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Jerusalem Post conference is latest Israeli event in New York to be disrupted by protests
(JTA) — Leading up to its New York City conference, the Jerusalem Post tried to avoid the anti-government protests that had bedeviled other recent gatherings where Israeli government officials had spoken.
And until 3 p.m., it appeared the Israeli newspaper’s efforts had succeeded.
Protest organizers told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that the conference had canceled 20 to 30 tickets that protesters had bought. A demonstration outside the conference, which took place in Manhattan on Monday, had dissipated by mid-morning.
At one point, four security guards on the sidewalk manhandled a protester who tried and failed to enter the atrium. But inside, for most of the day, all passed quietly. Israeli right-wing government ministers who had been heckled at other events appeared onstage without interruption. The biggest distraction in the room was a constant hum of chatter among the attendees.
But in the mid-afternoon, as Israeli Economy Minister Nir Barkat took the stage to discuss government action to encourage entrepreneurship, the familiar Hebrew chants of “Shame! Shame!” echoed in the room, disrupting his remarks, and a group of protesters were escorted out.
Israeli Immigration and Absorption Minister Ofir Sofer (left) and Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli (center) appear onstage at the Jerusalem Post Conference in New York City on June 5, 2023. (Marc Israel Sellem)
“What violence, what did we do?” said Shany Granot-Lubaton, a local protest organizer who was barred from entering. “Barkat can’t take it that we’re heckling him? We can heckle him. Keep talking, we’re all adults. We’re allowed to express our opinion.”
The ejection was a kind of coda to a week in which protesters in New York and elsewhere, many of them Israeli expatriates like Granot-Lubaton, have tried to meet and disrupt Israeli cabinet ministers wherever they were — at meetings with Jewish organizations, speaking in synagogues, at a parade on Sunday or walking on the public sidewalks. Videos of the disruptions circulated online. The ministers who were the targets of the protests decried being hounded, and the demonstrators said they were exercising their right to free speech.
In one instance in Los Angeles, in the face of the protesters, an Israeli cabinet member canceled a speech. On Friday night, a leading architect of the Israeli government’s effort to weaken the judiciary grabbed a protester’s megaphone in New York City and rushed away before handing it back.
On Sunday, Amichai Chikli, Israel’s minister of Diaspora affairs, was photographed making what looked like an obscene gesture while grinning at protesters at the Celebrate Israel Parade. He and a spokesperson insisted that he was telling the protesters to smile, but that only one finger was raised toward his mouth because he was clutching an Israeli flag with the others.
.@AmichaiChikli to the pro-democracy protesters across the barriers pic.twitter.com/g69jsXOf58
— Jacob N. Kornbluh (@jacobkornbluh) June 4, 2023
Speaking onstage on Monday, Chikli seemed to allude to the incident. “Amazing experience, good music, good vibes, and we made sure everyone smiled,” Chikli said about the parade.
The conference organized by the Jerusalem Post was intended to provide a substantive forum to discuss contemporary Israel as a complement to the celebratory parade. The Jerusalem Post, which is a syndication client of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency’s wire service, did not respond to requests for comment about its handling of protesters.
Throughout the conference, the government’s judicial overhaul — which, if passed in its current form, would sap the Israeli Supreme Court of much of its power — was referenced throughout the conference but did not dominate the agenda. Speakers included Chikli, Barkat and a few other Israeli cabinet ministers; New York City Mayor Eric Adams; two senators: James Lankford, an Oklahoma Republican, and Ben Cardin, a Maryland Democrat; officials from the Biden administration; and an assortment of other public figures in Israeli politics, business and the nonprofit sector.
“Israel is an independent country, they make their own decisions,” Cardin, who recently announced his impending retirement, said in an interview on the conference sidelines. “There are policies that the current government are espousing that I think are wrong, and I’ll express myself, but it doesn’t at all affect my deep support for the special ties between our two countries and the continued U.S. support for Israel.”
But while the gathering didn’t center on the strife currently tearing apart Israeli society, speakers throughout the day stressed the need for pan-Israeli solidarity, at times coupled with criticism of the government. Ehud Olmert, the former Israeli prime minister who served a prison sentence for corruption, gave a fiery interview in which he said, to cheers, “If we do not understand that these ministers do not speak for the people of Israel and for the Jewish people, we will pay dearly.”
Benny Gantz, the centrist former defense minister and opposition politician, said that when it comes to Israel countering a military threat from Iran, “Should a time come when action is needed, this government will receive full support from the opposition in any determined, appropriate, and responsible action.”
But he added, regarding Israel’s domestic politics, “We need to shift power from the extremes to the center, and treat minorities decently.”
