Three weeks before the Hanukkah mass shooting in Australia that has become the deadliest attack on Diaspora Jews in decades, the mayor of the affected region had been feted at a global summit for fighting antisemitism.

“I think it’s really important for us here in Australia, and particularly Waverley, to be proud that we’ve been put on the international stage talking about what we have done in Australia to combat antisemitism,” Will Nemesh, the mayor of the Sydney-area region of Waverley, told the Australian Jewish News about his appearance and panel discussion at the Combat Antisemitism Movement’s mayoral summit held in Paris.

Nemesh’s participation there followed one at an earlier event in September, with other Australian mayors, also put on by the Combat Antisemitism Movement. Jewish himself, Nemesh was committed enough to the cause of fighting antisemitism that he gave a presentation to his city council just days before the attack.

Nemesh’s staff was unable to make him available to comment for this article. But he spoke about his efforts to curb antisemitism during a gathering last week when he convened other mayors from the region in the aftermath of the terrorist attack in which a father and son who had pledged allegiance to ISIS killed 15 people and wounded more than two dozen others at a menorah lighting at Waverley’s Bondi Beach.

“The last time we gathered as mayors in this same place was in February of this year. We gathered with a mission calling for action on antisemitism,” Nemesh said. “We had seen hate spreading through our communities. We knew then, as we know now, that hatred targeted towards the Jewish people never ends there. It spreads like a virus, infects our social cohesion and our Australian way of life, and tragically now it has directly led the loss of life.”

About his fellow mayors, he added, “Being here demonstrates their commitment to combating antisemitism at a local level.”

The Combat Antisemitism Movement has long pressured governments and institutions to follow its playbook in order to prevent antisemitic incidents. Now, with a vocal adherent of its strategy having experienced a violent antisemitic attack under his watch, an emissary for the movement has nothing but praise for him.

“You can definitely not blame him. He’s the last person you can blame,” Yigal Nisell, an advisor for the Combat Antisemitism Movement’s Australia branch, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency about Nemesh. “He’s not just a supporter of the Jewish community, he’s probably the most active mayor in Australia against antisemitism.”

At the same time, Nisell said, the organization has “a lot of anger coming out now for the government, massive anger.”

That anger, he said, should be directed at senior Australian officials, including Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, whom Nisell believes helped encourage the attack by recently recognizing a Palestinian state in the aftermath of the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks and Israel-Gaza war.

Nisell took little heart in statements from Albanese and others, both before the attack and after, that condemned antisemitism and vowed to root out influence from foreign actors like Iran.

“It’s all bulls–t,” he said. “They didn’t protect the Jewish community… If you look at other governments in the past, this would have never happened because they were very strict, they stood supportive of the Jewish community.”

Days after Nisell first spoke with JTA, Albanese gave an address in which the prime minister said he would “accept my responsibility” in failing to safeguard Australia from antisemitism. He unveiled a new plan that includes harsher penalties for speech targeting Jews, shortly after the United Kingdom announced that it would also begin stricter speech prosecution.

“It’s a very, very good step,” Nisell said of Albanese’s plan. “Unfortunately, we had to wait for this kind of incident to make it clear for him that this is necessary.”

But Albanese later declined to convene a state commission to investigate intelligence failings in the lead-up to the attack, inflaming his critics’ anger. Hundreds of thousands of people have signed an online petition calling for his resignation.

Nisell, who is a former senior executive at CAM, lived in Australia for years before moving to Israel in 2023. He is currently head of Mosaic United, a project of Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism.

In his time in Australia, he said, Nemesh was one of the few government officials who took the threat of rising antisemitism in Australia seriously.

“Will stood almost every day and warned the government that all these hate crimes were happening in his backyard, and warned them that if this won’t be stopped it could get much, much worse,” he said.

It was a mission that Nemesh felt acutely. Born and raised in Sydney, he is a member of Emanuel Synagogue, a leading liberal congregation in Sydney, and a former staffer at the New South Wales Board of Deputies, a Jewish representative body. In university, he was a leader in Australia’s Jewish student group. He was elected to the Waverley Council in 2017 and chosen for a two-year term as its mayor last year, making him the first Jew to hold the role in the heavily Jewish area in 16 years.

