The deaths today on Bondi Beach are a direct result of a country committing a genocide and claiming to act on behalf of Judaism. Look around at the disgusting comments that people feel so free to speak about Islam. Look at the anger surrounding the election of Mamdani. Look at high-level political pundits talking about the eradication of Islam, and keeping “Sharia Law” out of politics.
For years we in Australia have seen attacks like this happen overseas and have always felt safe. Until last night – we were watching in real time on the TV just like 9/11 which happened in our evening too. I live in Melbourne now but for my first 45 years of life lived in Sydney and Bondi was a beacon – A place where silly Brits would get turned into Lobsters on Boxing Day cause they think they wont get sunburned and wankers with big subwoofers would drive up and down Campbell Parade thinking they were gangsters but were largely just annoying. That image has been shattered for ever. To know that the bridge the gunmen stood on and the park they killed so many has been well worn by my own footsteps over decades is a surreal feeling.

The rise of Jewish hate in this country has been left unchecked by the government for years – our Prime Minister is on video attending a communist rally where an Israeli flag was burned back in the 90s when he was a student at Sydney uni. His words of solidarity and ‘anti semitism must be stopped’ are just empty words.

A war has been brewing in Sydney and there is a dividing line between the Jewish in the east and the vast western suburbs where a lot of their haters live. Sparks have been going off for years and it was all just chest beating from the suburbs, until last night.

And like you said, this is not the end of it – Unfortunately this will result in f*ck all change in policy, those who marched 100k strong across the Harbour Bridge in August sprouting ‘free free Palestine’ will just remain silent on social media and those who finally speak up will probably be denounced as anti islamist, racist or some other ‘ist’ but, like me, I dont think they f*cking care anymore.

Chris Maric

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I live 5 minutes from Bondi Beach (when there’s no traffic). I lived in North Bondi for a few years, and most of my life have lived not far from the bustling Bondi citiscape. I’ve lived most of my life surrounded by people who are Jewish whether I knew it or not. I’ve loved them, shared meals, work days, weekends and some of their holy and celebratory days with them. At 19 my boyfriend was proudly Jewish. All living here knew growing up that the eastern suburbs of Sydney had a strong Jewish population.

All the Jewish schools in the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney are behind fences with massive security. Cameras, security guards just to keep their children safe – in one of the safest cities in the world. Believe me there’s no illusions held by Jewish people in Australia as to the possibility (probability even) of violence toward them.

The pro Palestinian sentiment in Australia is strong. There was a massive march across the Sydney Harbour Bridge ostensibly protesting the loss of life in Palestine. In a rudimentary way, Australians are proud of our gun laws and we are sensitive to violence in the world, and are inclined to show up on our safe streets where we are allowed to protest. We don’t expect violence at home. It makes us brave to protest. We don’t know what it is NOT to be allowed to protest.

The Gaza situation has been such an inciteful social media war – as if roughly 63 other war zones in the world didn’t exist. As if 20 million women in Afghanistan weren’t being treated as less than slave animals. As if America wasn’t sinking into fascist oblivion – that the size of the march in Sydney was not a surprise. It caused some worrying people crush emergencies on the north side of the harbour. It was a statement of the Facebook followers that they saw the crisis and they’re responding with virtue.

So with sentiments so high in one of the safest cities in the world, I’m not surprised either that goonish cowards who in a horribly primitive way sought to prove their stupid manhood by killing innocents – shooting wingless ducks in a pond. They will be racially profiled and the Muslims of Australia are likely waiting for the backlash. Fortunately one of the heroes of the day had an Arabic name. In Australia we are pretty proud of our mutlicultural nation. That is despite the ubiquitous but small white supremicist mob. I wish some cultures were more progressive toward women but they live here in peace and that’s a work in progress.

This year I went to my local cinema to watch some Altman films. At the same time there was a Jewish film festival. I was worried – in one of the safest cities in the world – because the social media Gaza war was so inciteful. I was worried that someone may target our beautiful art deco cinema were many cultural film festivals are held.

