Let hatred grow and murder follows

All those not living under a rock know about the dreadful events that took place at Bondi Beach. Two heavily armed men opened fire on a group of Jewish people celebrating Hanukkah, the festival of light. Fifteen innocent people died. I won’t count the death of the assassin. He got what he deserved. And yes, I’m shocked, I feel for the victims and their families.

But I’ll tell you what else. I’m angry. Not mildly irritated. Not disappointed. Angry.

Angry at the sanctimonious idiots in power who allowed the rot to set in.

Antisemitism in Australia has been allowed to fester for a long time now, and pretending otherwise is dishonest. It didn’t appear out of nowhere. It didn’t suddenly erupt. It’s been building, openly, loudly, and with very little consequence for those spreading it.

Since the days after 7 October 2023, when mobs gathered at the Sydney Opera House to celebrate the murder of 1,200 Jews in Israel, when Imams described it as a day of celebration, something broke. That should have been a line in the sand. It wasn’t. Instead, it was treated as unfortunate but understandable, contextualised away, excused, minimised. And once hatred is excused, it spreads.

We’ve had attack after attack. Threats. Vandalism. Intimidation. People afraid to attend religious celebrations, to wear symbols of their faith, to gather as a community. This was always going to end in blood. Hatred doesn’t just shout. It escalates.

Here are just a few of the many incidents as reported by the Executive Council of Australian Jewry
🔹 Firebombing of Melbourne Synagogue (Dec 6, 2024)
The Adass Israel Synagogue in Metro Melbourne was deliberately firebombed and severely damaged in what police called a terror attack—one of the most serious antisemitic acts recorded in Australia in decades.

🔹 Arson and Vandalism Campaigns (2024–2025)
Across Sydney and other cities, kosher businesses were attacked, cars were torched with antisemitic graffiti, and Jewish-owned homes and institutions were repeatedly vandalised throughout 2024 and 2025.

🔹 Synagogue and Religious Site Vandalism
Multiple synagogues in Sydney and Melbourne were defaced with swastikas, hateful slogans, and pro-violence graffiti in late 2023 and into 2025.

🔹 Harassment and Abuse on Public Streets
The ABC News reports that Jewish Australians have reported persistent verbal abuse, physical intimidation, and racist attacks in public places — including shouts of hate and physical assaults.

🔹 High Volume of Antisemitic Incidents Recorded
Independent monitoring bodies reported over 1,600 antisemitic incidents in the 12 months up to late 2025 — including threats, harassment, arson, vandalism and other intimidation — a dramatic rise from pre-2023 levels.

🔹 Threatening Behaviour in Public Settings
Recent arrests include individuals making violent antisemitic threats toward Jewish passengers on flights to Australia following the Bondi attack.

And I haven’t even mentioned what’s happening on schools and campuses. There are armed guards at synagogues and Jewish schools. Jewish students are afraid to attend university classes. And every single weekend we are subjected to proPalestinian (read anti Israeli) marches in our capital cities. “From the river to the sea” chants are profoundly antisemitic. That can only happen if Israel is destroyed.

What happened at a Hanukkah celebration should shock every Australian, not because it was unimaginable, but because it was entirely predictable. When you allow a group to be demonised, when you permit calls for violence to masquerade as political expression, when authorities wring their hands instead of acting, people die. That’s not ideology. That’s cause and effect.

And hovering over all of this is a deeper, more disturbing truth. The Holocaust is being forgotten. Or worse, it’s being relativised. Dismissed as ancient history. Treated as a rhetorical inconvenience rather than a warning written in millions of graves.

“Never again” wasn’t a catchphrase. It was a promise. It meant never again allowing Jews to be singled out, blamed, dehumanised, or told that violence against them was somehow understandable. It meant recognising the early signs and stopping them, not waiting until the memorial services are scheduled.

Australia likes to think of itself as tolerant, fair, decent. But tolerance that excludes Jews isn’t tolerance. Fairness that looks the other way isn’t fairness. Decency that only applies when it’s comfortable isn’t decency at all.

Anger is justified here. Silence isn’t.

If we keep pretending this is complicated, if we keep refusing to name antisemitism when we see it, we’re complicit. History doesn’t just judge those who commit atrocities. It judges those who watched the warning signs flicker and chose not to act.

In the aftermath of the Bondi attacks former Federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg, who is Jewish, made a powerful, powerful speech. You’ll find it here and I urge you to listen to it, or to read the transcript.

Never again doesn’t mean never again somewhere else. It means never again here.