How anti-Israel rhetoric contributes to antisemitism and real-world violence

[Mosby]

(THIS IS THE JEWISH GROUP)

On Sunday, hundreds of Australian Jews gathered, as Jews have done for millennia, to light the Menorah on the first night of Hanukkah. At the same time, two armed men engaged in another historic custom: targeting Jews because they are Jews. Fifteen people were killed in the massacre at Bondi Beach, including a 10-year-old girl and an 87-year-old Holocaust survivor.

For Australia’s small but vibrant Jewish communities, this weekend’s tragedy was horrifying but, on some level, hardly surprising. Since the massacre of more than 1,000 Israelis on Oct. 7, 2023, antisemitic incidents in Australia have increased fivefold. Indeed, only two days after the worst mass murder of Jews since the Holocaust, a demonstration outside the world-famous Sydney Opera House led to chants of “F— the Jews.”

Since then, the litany of antisemitic incidents in the land Down Under will be all too familiar to Diaspora Jewish communities around the world.

A synagogue was burned to the ground. Kosher restaurants were vandalized. Protests were launched at Jewish restaurants. A Jewish educational institution was spray-painted with antisemitic epithets, and swastikas showed up on the walls of local synagogues. That this unending cycle of intimidation, threats and provocation would eventually lead to violence should be a surprise to no one.

Indeed, why in the two years since the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust are Jewish communities in New York City, Manchester, London, Toronto, Los Angeles and Amsterdam under siege?

MSNOW