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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.
The post Just before Hanukkah attack, Jewish mayor of Bondi Beach region had been praised for fighting antisemitism appeared first on The Forward.
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Israel Votes in Favor of Iran Joining International Cheer Union: ‘The Iranian People Are Not Enemies’
Ludmila Yasinska, far right, posing with members of the Israeli Cheer Union competing at the 2026 ICU World Cheerleading Championships in Orlando, Florida. Photo: Provided
Israel’s representative at the International Cheer Union (ICU) General Meeting in Orlando, Florida, this week voted in favor of Iran becoming a member nation of the organization.
Ludmila Yasinska, president of the Israeli Cheer Union, attended the annual meeting in-person and voted for Iran joining the ICU, the official world governing body for cheerleading.
The decision was approved, and a total of five applicant countries have newly joined the organization: Iran, Sint Maarten, Iceland, Ethiopia, and Sierra Leone. The ICU now has 126 national federation members across all continents, and each receives one vote for all General Meeting voting processes.
“The vote in favor of Iran’s participation in international competitions expresses a clear distinction between the Iranian people and the terrorist regime,” Yasinska told The Algemeiner. “It is a values-based position that sees the Iranian people not as enemies, but as human beings who seek to take part in the international arena, to compete, and to be partners in an open and fair world. It is also a statement of hope — that despite the complex reality, there is room to distinguish between citizens and leadership, and to extend a hand toward a different future.”
“May the day come when we can stand side by side and cheer together,” she added.
According to experts, the vast majority of the Iranian people oppose the authoritarian, Islamist regime that has ruled the country since 1979. In January, the regime’s security forces killed and imprisoned tens of thousands of civilians to crush anti-government protests that erupted across Iran.
The ICU General Meeting took place before the start of the 2026 ICU World Cheerleading Championships. This year, Israel competed in the international competition for the first time ever. The championships started on Wednesday and concluded on Friday.
“It was an amazing feeling and a great source of pride to represent Israel on the world stage,” Yasinska told The Algemeiner. “Despite all the difficult times and the situation in Israel before the championship, we never stopped believing or working toward this moment.”
The competition occurred amid a ceasefire pausing the US-Israeli military campaign against Iran, whose leaders regularly call for Israel’s destruction. Before the temporary truce went into effect, Israelis spent weeks running to bomb shelters as the Iranian regime launched barrages of ballistic missiles at the Jewish state. Iran’s chief terrorist proxy, Hezbollah, also fired rockets at northern Israel from Lebanon.
“There were times when we had to train on Zoom because we could not leave our homes. We also had one intensive week where some of our girls from the north stayed in our homes, just so we could have the opportunity to train together as one team,” Yasinska explained. “After all of this hard preparation, sacrifice, and determination, to finally represent our country was incredibly emotional and meaningful. It is a huge honor for us, and it was very important to show the world that Israel is on the international map of this sport — standing strong, competing proudly, and doing the very best we can.”
In 2021, the ICU was granted full recognition by the International Olympic Committee.
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London Gallery Cancels Antisemitic Art Exhibit After Pro-Israel Lawyers Intervene
Demonstrators attend the “Lift The Ban” rally organised by Defend Our Juries, challenging the British government’s proscription of “Palestine Action” under anti-terrorism laws, in Parliament Square, in London, Britain, Sept. 6, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Carlos Jasso
A gallery in southwest London has canceled a traveling art exhibition that it was set to host next month after a group of pro-Israel lawyers expressed concern about the show’s artwork promoting antisemitic content, including conspiracy theories about Jews and images that demonize Israeli and Jewish individuals.
“Drawings Against Genocide” by British artist Matthew Collings was set to be open at the Delta House Gallery in Wandsworth from May 16-24. The gallery is owned by Pineapple Corporation and Delta House Studios Ltd. After UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI), an association of British lawyers who support the Jewish state, wrote a letter to the gallery’s owners about the exhibit’s antisemitic content, they canceled the event.
“We were unaware of this intention for an exhibition as it was arranged without any consultation with the owners of the artist studios at Riverside Road,” Pineapple Corporation Chairman Tom Berglund wrote in a letter to UKLFI on Friday that confirmed the exhibit has been called off. “We all hope the issues on the ground in the Middle East can eventually be resolved,” he added.
Last month, “Drawings Against Genocide” was displayed at a gallery in Margate, a seaside town in England, and garnered widespread criticism for promoting anti-Israel and antisemitic narratives and imagery.
A spokesperson for UKLFI said freedom of expression “does not extend to the promotion of material that relies on antisemitic tropes, dehumanizing imagery, and conspiracy narratives about Jews.”
“There is a real danger in normalizing antisemitic imagery and narratives in cultural spaces,” the spokesperson added. “When material that demonizes Jews or recycles classic antisemitic tropes is presented as legitimate artistic expression, it risks lowering the threshold for what is considered acceptable in public discourse. At a time when Jewish communities in London and across the UK are already facing a significant rise in antisemitic incidents and attacks, it is particularly important that institutions act responsibly. The wider environment in which hatred is trivialized or excused can contribute to a climate in which such attacks become more likely.”
Collings’ drawings feature swastikas, often alongside the flag of Israel, show Jews surrounded by skulls, depict ancient Israelites with horns, and compare Israel to Nazi Germany. One drawing shows Sotheby’s French-Israeli owner Patrick Drahi as a “fanatic Zionist” who eats babies alive. Others demonized in Collings’ work include Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, pro-Israel writer and journalist David Collier, and film director Quentin Tarantino, who resides in Israel with his family.