We will be back to Bondi Beach with our Jewish friends for company. We will overcome that fear, because we live in one of the safest cities in the world. We make it safe because we can.

Cate Cahill

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Long time subscriber here, I’ve enjoyed reading your newsletter for the past 10+ years but I’m going to have to unsubscribe after this one. Thanks for all your insights and I’ve learned a ton from you.

I’ll leave these links here if you want to see a different perspective:
https://www.cfpeace.org/

https://www.standing-together.org/en

Thank you and take care.

Angelo Spampinato

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Yet for some reason, you choose to ignore these blaring sirens to focus on calls against violence as coded antisemitism.

I don’t blame you for the occupation of the west bank, decimation of the Gaza strip, or the apartheid system of government that makes this all possible within the state of Israel. I blame Israel. For lying to you, and twisting their ideology into your faith, to build a global following of people who would never dream of questioning their government. I don’t blame any Jews for this, because we know better. But I also know that when a group of people is attacked and mistreated for decades and the attacker claims to be acting in the name of “the Jews,” it’s understandable that a significant population will mistakenly be made to hate them.

This email was the equivalent to George W Bush exclaiming “They hate us for our freedom.” What’s frustrating to me is that you see it as bullsh*t when it’s a right wing government within our own country, but would call it antisemitic if someone were to say the same when the message comes from Israel.

Do better, man.

Rich Gilberto

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I don’t know what Zionists expect Palestinians to do. “Take my house, take my farm, take my identity, take my cuisine, take my dignity, make me live as a refugee in a foreign country”? Is that it? It’s like how Hillary Clinton has recently been criticising anti-Zionist students for not knowing (in her opinion) the full picture. What information are they lacking, exactly? She never says.

CHARLES KENNEDY

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You think the killings in Australia have nothing to do with what
Israel has done in Gaza? World antisemitism is skyrocketing because of
this.

If you really care about your people, and mine, you should tell
Israelis to stop acting like Nazis.

Your column today is an embarrassment.

David Rubien

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Sorry, Bob, this is a bridge too far and I’m all done.

I’ve enjoyed and respected your professional insights into the entertainment industry and American culture but I can’t abide your recent spate of myopic ‘anti-Zionism equals anti-semitism’ hogwash.

Your hot take on the inherent evil nature of the Palestine people is entirely tone-deaf and has no place in civil society.

Just to be clear, I’m a real Jew that came from straight down the line from Holocaust survivors. Cut, bar mitzvahed… the whole schmear. My bubbi and zadi were on my brother and I, from the minute we could walk and talk, about how we were going to have such fun on the kibbutz.
I also remember some 45+ years ago, playing cards with my brother at b and z’s feet as they watched the news about something or other in the Middle East. They turned my brother and I around and in their most earnest tone, told us that when we go to the kibbutz, we must never turn our back on a Palestinian.

I was too young at the time to pars out the real meaning of this instruction, but it stayed burned in my mind to this day. Not because of their seriousness or the warning, but because I could feel in my bones, even as a 6 or 7 year old, that what they had told me was deeply wrong.

With time, the hate with which they spoke and the fear that moved them to do so has been repeated by so many and illustrated more clearly in every pro-Zionist’s hypocrisy. In the dehumanizing of of the Palestinian people and the diminishment of their suffering. In the self-righteous denial of the evil nature of the apartheid state and the racism and genocide it has been built on. In the fact that the  tenants and techniques visited upon the Jews by 1930s Germany are not made less evil when wielded by the Israelis against the Palestinians. Change the hats and costumes around and Hamas would be the Jewish resistance.

In any case, like you I don’t think this is an argument I can win. I just can’t listen to someone I respect in so many other aspects show such compromised morals on such a seemingly obvious right vs wrong issue.

I hope you can see more clearly what the rest of world is slowly walking up to and be a voice for something better.

Be well,

Jason Prack

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You mean 70+ years of theft, oppression, imprisonment, torture, and murder by Israel has created some fairly strong anti-Israel sentiment amongst the victims???

Shocking!

