The pattern is a familiar one. A terrible anti-Semitic attack will take place; political leaders will say “this is not who we are” and vow to take action; no one takes any meaningful action; another anti-Semitic attack takes place.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
So in the wake of the Bondi Beach Hanukkah massacre, it would be prudent to make it as difficult as possible for Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to forget about his responsibility to act. And there’s no more powerful way to do that than to amplify the voices of the survivors. This will hopefully have the added effect of reminding Western politicians across the spectrum that they, too, are under the lights.
Here’s Victoria Teplitsky describing her father, who was wounded at Bondi Beach: “He’s 86, he’s a Holocaust survivor, he’s a survivor of anti-Semitism in the ex-Soviet Union. He grew up tough, my dad. And he came to Australia, he brought us here because he didn’t want my brother and I to go through the same experience. And we didn’t for many years. We didn’t for many years. Until October 7, 2023.”
Let’s pause here to note that Australia is home to the highest concentration of Holocaust survivors outside of Israel—and that another of those Holocaust survivors was killed on Bondi Beach while shielding his wife from the haze of bullets. I have to admit I get angry anew every time I hear of another Jew who survived Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union but not the United States or Australia. It is an anger I believe every Jew shares.
Back to the interview. The anchors from Australia’s ABC—this is an important piece of information for later in the interview—asked Teplitsky how she’s feeling about everything. Teplitsky responded with a message for Albanese and the political establishment:
“Is this what you wanted? Is this enough now? Will you listen to us? Albanese, [Labour parliamentary leader Penny] Wong, will you listen to us? Will you actually do something? Will you actually—no, you don’t have to stand up and say anything because we don’t believe you anyway.”
She then looked the ABC anchors in the face and said: “And ABC, I’ve got to say, will you cut out the biased reporting? Will you cut it out, will you actually let us have a voice?” Teplitsky then starts to explain the role of the media in making Jews feel like outsiders but abruptly changes direction, making a moving statement that one increasingly hears among the Jews of the Diaspora. She is not a religious woman, Teplitsky says, but “since October 7, since all the hatred that’s been thrown at us, I started to wear my Magen David because I’m Jewish, and if you have something to say, you can say it to me. And ABC, please stop with the biased reporting.”
On CBS, Tony Dokoupil talked to a couple who were briefly separated from their child at Bondi Beach, Wayne and Vanessa Miller. Vanessa said she questioned whether the event was safe at the outset because of the low police presence. Referring to Albanese, Vanessa said, “He’s got blood on his hands, and he knows it.” Wayne added: “The acts of terrorism have been rewarded by the Australian weak government.”
Who else needs to hear this? Certainly the Labour establishment in London. The Campaign Against Antisemitism organized a vigil last night for the victims of the Bondi Beach massacre. On Twitter/X, CAA’s chief executive Gideon Falter explained the response the organizers received from representatives of the Labour, Conservative, and Reform parties.
The deputy leader of the Reform Party, Richard Tice, immediately confirmed he’d be at the rally and indeed spoke at the event. The Conservatives made Shadow Attorney General David Wolfson available for the rally as well as another shadow minister. Labour took a full day to respond, and eventually Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s office promised Communities Secretary Steve Reed would attend. Reed never showed up.
In an attempt to make up for that, Labour MP Ashley Dalton volunteered to speak instead. Would you like to know how that went? Here’s how it went: She began her speech by mentioning Reed and was immediately heckled. The anger poured out of some of rallygoers, and Dalton spent her three minutes on stage trying to get through her improvised remarks over the din. Both Falter and the Chabad rabbi in attendance tried to calm the crowd, with varying rates of success.
Who can blame the mourners for being angry at the government for essentially standing them up? After all, on Yom Kippur Jews in London were the target of a deadly anti-Semitic attack at their own synagogue. None of this was Dalton’s fault, to be sure. She, too, ought to be furious with her party’s leadership.
I’m not sure the Starmer and Albanese governments could be handling this worse if they tried. They should be hounded by their publics and haunted by their failures, and every other appeasement-crazed Western government should take note.