The election followed a controversy on the council, when a deputy mayor voted against condemning Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel.

“I think it’s very important to have a strong voice for the Jewish community. Particularly since October 7, communities have felt traumatized and, in some respects, marginalized,” Nemesh told the Australian Jewish news outlet J-Wire at the time, adding that he thought it was important to be “in a position to call out hate and particularly antisemitism and to show strong leadership on that.”

Just prior to the Bondi Beach attack, CAM — which frequently pressures governments to adapt more stringent policies to fight antisemitism — had celebrated Nemesh as one of the few officials doing the right thing.

The movement praised the “Model Antisemitism Strategy” Nemesh had instituted in Waverley, and had him share the strategy with European mayors in Paris. Nemesh’s plan, a CAM release stated two weeks ago, “offers a practical guide to support councils across the country to build their own locally tailored initiatives to counter antisemitism.”

Among the policies the group applauded was the promotion of the International Holocaust Remembrance Association’s definition of antisemitism. “If you are an anti-Zionist, you are an antisemite,” Nisell said, when asked what CAM’s biggest policy priorities are. “This is the biggest thing we want to be clear.”

Mayors have been a major focus of CAM’s activism in recent months, with the group engaging hundreds of such local leaders worldwide on the issue of curbing antisemitism in their communities.

But after the attack, Nisell downplayed the ability of mayors like Nemesh to stand as such bulwarks.

“His power is very, very limited,” he said, of Nemesh. “Will was very active. His council was very active promoting IHRA, promoting statements against antisemitism. I’m just making a point here that everything he has done is just a drop in the sea.”

In fact, Nisell theorized, the mayor’s embrace of such policies may have drawn more attention from antisemitic actors, because he was one of the few mayors in the country who adopted them.

“Because he was only one of very few leaders in Australia that stood against antisemitism, this happened. If there were more, this would never have happened,” Nisell said.

Does the fact that a mayor who proudly and openly embraced CAM’s policies still experienced such a horrific antisemitic attack on his watch mean that there is no way to prevent such incidents? Nisell doesn’t think so. CAM, he said, would continue to promote mayoral summits and policies like Nemesh’s. He hopes that mayors who had declined invitations to attend CAM’s last summit will be compelled by the attack to come to the next one.

On Tuesday the group released an open letter it had circulated to other mayors in its coalition in Australia and beyond, addressed to Nemesh, that offers words of solidarity and encouragement.

“As mayors and council members from around the world, we see firsthand that antisemitism is not an abstract threat — it manifests in our streets, our schools, and our communities,” the letter reads. “Cities are on the front lines of this fight, but governments at all levels must now fully assume their responsibility: to protect Jewish communities, to confront antisemitism decisively, and to ensure that those who incite or commit hatred face real consequences.”

It’s signed, “Mayors and Council Members from Around the World.”

Not every response to the letter has been positive. During the signing phase, an Australian council member told CAM that, while “I unequivocally condemn antisemitism in all its forms … it is essential to distinguish antisemitism from legitimate political and moral positions.”

“Being anti-occupation, anti-genocide, and anti-oppression does not equate to antisemitism,” the official, Cumberland City Councellor Ahmed Ouf, continued in an email shared with JTA. “Condemning the occupation of Palestine, the systematic oppression of the Palestinian people, and the mass killing of tens of thousands of civilians over the past two years is a stance grounded in human rights and international law, not hatred of Jewish people.”

(The open letter does not mention Israel or Palestinians. However, CAM’s ask to its partners includes the statement, “Support for Hamas and terrorist organisations must be illegal, calls for a global intifada investigated, and extremist incitement eradicated.”)

After the attack, Nisell said, he was in contact with Nemesh. “Honestly he couldn’t speak,” he recalled of the mayor. “He is so shocked. Nobody in their wildest dreams could think that this could happen.”

