The Lowy family, one of Australia’s richest, has been the subject of some 15,000 anti-Jewish abusive messages on social media over the past year and has referred 30 to 40 people it regards as particularly threatening to the police.

The founders of the Westfield shopping centre group, who are worth an estimated $13 billion, have a security team who monitor the internet for abuse directed at the Holocaust survivors that could turn violent, son Steven Lowy told the Anti-Semitism Royal Commission on Monday.

One case involved his wife, Judy Lowy, who was called “Genocide Judy” in a video surreptitiously captured during an online meeting to raise money for scholarships for Sydney’s Moriah College, a private Jewish school where Ms Lowy leads the charitable foundation.

The video was posted on TikTok, where it was shared by an account with 230,000 followers, Steven Lowy said, distressing his wife and the family, who lobbied for the creation of the royal commission over opposition from Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to highlight what they said was an explosion in anti-Jewish hatred since October 7, 2023, when war broke out between Israel and Hamas.

“It’s particularly difficult to cope with that,” Mr Lowy told the inquiry, referring to the attack on his wife. “Personally I don’t really differentiate between offline and online. I have a firm belief that these online threats lead to physical and violent activity.”

Israelia meme

The inquiry was shown an Instagram meme referring to Israelia — a combination of the words Australia and Israel — that argued a small group of Jews, including family patriarch Frank Lowy, introduced multiculturalism and ended the White Australia policy, which was phased out between 1949 and 1973 by Coalition and Labor governments.

Comments in response to the meme included: “Execute those old bastards”, “They ate our children” and “Anyone know their addresses?”

Steven Lowy called for laws and rules that would treat comments on social media in the same way as printed newspapers, where editors approve everything published, although acknowledged that most social media networks are owned overseas, making it more difficult to regulate them.

Illustrating the challenge, one of the royal commission’s barristers, Richard Lancaster, said some had ignored legal requests for information, including Elon Musk’s X and Telegram, while others had said they would have to ask their US headquarters to help on a voluntary basis.

The chief executive of Gab Social, an American libertarian online network, wrote: “I do not answer to Australian bureaucrats.”

The security services have said that up to 60 per cent of racist offenders are radicalised online. To deal with the problem, the federal government in May promised $74 million to open an online counter-terrorism centre run by the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation and the Australian Federal Police.

Deep fakes

Earlier, a man shot in the head during the Bondi massacre described being told that he had been accused of fabricating his injury.

Arsen Ostrovsky, the Sydney head of the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council lobby group, took a photograph of himself lying on the ground, face covered in blood during last year’s attack in response to a friend who asked if he was all right.

The friend posted the photo online. It quickly spread across the internet, where it was was turned into “deep fake” images and triggered a campaign of abuse.

“There was almost immediately an influx of hate, abuse of vilification and AI manipulation,” Mr Ostrovsky told the hearing. “It was surreal to be in the state that I was in hospital and be receiving this kind of hate at the same time. I came to learn about them as I was literally being prepped to go into surgery.“

Images were created of Mr Ostrovsky applying tomato sauce to his face to simulate blood and holding what looked like an Academy Award, the inquiry was told. He was accused of being part of a “false flag” operation conducted by Jews to generate sympathy for Israel.

“I try my best to block it out but it’s impossible and the cumulative nature of it is overwhelming,” he said. “It is dehumanising. I feel it threatens not only my life, my physical safety, but my family’s.”

The inquiry plans to question employees of the ABC and SBS about allegations they may have broadcast biased reports about the conflict in the Middle East, the Australian Communications and Media Authority and Julie Inman Grant, the eSafety Commissioner.