Could it be that the Bondi beach Hanukkah massacre will be the tipping point? Could it be that the world will finally wake up to the murderous nature of antisemitic rhetoric? Could it be that, at last, there will be a massive pushback against the radical ideologies that fuel this bloody fire and against the social media feeding frenzies that help stoke these sentiments?
Look for a moment at these dates, all from the last five years. What do they have in common?
October 27, 2018. April 27, 2019. October 9, 2019. December 28, 2019. May 9, 2023. October 7, 2023. October 12, 2024. October 2, 2025. December 14, 2025.
On all these dates, Jews were killed (or, attacked) on a Sabbath or Jewish holy day simply because they were Jews.
It is high time that the world wakes up and sees the handwriting on the wall.
How many more Jews must be slaughtered before more of us stand up and speak out and confront this madness? How much more blood must be shed before we openly address the violent nature of antisemitism?
Focusing specifically on Australia, Dionne Taylor, the communications manager of the Australia/Israel Jewish Affairs Council, said, “We have been completely let down by our government. We warned them that this snowball effect was going to happen, and it was only a matter of time before someone got killed.”
She added, “It started with hate speech. Then graffiti. Then public demonstrations. Then firebombing synagogues, preschools, people’s homes, people’s cars. And now murder.”
How could these overtly violent, blatantly antisemitic signals be missed? How could a major Jewish event take place in the open without massive security measures in place?
To quote Bondi resident Jack Pinczewski at length, “No one in the Jewish community I spoke to felt like this was a surprise. Many felt like this was an inevitability. Ever since 7 October, the Jewish community in Australia has been drinking from a firehose of antisemitism. Daily occurrences of hate—an inexorable tide of evil we felt rising around us.
“The worst feeling was seeing those who we thought might be sympathetic to our plight dismiss our fears as a ‘hoax’ or a ‘moral panic.’ Elites in our media threw these deliberate fictions and red herrings into the national debate, making the warning signs almost impossible to see for the average Australian.”
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Put another way, the Jewish community in Australia was not crying wolf.
Pinczewski continued, “The worst were the egregious and uncalled-for accusations that Jews were ‘weaponising’ antisemitism to shut down debate on Israeli policy, and the obscene navel-gazing debate over whether pro-Hamas rioters at the Sydney Opera House were chanting ‘Where’s the Jews?’ or ‘Gas the Jews’—as if the difference between the two actually matters.” (Really!)
Indeed, “Australian civil society has failed. This attack is the result of a series of failures of leadership across our country. From politicians to business leaders, academics and commentators, there has been too much equivocation and misdirection on antisemitism.”
Stern rebukes came also from government leaders in Israel (including Prime Minister Netanyahu).
“Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar declared that Australia had been warned about potential attacks and that the shooting was the result of ‘the antisemitic rampage in the streets of Australia over the past two years, with the antisemitic and inciting calls of “Globalize the Intifada” that were realized today.’”
Quite bluntly, he stated, “The Australian government, which received countless warning signs, must come to its senses.”
Now it’s time for the rest of the civilized world to come to its senses.
Enough Jewish blood has been shed.
Words have consequences. Ideologies have ramifications.
And when Israel is falsely accused day and night, literally by the second, of intentionally slaughtering women and children in Gaza, something bad is going to happen.
When Jews (and/or Israel) are unceasingly blamed for almost every evil under the sun (including, most recently, the assassination of Charlie Kirk), something bad is going to happen.
And when blatant, ugly, antisemitic comments and acts are given free expression without rebuke, without pushback, without denunciation, something bad is going to happen.
It is time for the world to wake up, and that starts with each of us taking responsibility for our own spheres of influence, be it during a discussion over family dinner or on our social media posts. Let us do our part before this deadly cancer of Jew hatred spreads any further.
Pastors, leaders, educators, businessmen, parents, students, social media influencers, politicians – every single one of us – must make our voices heard.
In the words of Rabbi Schmaya Krinsky of the Chabad-Lubavitch World Headquarters in New York City, “Every incremental escalation of antisemitic language that is tolerated has a direct, and now, deadly, consequence, and must no longer go unchecked.” (Rabbi Krinsky lost several of his colleagues in Bondi.)
As I’ve said endlessly, this does not mean agreeing with everything Israel does, nor does it mean making all Jews into saints. But it does mean confronting the hatred and exposing the lies – today, not tomorrow.
Others can discuss the specific issues of immigration and enforcing relevant laws. But all of us can push back against the dangerous sickness of Jew hatred. Now is the time.
Dr. Michael Brown (www.thelineoffire.org/) is the host of the nationally syndicated The Line of Fire radio show. He is the author of over 40 books, including Can You be Gay and Christian?; Our Hands are Stained with Blood; and Seizing the Moment: How to Fuel the Fires of Revival. You can connect with him on Facebook, X or YouTube.