Nisell believes the larger Jewish community should spare Nemesh from its ire. “I really, really hope that this won’t break him, and that this community will show him support,” he said.

This article originally appeared on JTA.org.

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During his speech at Turning Point USA’s annual convention on Sunday, Vice President JD Vance claimed the “famously American idea of religious liberty is a Christian concept.”

Vance has made this argument before. At the International Religious Freedom Summit, held in Washington, D.C. in February, he said it was “a conceit of modern society that religious liberty is a liberal concept,” adding that “religious freedom flows from concepts central to the Christian faith.”

Vance is correct that the philosophical defense of the right to religious liberty has roots in Christian theology. Tertullian, an influential second-century Christian writer, argued that genuine worship must be a matter of free will rather than coercion — and is credited with coining the term “freedom of religion.”

But while Thomas Jefferson owned a copy of Tertullian’s work, the Christian philosopher was not Jefferson’s only inspiration. The Founding Fathers also drew on Enlightenment thinkers such as John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who justified religious freedom based on ideas about natural rights and limits on state power.

Nor is religious freedom an exclusively Christian innovation. Religious toleration predates Christianity — centuries earlier, the Roman Empire allowed conquered peoples to maintain their own religious practices, and the Persian Empire embraced religious pluralism.

And Tertullian’s ideas did not exactly translate into a durable Christian political tradition of religious liberty. The Crusades — a series of religious wars launched by Christian rulers — involved massacres, expulsions, and forced conversions of Jews and Muslims. During the Spanish Inquisition, Catholic authorities persecuted and expelled Jews and Muslims who refused to convert.

Indeed, the Founding Fathers’ commitment to religious freedom was shaped in part by Europe’s long history of Christian persecution — a record they sought to avoid replicating in the new American republic.

‘A Christian nation’

The First Amendment makes clear that religious freedom applies to all faiths — not just Christians. So why has Vance waded into a niche historical debate?

According to Rachel Laser, president and CEO of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the telling line comes later in Vance’s speech: “The only thing that has truly served as an anchor of the United States of America is that we have been, and by the grace of God, we always will be, a Christian nation.” He added that he was “not saying you have to be a Christian to be an American,” but argued that “Christianity is America’s creed.”

Vance’s speech was attempting to “co-opt religious freedom and co-opt church-state separation, to make them all into the idea that Christians should have special favor in this country,” Laser, who is Jewish, said in a phone interview. “This is about an effort to redefine terms and distort them.”

Laser noted that this privileging of Christianity is already influencing federal policy, including allowing government employees to proselytize at work and encouraging co-workers to report each other for “anti-Christian bias” — as if Christians were the only potential targets of religious discrimination. At the state level, blurred lines between church and state have led to Bible-infused lessons in public schools and even an effort to make the Old and New Testament law — literally.

Those types of policies might ring alarm bells for Jews, who have long been among the strongest defenders of the separation of church and state, viewing it as a bedrock principle of religious liberty. The 1947 Supreme Court case Everson v. Board of Education of Ewing Township marked the first time Thomas Jefferson’s idea of a “wall of separation between Church and State” was explicitly recognized in law.

Yet some conservative legal scholars, such as Philip Hamburger, question the concept of church-state separation in its entirety, noting that the Constitution never explicitly mentions such a wall. Critics argue that the Supreme Court has, at times, offered not freedom of religion but freedom from religion, effectively privileging secularism and pushing religion out of the public square.

Vance, who converted to Catholicism in adulthood and has said he hopes his Hindu wife, Usha, will eventually convert to Christianity, has been a key proponent of that line of argumentation, explicitly rejecting church-state separation at an October Turning Point USA event.

“What I believe happened is the Supreme Court interpreted ‘Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion’ to effectively throw the church out of every public space at the federal, state, and local level,” Vance told the crowd. “I think it was a terrible mistake, and we are still paying for the consequences of it today.”

Laser rejected the characterization that church-state separation advocates are inherently secular, noting that roughly half of the plaintiffs in Americans United lawsuits are religious.

