‘Go f••k yourself, Jewish scumbag, Captain Apartheid’
A MELBOURNE rabbi was left stunned after receiving two hateful, abusive voicemails from a caller on his mobile phone on Tuesday night.
The anonymous male caller began his first message with, “Hello Jewish scumbag, I’d just like to congratulate you on your new label, Captain Apartheid, because that’s how Jewish people are going to get named.”
Referring to the apartheid era in South Africa, the caller said, “Well, that’s how you treat your neighbours. That’s how Israel’s going to get remembered from now until the end of time, for apartheid, because you are true f******g c***s to those people for no reason.”
The caller made further accusations about Israel’s treatment of its neighbours, then said, “Go f**k yourself, shalom … congratulations on the apartheid label.”
In his second voicemail, time-stamped around 10 minutes later, the caller further taunted the rabbi by saying, “I wasn’t sure about that name … I guess it’s rabbi apartheid from now on”, before urging him to “dump that stupid religion that got made up a million years ago by paedophiles”.
Speaking on condition that his name not be published, the rabbi told The AJN his wife was with him when they listened to the messages, and like him, she was “in shock … shaken up” and she was fearful for their personal safety.
Warning: the following audio files contain offensive language
“It was genuinely horrifying to listen to,” the rabbi said. “But most importantly for me it was a bit of a sense of awakening when you hear the antisemitism involved. It wasn’t just apartheid and Israel but it was targeted antisemitism.”
The rabbi, a grandson of Holocaust survivors, whose family lost 17 loved ones to the Nazis, said, “Here we are almost 80 years later, you’ve got to ask the question ‘has a lot changed or not’ … here it is 2022 and people spread such spew.”
Reporting the voicemails to the Anti-Defamation Commission (ADC), the rabbi said he did so because “the awareness that these issues are lingering under the surface needs to be brought out”.
The rabbi said the UN carried much of the blame for the caller’s abusive conduct and his rant about “apartheid”. (The UN Human Rights Council – which has a notorious record of attacking Israel — plans to name Israel as an “apartheid” state by June).
ADC chair Dvir Abramovich said police are investigating the phone calls. He told The AJN today, “I am outraged and understand why many believe it is open season on the Jewish community and feel under siege … This chilling and violent outburst of unbridled hate, the latest in a spate of horrifying episodes, is further evidence that racists are less inhibited about expressing their insidious bigotry openly, and this out-of-control problem is one we can’t ignore.
“These sickening messages, fusing age-old antisemitism with anti-Israel rhetoric, have not only traumatised the victim but will shake our community to the core and leave members scared and vulnerable. It may be an uncomfortable truth for some, but antisemitism has taken root in Australia and keeps rearing its ugly head from all directions.
“I call on all political leaders to speak out loudly and clearly against this escalating issue so as to ensure that this stain on our society will never become acceptable. We hope that Victoria Police brings the full force of the law on this individual.”
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