Israeli government officials focused their remarks on other topics. Chikli both praised and criticized the Biden administration’s recent plan to combat antisemitism, expressing gratitude that it referred to a definition of antisemitism whose provisions mostly focus on Israel, but lamenting that it referred to another definition as well.
“I think it is positive that there is a plan to combat antisemitism,” he said. “It is important that they say the most important and central definition. But it is bad that they opened the door for irrelevant definitions.”
And Chikli and Ofir Sofer, the minister of immigration and absorption, both suggested that the government should discuss amending the Law of Return, which affords automatic Israeli citizenship to any Jew or descendant of at least one Jewish grandparent.
“I don’t think it’s going to change in the near future,” Sofer said, adding that he would set up a committee to discuss the issue. “But I am going to deal with this issue. I will lead the dialogue between the Jewish community and the Israeli government and Israeli society.”
But standing outside after they were kicked out, the handful of protesters who were in the conference said their goal was to prevent the government officials from conducting business as usual.
The goal, said Matti Shalev, a protester, is “to make Nir Barkat aware that anywhere in the world he is going, we’re going to remind him that this will not come to pass.”
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Unarmed man who tackled Bondi Beach Hanukkah attacker identified as Ahmed al-Ahmed
(JTA) — Viral video circulating after the Bondi Beach Hanukkah attack showed an unarmed man racing toward one of the shooters and tackling him from behind before wrestling the gun from his hands.
The man has been identified as Ahmed al-Ahmed, the operator of a fruit stand in a Sydney suburb who happened to be in the area. He was shot twice but expected to survive.
“He is a hero, 100%,” a relative who identified himself as Mustafa told 7News Australia.
Chris Minns, the premier of New South Wales, the Australian state that includes Sydney, called the footage “the most unbelievable scene I’ve ever seen.”
He added, “That man is a genuine hero, and I’ve got no doubt that there are many, many people alive tonight as a result of his bravery.”
At least 11 people were killed during the attack on a Hanukkah celebration on Sunday night, with dozens of others injured.
The video shows al-Ahmed crouching behind a car before running up behind the shooter. After taking hold of the gun, al-Ahmed aims the attacker’s gun at him but not firing, as a second attacker fired on him from a nearby footbridge. No other first responders are visible in the video.
Moments after al-Ahmed takes hold of the long gun, a second person joins him. Then a man wearing a kippah and tzitzit, the fringes worn by religiously observant Jewish men, runs into the picture and toward the attacker, who is wearing a backpack. The Jewish man throws something at the attacker. The video does not make clear what was thrown or whether it hit its intended target.
After taking hold of the gun, al-Ahmed puts it down against a tree and raises his hand, apparently signaling that he is not a participant in the attack.
In his response to the attack, which killed a prominent Chabad rabbi among others, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese praised “everyday Australians who, without hesitating, put themselves in danger in order to keep their fellow Australians safe.” He added, “These Australians are heroes and their bravery has saved lives.”
The post Unarmed man who tackled Bondi Beach Hanukkah attacker identified as Ahmed al-Ahmed appeared first on The Forward.
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Bondi Beach witnesses, including antisemitism activist, describe grim scene after Hanukkah attack
(JTA) — Arsen Ostrovsky moved back to Australia from Israel two weeks ago to helm the Sydney office of AIJAC, the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council.
On Sunday, he was one of scores of people shot during an attack on a Hanukkah celebration at Sydney’s Bondi Beach. At least 11 people were killed, as well as one of the attackers.
Ostrovsky, who grew up in Sydney after leaving the Soviet Union as a child, was injured in the head and treated at the scene.
“It was actually chaos. We didn’t know what was happening, where the gunfire was coming from. I saw blood gushing from me. I saw people hit, saw people fall to the ground,” he told a local news station, his head bandaged with blood visible on his face and clothing. “My only concern was, where are my kids? Where are my kids? Where’s my wife, where’s my family?”
He said he had been briefly separated from his family before finding them safe. But he had seen
“I saw children falling to the floor, I saw elderly, I saw invalids,” he said. “It was an absolute bloodbath, blood gushing everywhere.”
The attack struck at a centerpiece of Jewish community in Sydney, home to an estimated 40,000 Jews, nearly half of Australia’s total Jewish population. At least 1,000 people had turned up for the beachside celebration on the first night of Hanukkah.
“There were people dead everywhere, young, old, rabbi — they’re all dead,” Vlad, a Jewish chaplain with the State Emergency Service, told a local TV station. “And then two people died while we’re trying to save them, because the ambulance didn’t arrive on time.”
