Bondi rabbi faced antisemitic abuse
Rabbi confronted at Bondi Beach by man justifying attack and making antisemitic claims.
A rabbi marking 120 days since the Bondi terror attack was confronted at the beach by a man who appeared to justify the murders of 15 innocent people and accused Jews of being Nazis.
Rabbi Yossi Friedman had come to Bondi Beach to speak with people and ask a simple question: How are you holding up? Instead, he found himself face to face with a man who pointed the finger at Israel and Jews, called Zionism “Zio-Nazism” and accused Friedman of “supporting murderers”.
“I know how evil you guys are,” the man told Rabbi Friedman.
“I was brought up a Zionist mate. I know exactly the crimes you guys have done,” the man said, before claiming that “Ashkenazis are not Jews” and that “70,000 babies have just been murdered by the Jews.”
When Friedman urged him not to blame all Jews, the man pressed on, claiming the media is “owned by Zionists” and asserting that Jews “suffer from exactly the same disease that the Nazis suffered in Germany”.
“Jews are Nazis now?” Friedman asked. “They’ve become them,” the man replied.
A woman who stepped in to confront the man walked away in tears after she was called “evil”.
Friedman later told police on the scene that the views expressed were “quite disturbing, which is sad, because that’s exactly what I’m trying to counter”.
In a social media post following the encounter, Friedman reflected on the altercation.
“Moments like this are confronting,” he wrote. “Because when pain has no place to be held, it can turn outward into hate and we risk losing sight of one another’s humanity.”
One social media user commented on the post, describing the encounter as “absolutely sickening”.
“He should know that Islamists wouldn’t care whether he calls himself a Zionist or not, they would target him simply for being Jewish,” the commenter wrote.