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Just before Hanukkah attack, Jewish mayor of Bondi Beach region had been praised for fighting antisemitism
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.”
A sign reading “Jewish Lives Should Matter, Too” is seen at the floral tributes area outside Bondi Pavilion in Sydney on December 18, 2025, to honour victims of the Bondi Beach shooting. The attack at Bondi Beach on December 14 was one of the deadliest in Australian history. (Photo by DAVID GRAY / AFP via Getty Images)
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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A border official mocked an attorney for observing Shabbat. Orthodox lawyers say the issue is not new.
Gregory Bovino, the Border Patrol official who led immigration raids in Minneapolis, reportedly mocked the Jewish faith of Minnesota’s U.S. attorney during a phone call with other prosecutors in mid-January. According to The New York Times, Bovino complained that Daniel Rosen, an Orthodox Jew, was hard to reach over the weekend because he observes Shabbat and sarcastically pointed out that Orthodox Jewish criminals don’t take the weekends off.
The call took place at a moment of extreme tension in Minneapolis, as federal agents under Bovino’s command carried out an aggressive immigration crackdown that had already turned deadly. It came between the fatal shootings of Renée Good and Alex Pretti, both killed during enforcement operations, and amid fierce backlash from local officials and residents.
Bovino made the remarks in a derisive, mocking tone, the Times reported, casting Shabbat observance as a point of ridicule. Bovino had already drawn national attention for frequently wearing an olive double-breasted greatcoat with World War II-era styling, leading some critics to call him “Gestapo Greg” and accusing him of “Nazi cosplay.” Bovino, who pushed back on those comparisons, has since been reassigned.
Rosen, a Trump nominee, was confirmed as Minnesota’s U.S. attorney in October 2025 after a career in private practice and Jewish communal leadership. He has said that rising antisemitism helped motivate his decision to take the job, and that prosecuting hate crimes would be a priority for his office.
For many Orthodox Jewish lawyers, Bovino’s alleged remarks were not surprising. They echoed a familiar challenge: explaining that Shabbat — a full day offline — is not a lack of commitment, but a religious boundary that cannot be bent without being broken.
In a profession that prizes constant availability, that boundary can carry consequences. Some lawyers say it shows up in subtle ways: raised eyebrows, jokes about being unreachable, skepticism when they ask for time off. Others say it has shaped much bigger decisions, including how visibly Jewish they allow themselves to be at work.
David Schoen, an Orthodox criminal defense attorney who served as lead counsel for President Donald Trump during his second impeachment trial, said he has long been mindful of how religious observance is perceived in the courtroom.
“I have made a conscious decision not to wear my yarmulke in front of a jury,” Schoen said, explaining that jurors often “draw stereotypes from what they see.”
Those concerns were reinforced by experience. Schoen said he has noticed a “definite difference in attitude” from some judges depending on whether he wore a yarmulke. In one case, he recalled, a Jewish judge pulled him aside during a jury trial and told him she thought he had made the right choice — a comment Schoen said he found disappointing.
For Sara Shulevitz, a criminal defense attorney and former prosecutor, the Bovino episode brought back memories from early in her career.
Orthodox and the daughter of a Hasidic rabbi — now married to one — Shulevitz said her unavailability on Jewish holidays was often treated as a professional flaw rather than a religious obligation. “It held me back from getting promotions,” she said.
In court, the scrutiny could be blunt. “I was mocked by a Jewish judge for celebrating ‘antiquated’ Jewish holidays,” she said, recalling requests for continuances for Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah. In another case, she said, a judge questioned her request for time off for Shavuot and suggested she had already “taken off for Passover.”
When another judge assumed Passover always began on the same day in April, “I had to explain the Jewish lunar calendar in the middle of court while everyone was laughing,” she said.
Not every encounter, Shulevitz added, was rooted in hostility. Sometimes judges simply didn’t understand Orthodox practice. When she explained she couldn’t appear on a Jewish holiday, judges would suggest she join the hearing by Zoom — forcing her to explain that Orthodox Jews don’t use electrical devices on Shabbat or festivals.
The misunderstanding often slid into a familiar assumption. “They think you’re lazy,” she said. “It’s not laziness. Any Jewish woman knows how much work goes into preparing for Passover.”