Mike Froedge

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So so much wrong with piece. Wilfully ignoring the facts of the past 2-3 years and of historical facts. Lazy and misinformed. Tragic what happened to the Jewish people celebrating in Australia. Really is, but don’t use it as a stick to ignore the barbaric action of the Israeli government. They are savages. The river to the sea seems to be their modus operandi now.

Chris Agnew

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“but what do you expect the Israelis to do?”

It boggles the mind that this is even a question.  Like, boggles in an alternate reality/what the actual f*ck way.

The answer is clear to everybody not named Bob Lefsetz or Benjamin Netanyahu:

STOP BEING THE MOST TERRORIST NATION ON EARTH WHILE GASLIGHTING THE ENTIRE WORLD FROM THE GET-GO THAT IT IS ALL IN SELF-DEFENSE.

OH, AND WHILE WE’RE AT IT, STOP MASQUERADING PROPAGANDA AS FACT.

There’s the answer to your insanely rhetorical question.

Jeff Andrews

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What do you expect?

Flowers and kisses from the world after 60 years of oppressive occupation – and the obliteration of Gaza?

While all the while blowing up every chance at peace because the real aim is your own ‘from the river (and beyond) to the sea’ ?

This is insane.

Keep this course and the end will become inevitable, however long it takes.

Fortresses always fall.

Jd Sellier

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Thanks for weighing in on this issue.  Jewish blood has been cheap for thousands of years.  Israel has made it clear that this is no longer the case.  Right now, the main problem appears to be a portion of the Muslim religion who refuse to live in peace with anyone outside of their interpretation of Islam.

Regarding Israel’s response to Gaza, Netanyahu and the Israelis finally said enough is enough.  They are no longer going to allow thousands of rockets to be fired indiscriminately into their country.  Unfortunately for the Gaza citizens who opposed Hamas, Israel had little choice but to destroy the areas where Hamas and their supporters were hiding out.  Hospitals, tunnels,  schools, you name it.

I would hope our country would respond similarly if we had the equivalent of 40,000 of our citizens murdered, kidnapped, raped, etc.  on top of having rockets fired at us for many years.

What confounds me is that the Jewish people have produced so many accomplished citizens whose discoveries in science, medicine, and other fields benefit the entirety of humanity.  I guess many people need someone to blame for their own shortcomings and Jews are an easy scapegoate.

Thanks again for your thoughtful observations on this subject.

Don Weis

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I feel it everytime I go to Temple. Even on an average Friday night or Saturday morning Shabbat service my Temple has armed security guards and metal detectors. Someone put a swastika on the door of the Temple office not long again.

Not long ago not far away.

Michael Rosenblatt

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Well put. Here in Mexico the local temple stopped publishing their address. And this in a small expat enclave.

It’s getting weirder every day

Stan Goman

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Well said Bob, I have a Jewish friend who travels to Israel frequently caring out humanitarian help to Israel. I’ve known Ros and her husband for 45 years and I fear for their safety every time they go. They were in Israel on Oct. 7 but away from the fighting.

Such horrible news out of Sydney and just after the school shooting at Brown, it’s all a bit too much at times.

I am dumbfounded by the support for the terrorist Hamas, on college campuses and with many in US/European intelligentsia. After Oct. 7 the wrath of the world was unleashed on Isreal and Jews in general. All the while turning a blind eye to the atrocities committed by Hamas and other Islamic terrorist organizations.

Our Western governments are not doing enough to take on antisemitism, we have problems with it in Canada as well. Fire bombs, people shooting at Jewish schools and defacing of property.

Bob it is a sad and terrifying time to be a Jew in this world. I’m 68 and I thought that after WWll and the horrors of Auschwitz, that we’d never see antisemitism like that again, I guess I was very sadly wrong.

Doug Gillis

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You must be blue in the face by now. It’s all on deaf ears at this point. Married to a great Jewish guy and together still fight the exhaustive fight to allow Israel and Jewish folk to live in peace vs a statehood desired by a population lead by a ‘formerly’ internationally recognized terrorist organization. We’re living in Crazytown.

