Vile graffiti on family business
"If Australia was once a safe haven for those fleeing hatred, what is it becoming now?” asks Jeremy Leibler.
Jeremy Leibler, a close friend of the Gottlieb family, whose Melbourne building supply business was daubed with the words “Gas the Jews” and a swastika, has expressed his revulsion.
“I have known this family my whole life,” the Zionist Federation of Australia president told The AJN. “The founders were Holocaust survivors who came here with nothing and built a business that supported their family and made a profound contribution to the Victorian building industry. They believed in Australia. They were grateful for the refuge this country gave them. And yet in 2025, their grandchildren now stand in front of that same building defaced with the words ‘Gas the Jews.’ The Holocaust did not end antisemitism. It simply drove it underground for a time. If Australia was once a safe haven for those fleeing hatred, what is it becoming now?”
The family company, established by Herc (Harry) and Mala Gottlieb, who arrived here from Poland in 1947, has been closed in recent years after operating in the area for more than half a century.
Grandson Yehuda Gottlieb received news on Sunday from a neighbour who saw the horrific graffiti. “It’s a business that my grandfather started 65 years ago,” he told The AJN. “Both my grandparents were Holocaust survivors and were involved in running the business. To see that written on our family business is quite confronting. It echoes back to what was happening in Europe in the ’30s. And there was nothing about Zionism or Israel, just ‘Gas the Jews’ and swastikas. It certainly makes me think twice about the safety of Australia for me and for my family.”
Jewish Community Council of Victoria president Naomi Levin told The AJN, “We have seen over the past 16 months that what starts with antisemitic graffiti ends in property destruction and physical assaults.” She said the soon-to-be-released 2024 JCCV-Community Security Group report on antisemitism in Victoria shows a 320 per cent increase in antisemitic assaults and a jump in serious property damage.
Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-CEO Alex Ryvchin said, “It is telling that the racist vandals responsible for this have used the formulation ‘Gas the Jews,’ which first entered national consciousness on October 9, 2023, at the steps of the Sydney Opera House.”
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