Rabbi Michael Broyde, a law professor at Emory University who studies religious accommodation, said that Bovino’s alleged “derogatory remarks” are “sad and reflects, I worry, the antisemitic times we seem to be living in.”
He added that the criticism of Rosen reflected a basic misunderstanding of how law offices operate, calling it “extremely rare” for a lawyer’s religious practices to interfere with their obligations, especially when senior attorneys delegate work and courts routinely grant continuances.
“No one works 24/7,” Broyde said.
The episode echoed a similar Shabbat-related incident during Trump’s first term. In his 2022 memoir, former Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro described how a group sought to undermine Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner’s role in the 2020 campaign by scheduling a key White House meeting with Trump on a Saturday, knowing Kushner — who is Shabbat observant — would not attend. Navarro titled the chapter recounting the episode, “Shabbat Shalom and Sayonara.”
The tension between Jewish observance and public life is not new. Senator Joe Lieberman, the first observant Jew to run on a major-party presidential ticket, famously walked to the Capitol for a Saturday vote and ate fish instead of meat at receptions. His longtime Senate colleague Chris Dodd joked that he became Lieberman’s “Shabbos goy.”
Still, Schoen said, visibility can cut both ways. During Trump’s impeachment trial, while speaking on the Senate floor, he reached for a bottle of water and instinctively paused. With one hand holding the bottle, he used the other to cover his head — a makeshift yarmulke — before drinking.
The moment was brief, but it did not go unnoticed. In the days that followed, Schoen said he heard from young Jewish men and businesspeople who told him that seeing the gesture made them feel more comfortable wearing their own yarmulkes at work.
The attention, he said, was unexpected. But for some in the Orthodox community, it became a source of pride.
“I felt honored,” Schoen said.
My guess in all seriousness is that he normally wears a yarmulke and this was reflex. Schoen is modern Orthodox so that would make sense. But I defer to @jacobkornbluh https://t.co/MkKx6W03v2
— Jake Tapper 🦅 (@jaketapper) February 9, 2021
Jacob Kornbluh contributed additional reporting.
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Deni Avdija becomes first Israeli to be selected as an NBA All-Star
(JTA) — Portland Trail Blazers star Deni Avdija’s meteoric rise has officially reached a new stratosphere, as the 25-year-old forward has become the NBA’s first-ever Israeli All-Star.
Avdija was named an All-Star reserve for the Western Conference on Sunday, an expected but deserved nod after the northern Israel native finished seventh in All-Star voting with over 2.2 million votes, ahead of NBA legends LeBron James and Kevin Durant. Avdija’s breakout performance this season has earned him repeated praise from James and others across the league.
Avdija’s star turn began last year in his first season with Portland, when he further captured the adoration of Jewish fans across Israel and the U.S. But he took another step forward this season, averaging 25.8 points, 6.8 assists and 7.2 rebounds per game. His points and assists clips are by far the best of his career, and rank 13th and 12th in the NBA, respectively. He’s considered a front-runner for the league’s Most Improved Player award.
For close observers of Israeli basketball, Avdija’s All-Star selection is the culmination of a promising career that began as a teenage star with Maccabi Tel Aviv and made him the first Israeli chosen in the top 10 in an NBA draft.
“Deni Avdija being named an NBA All-Star reserve is an unbelievable achievement in the mind of every Israeli basketball fan,” Moshe Halickman, who covers basketball for the popular Sports Rabbi website, wrote in an essay for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “This is a dream come true for many — a dream that became realistic and even a must-happen during his breakout season — but something that in his first five seasons in the NBA never came across as something that was going to be real.”
Halickman, who has covered Avdija in Washington, D.C., and in Israel, wrote that Avdija is not only considered the greatest Israeli hooper of all time, but perhaps the best athlete to come out of Israel, period.
Oded Shalom, who coached Avdija on Maccabi Tel Aviv’s Under-15 and Under-16 teams, echoed that sentiment in a recent profile of Avdija in The Athletic.
“Even though he is only 25, I think he is Israel’s most successful athlete in history,’’ Shalom said. “We’ve had some great gymnasts — and I hope everyone forgives me for saying it, because we’ve had some great athletes — but I think Deni has become the greatest.”
