federal government to show stronger leadership against the rise in anti-Semitism in Australia, particularly in Melbourne and Sydney.
“I would’ve expected—given the significance of this and the context in which it occurred—that the federal government in particular and the sports minister would’ve come out and said this was the wrong move,” he said.
“And on the one hand supported them [Israeli ice hockey players and officials] in terms of saying ‘we’ll back you, you’re not alone in this,’ with the police there to protect the citizens of the state.
More Synagogues Targeted
Police will employ a special taskforce to investigate the latest synagogue incident, this time at the Southern Sydney Synagogue in the suburb of Allawah.It happened in the early hours on Jan. 10, with television footage showing multiple swastikas painted on the building, along with a message reading ‘Hitler on top.’
Ryvchin said due to the concerning regular occurrence of these vile acts of vandalism, thousands of Australians were beginning to take an indifferent attitude towards these crimes.
“We’ve been saying for the past 15 months and ever since this escalated on Oct. 7, that this is not who we are, we can’t let normalise this in our country,” he said.
“Well, at some point it is who we are. If this keeps happening over and over again, and the majority of Australians who I know don’t support this and don’t like it but they stay silent, it does become a mark of who we are as a country.”
Ryvchin said the fabric of Australian culture has drastically changed.
“I’m very worried. I’m worried not only as a Jewish-Australian, but more broadly as an Australian as someone who came here from a totalitarian country from the former Soviet Union where I saw what it was like to live with fear and repression,” he said.
“It was where you couldn’t practice your faith publicly and it’s no way to live.
“I’m not saying we’re on the cusp of becoming the Soviet Union, but these things don’t happen overnight. There’s a progression.
“And step-by-step, our rights begin to be eroded and taken away from us, and the character of the country begins to become unrecognisable.
“I fear that’s where we’re heading now.”