“Our opponents try to paint our cause as anti-religion, but it’s actually pro-religion,” Laser said. “Vance would be well served to remember that deeply religious people have been some of the greatest proponents of church-state separation, because they understand that it protects religion from being sullied by the government.”

The post Vance says ‘religious liberty is a Christian concept.’ Where does that leave Jews? appeared first on The Forward.

Picture me alone in some remote garret, clutching a copy of the American Jewish Year Book like it’s the Grimmerie in Wicked. Pages flutter, the wind howls, and I once more set out to divine what is in store for the year ahead.

But how did I do last year? Taylor Swift is still with Travis Kelce — she didn’t leave him for Manischewitz cover model Jeff Retzlaff. Instead, Manischewitz parted ways with Retzlaff, and he with Brigham Young University.

Elmo did not have a title fight with Larry David, but he did have an antisemitic tirade on X, in an apparent hack.

Billy Joel did not release a single called “Noshin’ Out.” For what it’s worth, though, he did tell the world, “No matter what, I will always be a Jew” in his HBO documentary.

My record is mixed, but I persist. If not now, when? If not me, who? Hence, my 26 quite conceivable (I think) predictions for what’s heading our way in pop culture in 2026.

1. Following Britney Spears’ viral Chabad beard appreciation post, in which she enthused over a group of young Lubavitch men playing chess, the “Hit Me Baby (One More Time)” artist will tie the knot with husband number four, Mendel Bialybaum of Crown Heights.

2. 82-year-old actor and outspoken progressive Wallace Shawn will announce a politically-minded follow up to his 1981 film about a supper meeting with theater luminary André Gregory. Inspired by a similar summit at Mar-a-Lago in 2022, My Dinner with Fuentes is due to hit theaters in time for the midterms.

3. Diamond District jeweler Nachum Bernstein will be hailed as a real-life Howard Ratner — Adam Sandler’s character in the Safdie brothers’ Uncut Gems, known for his blinged-out Furby — when he unveils a diamond-studded Labubu, “the world’s most expensive.” The creation will be outfitted with pigeon-blood rubies that form the shape of a chai on its chest and a sterling silver backpack clip. It’s not for sale.

4. Alan Dershowitz will found a “spite store” in Martha’s Vineyard after being refused service last summer at a local pierogi stand. “Dersh’s Delights” boasts a legal theme: tarts are called torts, and a signature latte is the Almond Amicus Brief. It will shutter after three weekends, citing lack of interest — just one more reason to be spiteful.

5. The consolidation of HBO into Netflix will herald a number of unlikely franchise crossovers. Most controversial: Season 3 of Nobody Wants This, in which Rabbi Noah will relocate to Baltimore and welcome the family of now-reformed drug kingpin Avon Barksdale as congregants. “The Wire’s been crossed,” the Variety headline blasts.

6. Leslie Odom Jr.’s horror adaptation of a Rolling Stone article about Sammy Davis Jr.’s dalliance with the Church of Satan is reported to feature a scene where Davis — who was Jewish — and Anton LaVey, the Jewish-born founder of that church, play dreidel for one another’s souls.

7. Following Sydney Sweeney’s “good jeans” ad, which some argued was a eugenic dog whistle, American Eagle will launch a new spot, “Good Genes,” with Eugene Levy, Gene Simmons and Gene Shallot sharing a pair of oversized dungarees. Sales soar.

8. After his swearing-in as New York City mayor, Zohran Mamdani will become a Shabbos goy for his Upper East Side neighbors, promising them fast, free melakhot.

9. President Donald Trump’s new White House ballroom will feature a steam room — and Six13 will feature a parody song, “Ballroom Shvitz,” in their Hanukkah a cappella compilation.

10. Richard Kind will be revealed to excel at bocce, and be voted Manischewitz’s second matzo box cover athlete after Retzlaff. “It’s an honor I never dreamed of, and one I’m not certain I want,” Kind will say. His cover photo is dynamic, showing the character actor mid-bowl, releasing a matzo ball in the direction of a cluster of pallini.

