When hatred crosses oceans, so must responsibility
Antisemitism has reemerged in ways that are both all too familiar as well as newly emboldened.
The other day I arrived in Australia. My first trip in ten years. And while I am thrilled to be back, I find myself wishing the circumstances were different.
In December 2025, during what should have been a moment of light and celebration, the Bondi Beach Chanukah massacre shattered a community. Families that gathered for a joyful celebration were instead forced to confront terror. The images and stories from that night do not fade. Not with the Australian Jewish community and not for me.
Within hours of the attack, a small team of United Hatzalah volunteers boarded planes bound for Sydney. Not to speak. Not to stand before cameras. But to sit quietly with families, to listen, and to offer what comfort they could in the face of unbearable loss. They met parents who could not yet process what had happened, children who struggled to understand why their world had changed so suddenly, and a community searching for a sense of safety that no longer felt certain.
What they encountered was not only grief. It was something deeper. A quiet and persistent fear. The kind that does not disappear when the news cycle moves on. The kind that leads people to ask a question no society should ever force its citizens to consider. Are we still safe here?
That question has not gone away.
In the weeks leading up to my arrival, a billboard advertising an event in Melbourne where I am scheduled to speak was vandalized. It is easy to dismiss such acts as minor when compared to the horrors of Bondi. That would be a mistake. These moments are not isolated. They are signals. And when signals are ignored, they do not fade. They fester.
Across continents, in cities that once felt secure, antisemitism has reemerged in ways that are both all too familiar as well as newly emboldened. It is thinly veiled as “antizionism” a PC term to mask age-old antisemitism. It appears rampant in public discourse, news cycles and in online social media spaces. It’s hateful rhetoric, acts to intimidate and incite violence.
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