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What can really be done to prevent antisemitic attacks like Bondi Beach?
In the wake of the horrific antisemitic attack in Sydney, Australia, many have called for a stronger response to antisemitism – in Australia and elsewhere – and for us to do more to combat it.
But what would that actually mean in practice? This is not an easy question to answer.
Arguably, the first step in treating an illness is to diagnose it as precisely as possible, with as much objectivity as possible. Yet the demands of reason and those of emotion are at odds with one another. There is a visceral appeal in refusing to go beyond the act of violence itself. Jews were targeted “just for being Jews,” we are told. Antisemitism is purely bigotry – a blind, timeless hatred that has existed since time immemorial.
Lately, this view has been called “Judeo-Pessimism,” since it holds out no hope for change. If antisemitism is an eternal, constant, baseless hatred of Jews across time and space, for any reason or none at all, it can never be eradicated and must only be met with force. That is pessimistic indeed.
Fortunately, as emotionally resonant as this account may be, it flies in the face of the available evidence.
The father-son murderers, Sajid and Naveed Akram, have known links to ISIS. And, according to Israeli intelligence sources, ISIS has released several statements explicitly calling for attacks against Christians and Jews in revenge for Gaza, which it describes as but the latest spasm of violence directed against Muslims by the West (Christians as well as Jews), like others in Syria, Iraq, Libya, Sinai, and Yemen.
So, the Sydney attack was both antisemitic and anti-Israel in nature; it punished innocent Jews for Israel’s perceived sins, as if attendees at a Chabad Hanukkah celebration are culpable for (or even supported) the war in Gaza. (The attacks outside a Manchester synagogue in October were similarly motivated.)
But once again, precision is needed. Some pundits and Jewish leaders – Bret Stephens, David Frum, Deborah Lipstadt – have rushed in to insist that this attack is what people mean by “Globalize the Intifada,” the infamous cri de coeur of some Palestinian protesters.
Not likely. In fact, ISIS and Hamas loathe one another – so much so that there was even a conspiracy theory among Gazans that ISIS was secretly being supported by Israel and the United States, in part because it prioritized the fight against Syria over the fight against Israel. ISIS also opposes Palestinian nationalism (and thus the Intifada) because they seek to unite the entire Muslim world in a single umma governed by Islamic Law (and by their own clerics). ISIS has no interest in the Intifada, globalized or otherwise. Nor, of course, does an ISIS-affiliating terrorist care what American campus activists or mayor-elect have to say.
The takeaway: Don’t believe anyone who says that a terrorist attack confirms their prior beliefs.
In light of how little we presently know about the motivations for this attack, what can be done?
The most obvious answer is increased law enforcement. In this case, Australia was already doing a lot: Jewish institutions already had beefed-up security in place, in part paid for by public funds; Australia has strict gun laws; and when antisemitic incidents took place over the last year, Australia’s prime minister and other officials have made strong, unequivocal statements condemning them.
But antisemitic violence has been escalating there in recent years – a synagogue was nearly burned down a year ago – and many have complained that Australia has not taken the threat seriously enough. If that is true (and presumably there will be an investigation), then obviously, the government must do better.
But Jews cannot Security ourselves into absolute safety. Law enforcement can’t protect everyone everywhere, or stop all hate speech everywhere. There are bigots everywhere and nowhere today, especially online, and the few global actors who could really prevent hate speech from spreading – the tech companies – have flatly stated that they will be doing so less in the future, not more. (If anyone deserves public pressure, it is surely them.)
But if law enforcement alone can’t solve this problem, what else can help?
I admit that my answer may seem a little idealistic. But given that an Australian Muslim, Ahmed al Ahmed, has emerged as a hero of this story, perhaps it’s worth remembering that while there may be hundreds of thousands of ISIS or Hamas supporters, there are two billion Muslims in the world and they hold a wide range of beliefs. Imagine if a thousand imams and other religious leaders denounced the attack in Sydney, or if pro-Palestinian activists voiced support for the Palestinian struggle for liberation and opposition to the targeting of any civilians anywhere.
Contrary to what the Sam Harrises of the world say, these voices do exist. I know some of them myself, and there are many with large followings. Here’s Mo Husseini, for example, responding to Sydney:
View on Threads
But does the Trump administration, or the American Jewish establishment, do anything to help them? Quite the contrary. Pro-Palestinian activists (and even some liberal Zionists) are condemned, cancelled, doxxed, ridiculed, trolled, labeled as bigots, and even threatened with deportation. Moderate Palestinians are endlessly undermined by right-wing Israeli governments, who make them look foolish by expanding settlements, allowing settlers to run amok in the West Bank with impunity, and placing roadblocks in the way of Palestinian commercial and residential development.
Meanwhile, here at home, President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and other figures in the Republican party regularly (including this week) traffic in broad, bigoted generalizations about Muslims, as do, sadly, many in the Jewish community. Consider this repellant diatribe posted by Rep. Randy Fine of Florida after the Sydney attack:
A few weeks ago, two National Guardsmen were shot in DC by a Muslim terrorist.