Alex Novielli

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It’s def not the end. Never has been and never will be. It says it explicitly in the Bible. The only saving grace, is unlike the past millenia, we now have a homeland to go back to. We have an army. We have technology. We have each other. We can finally defend ourselves and self govern. (not always perfect. Every Jew has an opinion but at least we control our own destiny now.) Moreover, that Jewish sheepish guilt mentality is slowly melting away and we, as a people, a nation, are getting tougher, mentally, physically, intellectually, than we’ve ever been. It’s fascinating to see. I spend most of my time in Israel now and I see the badassery first hand. It’s pretty awesome!

Thx.

Etan G
www.rock4israel.org

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I know you know my feelings on this. Not complicated. Jews need to take the hardline. Anti-Zionism is 100% anti-Semitism. Period. Anyone who knows history knows how this trash flares up. It’s scumbags like Father Coughlin 2.0 aka Tucker Carlson who spread the hate. And average people look the other way as you note. It’s a disgrace. Not in my house I assure you. And l tolerate zero Gaza nonsense propaganda whenever I hear it.

Anyone who pays attention knows there’s tons of Hamas love in Australia. Just as there is in Ireland among my so-called people. It’s an absolute disgrace. Bibi should have flattened the place and cemented the tunnels. Don’t even get me started on Pep Guardiola.

Bottom line for Jews: don’t back down, don’t be naive. Stay safe sir.

Best,

Edward Ryan

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Today I woke up like every day since October 7th and grabbed my phone to see what new attack happened overnight — either IRL or online. I had hoped that once the war ended, we’d have a little peace and quiet but then I remembered what we say at seder fron the Haggadah: “in every generation they rise up against us to destroy us.”

 

Chanukah is my favorite holiday, and not just because of the fried food. It’s not religious but symbolic. It celebrates a Jewish win against oppressors. It’s actually a true Zionist holiday.

 

In 2025, incidents like the massacre at Bondi beach where a Chabad rabbi, a holocaust survivor, and 10 year old were murdered among 9 others, is no longer rare. It’s clear that there is a global war on Jews. It’s never been about Gaza or Israel but about Jew hate. And it’s just beginning.

 

Thank you for speaking up. I’m sure you get a lot of hate. I want you to know that reading your email today meant something. To me.

Chag sameach.

Anat

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Unfortunately it’s not only the left
It’s also the right look at nick funtes
It’s closing in on us from every direction
That’s why
We have Israel in the first place

Tom Twin

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Thanks for this, Bob.

I have so much rage I’m almost incoherent.

Thank you for your clarity.

People have been gaslighted about Israel over decades of funding a certain narrative  from Qatar, with the backing of Iran and the planning of Russia.

It’s easy enough to look at how we go to this moment.. where this came from, if people would only read.

Or listen.

There are people screaming from the rooftops about what’s going on and the incredible dangers, first to Jews, but then to the west in general,

but too many people have settled into a comfortable place in their minds and so won’t be moved.

You try to talk about it, and they tell you to get mental health help.

Or, unfriend and block, instead of reaching out to hear your point of view, and to see if they’re somehow missing something.

The propagandists have done an incredible job.. targeting academia and the media, Hollywood figures who can’t seem to recognize a storyline, or balance a narrative, outside of a studio…or understand the way things work by reading history of the 20th century.

Or listening to warnings from some incredible people out there,who are trying to get the truth out there,

Warning about what’s going on, and again, not just against Jewish people.

For so long people bought into this notion that Jews ran the US because of AIPAC’s contributions without looking to see what the actual figures are and how much countries like Qatar and Saudi Arabia spend lobbying the government.

I feel that there is something in the collective unconscious going back centuries that is so deep in people’s minds that they have a knee jerk reaction when it comes to Jews, but don’t really understand why.
It’s possible to find that bias and examine it, but how many people really self examine? It’s worth doing, mind you,  especially if you think of yourself as a moral person.

And of course, there’s the irony of Jesus being a Jew.