Avdija’s ascension has also come against the backdrop of the Gaza war and a reported global rise in antisemitism, which he has said affects him personally.
“I’m an athlete. I don’t really get into politics, because it’s not my job,” Avdija told The Athletic. “I obviously stand for my country, because that’s where I’m from. It’s frustrating to see all the hate. Like, I have a good game or get All-Star votes, and all the comments are people connecting me to politics. Like, why can’t I just be a good basketball player? Why does it matter if I’m from Israel, or wherever in the world, or what my race is? Just respect me as a basketball player.”
Now, Avdija’s talents will be on display at the NBA All-Star Game, on Sunday, Feb. 15, in Los Angeles.
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Democratic leader says GOP-led Congress boosted ICE funding while Jewish security is underfunded
House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries used a Jewish gathering in New York on Sunday to spotlight what he described as an imbalance in federal priorities, building on outrage over the Trump administration’s violent crackdown in Minneapolis that resulted in two fatal shootings.
Jeffries criticized the Republican-controlled Congress for boosting immigration enforcement funding by billions while, he said, security funding for Jewish institutions continues to lag amid rising antisemitic threats. He said that in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which passed last July and included cuts to Medicaid, the Department of Homeland Security received an additional $191 billion, including $75 billion for ICE.
“If that can happen, then the least that we can do is ensure that this vital security grant program is funded by hundreds of millions of dollars more to keep the Jewish community and every other community safe,” Jeffries said.
The Nonprofit Security Grant Program, established by Congress in 2005 and administered by FEMA under the Department of Homeland Security, provides funding to nonprofits, including houses of worship, to strengthen security against potential attacks. Congress began significantly increasing funding in 2018 after a wave of synagogue attacks nationwide, bringing the program to $270 million today.
Major Jewish organizations are pushing to raise funding to $500 million amid rising antisemitic threats. Last year, the Trump administration briefly froze the program as part of broader agency cuts, and some groups have been reluctant to apply because applicants must affirm cooperation with federal immigration enforcement.
Jeffries said House Democrats strongly support an increase to $500 million annually to meet escalating security needs. “It’s got to be an American issue, because that is what combating antisemitism should be all about,” he said.
The breakfast, previously held at the offices of the UJA-Federation of New York, was held this year for the first time in the events hall at Park East Synagogue, which was the site of a pro-Palestinian protest last year that featured antisemitic slogans and posters.
Sunday’s program also included remarks from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who told the audience that his support for Jewish security funding will only continue growing under his leadership, calling it his “baby.”
“As long as I’m in the Senate, this program will continue to grow from strength to strength, and we won’t let anyone attack it or undo it,” Schumer said.
Rep. Jerry Nadler, the co-chair of the Congressional Jewish Caucus who is retiring at the end of the year after 36 years in the House, also spoke at the event. Nadler, like several other Democrats in recent months, compared the actions of ICE agents to the Gestapo, Nazi Germany’s secret police. The comparison has drawn sharp criticism from Democrats, Republicans and Jewish leaders.
Support for Israel aid
Both Schumer and Jeffries vowed in their remarks to continue supporting U.S. military assistance to Israel, amid increasing calls within the party for sharper opposition to Israel. Polls show that Democratic voters are increasingly sympathetic to Palestinians. In July, a record 27 Senate Democrats, a majority of the caucus, supported a pair of resolutions calling for the blocking of weapons transfers to Israel.
“I think it’s the humane thing to do to ensure that Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish and democratic state and eternal homeland for the Jewish people,” Jeffries said. The House Minority Leader, who has cultivated close ties with Jewish leaders since his election in 2012, noted that he has visited Israel nine times. He recalled that on his recent trip, Israel’s ambassador to the U.S., Yechiel Leiter, joked that it might be time for Democrats to buy property in Jerusalem.
Schumer, the nation’s highest-ranking Jewish elected official, has seen his popularity decline and has faced calls to step down from his role as leader. On Sunday, he pledged that he “will always fight to give Israel what it needs to protect itself from the many who want to wipe Israel off the face of the map.”
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