The Anti-Defamation Commission has expressed outrage at an incident in which a disabled, elderly Jewish woman was allegedly subjected to antisemitic abuse and filmed without her consent inside the Vodafone store in Elsternwick, Melbourne.

According to the account she gave the commission’s chairman, Dr Dvir Abramovich, she went to the store on Tuesday afternoon for help with a pocket wi-fi device. She says the employee became agitated, repeatedly shouted “Free Palestine”, called her a “dirty Zionist”, told her “Jews are disgusting” and filmed her on a phone while she stood at the counter. The woman, who asked not to be named, has complained to Vodafone.

“I was very scared. I didn’t know what he was capable of,” she said. “I feel very unsafe and scared for my life and for my future.”

“The geography of harassment and abuse of Jewish people in Australia is expanding by the minute. I no longer recognise the country I have lived in for forty years,” Dr Abramovich said. “The mask has slipped completely. The hatred is no longer whispered. Where in this city is a Jew now safe? At a café? On the street? At a school? At a phone shop on a weekday afternoon? The answer is nowhere because that list has burned to the ground.”

Where in this city is a Jew now safe? At a café? On the street? At a school? At a phone shop on a weekday afternoon?Dr Dvir Abramovich, ADC Chairman

He called on Vodafone to act. “This happened on your watch. Inside your store. By your employee,” he said. “Suspend the worker concerned pending the outcome of an internal investigation and issue a public statement of accountability. And we want the video filmed of this woman recovered and deleted before it ends up in the sewer of social media.”

Update: Vodafone stood the worker down pending an investigation. Its review found that some of the woman’s claims were not supported by the store’s CCTV footage, which had no audio, but that the staff member behaved inappropriately, including by recording part of the interaction. The staff member no longer works for the store, and Vodafone apologised to the customer.