Klompas urges Australia to take ‘meaningful action’

“We are now looking to Australia to see if the government is going to step in in a meaningful way and take meaningful action,” Aviva Klompas told The AJN during her trip to Australia.

The Israel advocate, who served as director of speechwriting for Israel’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations in New York City and now has a prolific social media following, visited the country to record a live episode of her podcast, Boundless Insights, with NSW opposition leader Kellie Sloane focusing on the Bondi Beach terror attack.

“The way that I learned about it was that I opened my phone in the middle of the night and I saw a close friend with blood streaming down his face,” Klompas said.

“It was one of the most terrifying moments of my life. Even when I think about it now, my heart stops a little bit.”

Like many Jews around the world, the news of the Chanukah attack shocked Klompas, but it didn’t surprise her.

“This isn’t exclusive to Australia,” she said.

“What happened here could so easily happen to other Jewish communities around the world.”

Klompas drew parallels between the antisemitism facing Jewish communities in Australia and her home country Canada.

“The synagogue that I grew up, in where I had my bat mitzvah, where my parents still attend, has been vandalized ten times,” she said.

“There have been zero prosecutions and the mayor of Toronto has visited that synagogue zero times. When it happens once it’s outrageous, when it continues to happen and nothing is done in response by elected officials or law enforcement, that is a very clear message to the people that are harassing and targeting Jews that it’s open season.”

Klompas’s trip overlapped with Israeli President Isaac Herzog’s visit, which was met with anti-Israel protests, including former Australian of the Year Grace Tame leading “globalise the intifada” chants.

“I cannot recall ever once seeing a peace sign, not one,” Klompas said about the many anti-Israel marches that have taken place around the world.

“This is not a peace movement. It’s not even an anti-war movement. This is a movement for the eradication of Israel and it serves to support the entities that are attacking Israel, that is Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah. And if those are who your allies are, you have to question what the character of society is.”