Some drawings also address the deadly Hamas-led terrorist attack on Oct. 7, 2023, in Israel. One artwork denies that sexual violence took place during the massacre while another falsely claims there is “no reliable evidence whatsoever” about some of the violence orchestrated by the Hamas terrorist organization.
UKLFI told the gallery’s owners that Collings’ artwork could “potentially engage provisions under the Public Order Act 1986 and expose both the artist and the gallery to legal risks.”
Collings insists that his artwork is criticism of Israel and Zionism, but not antisemitic. He wrote in an Instagram post that his drawings “are a window into the Zionist lobby’s connection to our government, mainstream media, and the art world. The images depict individuals implicated in the genocide in Gaza as well as challenge the notion that being against Zionism is antisemitic.” He said in a separate post that his art exhibit “fights against the atrocities Israel is committing” and will “go on touring until Palestine is free.”
“Venues around the world are lined up to host it. Sold works are replaced by new ones,” he added. “Ongoing realities are pictured. A real bloody genocide is the subject. And be damned to unreal absurdities uttered by Zionist defenders of the indefensible.”
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Shabbos Kestenbaum: Administrators Have a Duty to Protect Jewish Students and Continue to Fail
The campus of Smith College in April 2024. Photo: Instagram/Screenshot
Across the country, we’re watching the same play staged, with the same script. Earlier this month, students at Ohio University passed a BDS referendum. Last week, a different BDS referendum passed at UC Berkeley. At Smith College, the Advisory Committee on Investor Responsibility considered a BDS proposal on April 16 and then went silent on its timeline. On April 22, at San Diego State, the student government held its final vote and passed a BDS resolution.
Four campuses, four tests, and the question for every administrator is the same: Will you stand up now, or will you do what Harvard did and let the crisis metastasize? I know the answer when administrators fail.
As a former Harvard student, I watched an institution ignore more than 40 written appeals to its antisemitism task force. I filed a federal Title VI lawsuit as a last resort. A federal judge rejected Harvard’s motion to dismiss. Harvard adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism in January 2025 as part of a related settlement, and my case settled four months later. But none of that had to happen. If Harvard had rejected the ideological premises of the BDS movement clearly and early, rather than treating them as legitimate academic discourse, the crisis that engulfed its campus might have been contained.
The four campuses now facing BDS votes should learn from Harvard’s failure, not repeat it.
Ohio University represents the worst kind of response: the response that isn’t. When a BDS referendum passed on campus, the university’s only pushback came through Senior Director of Communications Dan Pittman, who told Jewish outlets that the university “will neither consider, nor act upon, any resolution or referendum that proposes illegal actions.” The statement was never posted on the university’s official channels. The president’s office has said nothing publicly. A quiet quote buried in the Jewish press is not a condemnation. It is a hope that the story will disappear. American Jewish students at Ohio University deserve a public, forceful, unambiguous rejection from President Lori Stewart Gonzalez, delivered on university letterhead and posted to the university’s own website.
UC Berkeley now faces the same test. On April 18, the student government’s referendum passed, yet Chancellor Rich Lyons has not publicly rejected the result. Berkeley has already lived through the consequences of administrative hesitation. In March 2026, Berkeley Law paid $1 million to settle a federal discrimination lawsuit after its “Jewish-free zones” and harassment of American Jewish students became national news. The university has been sued once for antisemitism. It should not need to be sued twice before its chancellor states plainly that the endowment will not be conscripted as a political weapon.
Smith College has an easier task and has somehow found a way to fail at it. In March 2024, the Advisory Committee on Investor Responsibility rejected an earlier BDS proposal, finding Smith’s exposure to the targeted companies “negligible and entirely indirect.” On April 16, the committee considered a second, nearly identical proposal. Smith spokesperson Deb McDaniel stated that she “was not aware” of any formal timeline for the board to vote on the matter. That is the institutional equivalent of closing the blinds. Smith does not need a new study, a new committee, or a summer recess before delivering the same answer it delivered last year. The trustees should reaffirm the 2024 decision on the merits, in public, before the next academic year begins. Every week of silence is a week in which American Jewish students at Smith spend wondering whether their college has quietly switched sides.
This week, San Diego State University passed its BDS resolution, and the administration must clearly demonstrate that no divestment demand will be acted upon. President Adela de la Torre should not wait for the student government to humiliate itself on camera before defending the university’s fiduciary duty. American Jewish students at SDSU are entitled to know where their president stands, and they are entitled to know it in public, in writing, and this week.
These four cases share a single feature: Administrators who know the right answer and are hoping someone else will deliver it for them. Brown’s Corporation rejected divestment in October 2024. Bowdoin rejected it in March 2025. Dartmouth’s committee rejected it nine to zero. Columbia’s president said the university “will not divest from Israel.” Every institution that has engaged the question seriously has reached the same conclusion. The problem is not that the case against BDS is weak. The problem is that too many administrators would rather be quietly correct than publicly brave.
Quiet is not an option anymore. A 2026 study found that 42 percent of American Jewish students have experienced antisemitism on campus, and 34 percent hide their Jewish identity out of fear. These numbers are not abstractions. They are the direct product of administrative timidity in the face of a movement whose explicit goal is the delegitimization of the Jewish state and the isolation of American Jewish students on American campuses.
On Oct. 7, 2023, young American Jews woke up. We are not going back to sleep. We are watching Ohio University, UC Berkeley, Smith College, and San Diego State. We expect administrators who were hired to protect students to do their job.
Shabbos Kestenbaum is a political commentator at PragerU and a former lead plaintiff in a civil rights lawsuit against Harvard University.