If you look at the west as a storyline, there is a reason that he was born into a very persecuted minority..and that has been ignored for two thousand years.

Will that continue?

I’ve noticed that the same propaganda machine that has created this weird narrative of Israel as a ‘white colonial apartheid settler state’ is now trying to convince people that Jesus was ‘Palestinian’ in the modern sense.

So how much more distortions of history will there be?

I keep thinking about Orwell and how he built in the two minutes of hate that workers had to go to daily event–where they were mandated to rail against the alleged enemy– encouraged to rail against Emmanual Goldstein..

Orwell knew what he was doing.

There’s also the business of people shutting down Jewish voices.  You post too much about this on social media, people tune out.

Hollywood is trying to shut down Jewish voices.

Eurovision, the same.

It’s a campaign. a strategic, well funded campaign, that includes movies.. but that’s a whole other story..

Sorry for the ramble.

Thank you so much for saying what needs to be said.

Karen Gordon

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What the nincompoops in the west fail to realize is that Jews have always been the canary in the coalmine. That is, what happens to Jews now will, if left untreated, metastasize into the same happening to the rest of the western world. Then it will be their problem as well as ours. Like the masses of Christians being slaughtered in Africa, which no one wants to talk about because it’s not the fake country called “Palestine”. I can’t even keep up with the hypocrisy and the utter stupidity that fills the halls of discourse the world over. Wake the f*ck up, world!

Andrea Bergman

Toronto

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Well done Bob. Too many who don’t know history have been brainwashed by the media and the internet. Finding objective truth is near impossible. Are the Israelis starving the Palestinians in Gaza! Of course not. And there is video of the facts! The fact that anyone can call what is happening in Gaza a genocide only underscores their lack of education not to mention understanding and knowledge of history. The idea of ‘no Jews no news’ is real. We get blamed somehow. Thank you for speaking out on behalf of those of us who are proud to be Jewish and who do not support Bebe’s actions and know him to be the criminal he is. Who are against those settlers setting up in the west bank. I would also say that many of us have known since the start that Bebe’s method to eliminate Hamas was misguided from day 1. It was as much about him avoiding prosecution as anything else. The highest officers were not in Gaza. Even flattening Gaza will not eliminate Hamas and I think to some extent this situation sadly has helped recruitment. But you are right. What else can we do? People don’t understand that the way Hamas fights by building tunnels and putting weapons under schools and hospitals is designed to draw us into the untenable situation of firing on those locations to sow the kind of antisemitism we now see rising. It’s part of the plan! We in the west don’t understand the mindset of those in terrorist organizations. They are thinking in terms of decades…of hundreds of years not in terms of months or years. And you are so right about so many of us who are afraid to show their Jewishness. We need all of us to stand up. Don’t stop celebrating our holidays out in the open. Where are those in Hollywood who signed that petition today? Where’s Annie Lennox or Lorde (especially Lorde) or Bjork or (self hating Jew) Paul Simon or Michael Stipe or Dua Lipa being outraged by the mass shooting in Australia. And cease fire?? What ceasefire. The killing of that hostage who was injected with air and then had the video sent to her father. I just visited the Jewish Ghetto in Venice, Italy and was given a tour by a Jewish woman who had been living there with her family for 2 generations. On October 7 she and many of her friends who had family in those kibbutzim and at the Nova festival were sent video of the rapes..the murders the horror. Sent to their phones!! And they call us barbaric?? Not sure how this all ends. But in the words of Golda Meir…“When peace comes we will perhaps in time be able to forgive the Arabs for killing our sons, but it will be harder for us to forgive them for having forced us to kill their sons. Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us.”

Mark Goodman
IG/X
@goodymade
@sounduppod

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“A celebrity-backed letter shows antisemitism entering the mainstream – Signatories demanded the release of a convicted Palestinian terrorist. It signals a deep problem.”

Free link: https://wapo.st/3MCP4cQ

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Bob I would not change a comma of your note on antisemitism. Thank you for taking the time to write the uncomfortable truth.

Lyor Cohen