11. Nachum Bernstein will awaken one night from a dreamless sleep to find the Labubu of his own creation perched on his chest, emerald pupils gleaming, the Hebrew word אֱמֶת (truth) now bedazzling its brow in fire opals.

12. The Swift-Kelce wedding will be the least Jewish social event of the season, despite the presence of Jack Antonoff.

13. The sequel to K-Pop Demon Hunters (KPDH: Certified Gold) will include a Neil Diamond cameo, in which the Basher — who attended NYU on a fencing scholarship — shish kebabs a string of baddies to the tune of Crunchy Granola Suite.

14. Timothée Chalamet will be cast as Olympian Mark Spitz in a forthcoming biopic directed by Barry Levinson. Sources close to the actor say he was looking for a role that let him keep his Marty Supreme mustache.

15. Billy Joel: Live at the Kotel will usher in an era of peace in a divided Jerusalem.

16. Following a well-received Sabrina Carpenter-led special. Seth Rogen will succeed in reviving The Muppet Show and get creative with its guest hosts. One standout edition will see Noam Chomsky appearing to give Dr. Teeth a crash course in Generative Grammar. (The lesson is interrupted by Animal thrashing on the drums, and Gonzo’s loose chickens stealing focus.)

17. Monty Pickle, the anthropomorphic Jewish gherkin with a mission to shed light on Jewish joy, will be seen wrapping tefillin on Rick and Morty’s Pickle Rick outside of 770 Eastern Parkway.

18. Preparing to play Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network sequel, Jeremy Strong will spend a continuous month living in the Metaverse, stopping only to guzzle Sweet Baby Ray’s barbecue sauce. “He’s wired in,” a gleeful Aaron Sorkin will tell The Hollywood Reporter.

19. After reimagining CBS News with new editor-in-chief Bari Weiss, Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison will set his sights on reshaping CBS’ primetime sitcom lineup, greenlighting Chef in the IDF about a lone soldier with culinary ambitions. When ratings falter, Chuck Lorre will return to expand the Big Bang Theory universe with the show Old Wolowitz.

20. A Goyim Defense League march in Jacksonville, Florida will be disrupted by a near invisible force, which tosses the antisemites sky-high and dangles them over the same highway overpass where they hung a sign reading “6 Million Weren’t Enough.” Video captured on the scene, when slowed down and enhanced, appears to show the neo-Nazis heaved upward by a figure standing a few inches tall — with one full inch being bunny ears — glittering with gems, and wearing a distinctive sharp-toothed grin.

21. Antisemitism watchdog groups will be up in arms on learning that the Cyclops in Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey has a gigantic mezuzah at the entrance to his cave. Nolan explains that the Judaica was left there by the cave’s real-life owners (the Finkles) and vows to digitally remove it for its online release.

22. Nathan Fielder will finally figure out the elusive science of cold fusion on Season 3 of The Rehearsal.

23. After Nachum Bernstein’s family grows increasingly suspicious of his regular business trips, which always seem to coincide with a planned antisemitic rally in major cities, each of which is thwarted by an ostensibly supernatural force, he vows to stay put for the foreseeable future. In his home workshop, he can be heard tapping. When the family stirs awake the next morning, they discover the glittering Labubu on display next to the Shabbat candle sticks. The inscription on the toy’s brow now reads מֵת — “dead.”

24. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will do Hot Ones. He taps out when host Sean Evans asks a surprisingly sophisticated question about settler violence in the West Bank.

25. Elmo’s X account will be hacked yet again — this time by advocates of hasbara, rather than antisemitism. “Elmo loves cherry tomatoes — did you know they were invented in Israel?” reads one of the posts.

26. After successfully launching its food truck in 2025, Manischewitz will buy several decommissioned Good Year blimps for the project’s next installment. The program will be terminated after injuries stemming from paradropped jarred gefilte fish.

The post 26 conceivably believable pop culture predictions for 2026 appeared first on The Forward.