He said the people who died were an elderly woman who had been shot in the leg and an “older gentleman” who was shot in the head.
“It’s not just people, it’s people that I know, people from our community, people that we know well, people that we see often,” said Vlad, who had covered his 8-year-old son with his body during the attack. “My rabbi is dead.”
The rabbi who was killed, Eli Schlanger, moved to Bondi Beach as an emissary of the Chabad movement 18 years ago. He was the father of five children, including a son born two months ago.
“He wasn’t some distant figure. He was the guy staying up late planning the logistics for a Menorah lighting that most people will take for granted. The one stressing about the weather. The one making sure there were enough latkes and the kids weren’t bored,” wrote Eli Tewel, another Chabad emissary, on X.
“He was just doing his job. Showing up. Being the constant, reliable presence for his community,” Tewel added. “And that’s where the gut punch lands: He was killed while doing the most basic, kindest, most normal part of our lives. It wasn’t a battlefield. It was a Chanukah party.”
The post Bondi Beach witnesses, including antisemitism activist, describe grim scene after Hanukkah attack appeared first on The Forward.
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I grew up believing Australia was the best place to be Jewish. This Hanukkah shooting forces a reckoning I do not want.
I grew up believing that Australia was one of the best places on earth to be Jewish. This country always felt like a gift: Extraordinary beaches, glorious wildlife, and a cultural temperament that values fairness and ease over hierarchy. For most of my life, my Jewishness in Australia was unremarkable. My parents and grandparents chose this place because it promised normality, and for a long time, it delivered.
So when I heard that there had been a mass shooting at Bondi Beach, at a Hanukkah event, my body reacted before my mind could catch up.
Gun violence is almost unthinkable in Australia. The country limited gun ownership after the Port Arthur massacre in Tasmania in 1996, when we made collective choices about who we wanted to be as a nation. That a shooting could happen here, and that Jews were the target, feels like a rupture in something we believed was settled.
At the time I write this, at least 11 people are dead, including a rabbi. Dozens more are injured. I recognise some of the names being circulated in prayer groups.
Rising antisemitism in Australia
Historically, being Jewish in Australia was not something that required vigilance, it was something you simply were.
Since October 7, that certainty has begun to fray. I have had the persistent feeling that something fundamental has shifted, and that the country I love is becoming less recognisable to me.
Many in Australia’s Jewish community mark Oct. 9, 2023 as the moment the ground moved beneath our feet. The protest outside the Sydney Opera House, where there were open chants of “Where’s the Jews” and “F–k the Jews,” at one of our country’s most iconic sites, with no arrests and no charges, felt like a breaking point.
The months since have been relentless with Jewish Australians assaulted, hateful graffiti, doxxing, Jewish businesses targeted, and a steady drip of hostility that causes us to question whether something is irreversibly changing for Jews in this country.
We have repeatedly reached out to our government, telling them that we do not feel safe. And yet, it has often felt as though these concerns are met with procedural gestures like more security funding, that never quite reach the level of protection and reassurance we are seeking.
When Australia wants to take a zero-tolerance approach to anything, it does so with gusto, ask anyone who lived here during the COVID-19 pandemic. Australian Jews do not feel that the Australian government is taking its approach to antisemitism as seriously as it should.
And so, here we are.
Bondi Beach now symbolizes death and disaster
Images of bodies on Bondi Beach are now seared into my mind. Bondi, the shorthand for Australian ease and sunlight and openness, has become a shrine to death and disaster for Australian Jews.
For most of my life, being a Jewish Australian has felt like a profound blessing. Today I feel something colder. I find myself asking questions that feel both irrational and unavoidable.
Is it foolish to stay in a country where Jews can be killed in public for lighting Hanukkah candles? Am I clinging to a story about Australia that no longer matches reality? Is it naive to assume that Jewish life here will stabilise, rather than continue to narrow?
These thoughts are frightening, but what frightens me more is how practical they suddenly feel. I am a parent, and I take my children to community events. The idea that attending a Hanukkah celebration could be a life-threatening decision is not something I ever imagined I would have to consider in Australia.
This moment forces a reckoning I do not want. It asks whether Jewish belonging in Australia is conditional. Whether safety is fragile. Whether the country my ancestors chose, and that I still love deeply, is willing and able to protect Jewish life.
As I type these words I feel grief not just for the dead tonight, but for a version of Australia that felt solid and reliable, alongside a growing fear that something essential about the way Jews have always lived in this country has already been lost.
The post I grew up believing Australia was the best place to be Jewish. This Hanukkah shooting forces a reckoning I do not want. appeared first on The Forward.