Today, Muslim terrorists killed twelve innocent lives in Australia on the first day of Hanukkah.
How many more times is this going to happen until we wake up?
Islam is not compatible with the…
— Congressman Randy Fine (@RepFine) December 14, 2025
Islam is not compatible with the West? Could we imagine someone condemning all of Christianity for the bigotry of Nick Fuentes? Or all Jews for the racism of Itamar Ben Gvir or the crimes of Jeffrey Epstein?
Of course, that’s just what antisemites do, isn’t it?
If we want relatively moderate Muslims, Palestinians, and pro-Palestinian activists to reduce the appeal of ISIS, Hamas, and other terrorist organizations, we have to strengthen their hand against the fundamentalists. But the Israeli and American governments, and much of the Jewish community, have been rushing in the opposite direction for decades now.
When (relatively) moderate Palestinians want to build a new city in the West Bank, Israel should help them, not stand in their way. When extremist Israeli nationalists destroy olive groves and conduct pogroms, we should speak loudly in opposition to them, not pretend it isn’t happening and will hopefully go away. And when Jews have the chance to work together with Muslim leaders with whom we may disagree, we should approach them with open minds, not Mamdani Monitors and incendiary rhetoric about enemies of the Jews.
I am under no illusions. No amount of goodwill is going to erase the reality of the videos and images from Gaza that people watched for two years. Whether or not the carnage in Gaza motivated the Sydney terrorists, the sheer brutality of the war, and the likely war crimes that accompanied it, are a nearly insurmountable obstacle.
It is also true that, as I have written many times before, there is far too much stochastic terrorism on the Left: using the harshest language possible to describe the “enemy,” equating all Jews with Zionists and all Zionists with genociders. And any time Jews are targeted – not just with violence but also with taunts, graffiti or angry protests – the line has been crossed.
But there must at least be some vision for the future. People like Rep. Fine have no hope to offer Jews or Israelis. For one thing, there are four million Muslims in America. Is his proposal to gradually make life so miserable for them that they all emigrate, or somehow decide to befriend their oppressors and make nice? Does that make any sense at all?
I’m under no delusion that moderate voices can prevail over every extremist. But when I see Israelis and Palestinians, Jews and Muslims, working together in groups like Standing Together, Rabbis for Human Rights, the Sulha Peace project, IfNotNow, Seeds of Peace, and many others, I at least have hope that the feedback loops of Israeli and Palestinian extremism can be interrupted, and that maybe someday the balance might tip. I can at least imagine a world in which the people working for coexistence are supported, rather than stigmatized, prosecuted, and banned from community life.
And even if only for our own sakes, let alone the lives of others, I can imagine a world in which the conditions that cause people to become murderers are less prevalent than they are now. Today, that is the most I can hope for.
The post What can really be done to prevent antisemitic attacks like Bondi Beach? appeared first on The Forward.
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Trump Expands US Travel Ban to Include Syria, Palestinian Territories Due to Security Concerns
US President Donald Trump meets with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa at the White House, Washington, DC, US, Nov. 10, 2025. Photo: Screenshot
US President Donald Trump on Tuesday announced sweeping new restrictions that will bar individuals with Palestinian Authority–issued travel documents along with all Syrian nationals from entering the United States, citing persistent security, vetting, and identity-verification failures.
The White House released a fact sheet explaining that nationals from Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, and South Sudan will also be denied entry. Trump administration officials framed the move as a response to what they described as systemic deficiencies in governance, cooperation, and counterterrorism controls.
“The restrictions and limitations imposed by the proclamation are necessary to prevent the entry of foreign nationals about whom the United States lacks sufficient information to assess the risks they pose, garner cooperation from foreign governments, enforce our immigration laws, and advance other important foreign policy, national security, and counterterrorism objectives,” the fact sheet said.
The proclamation places Palestinian Authority travel papers in the same category as documents issued by states deemed unable or unwilling to meet minimum US security standards.
“Several US-designated terrorist groups operate actively in the West Bank or Gaza Strip and have murdered American citizens. Also, the recent war in these areas likely resulted in compromised vetting and screening abilities,” the fact sheet provided by the administration read.
In explaining its decision, the White House cited the “weak or nonexistent control exercised over these areas” by the Palestinian Authority, arguing that governmental failure to mitigate terrorist threats in these areas have made it impossible to ensure that civilians in the West Bank are “properly vetted and approved for entry into the United States.”
The administration said the decision reflects long-standing concerns raised by US security agencies regarding the lack of reliable civil registries, inconsistent identity verification, and the presence of terrorist networks operating in areas under Palestinian Authority jurisdiction. The restrictions are based on documentation and vetting standards rather than ethnicity or religion, underscoring that lawful permanent residents and certain narrowly defined exceptions remain in place.
In addition, the administration has placed an expansive travel ban on Syria, noting that the country is “emerging from a protracted period of civil unrest and internal strife.” The administration also said that the country possesses a high visa overstay rate.
“While the country is working to address its security challenges in close coordination with the United States, Syria still lacks an adequate central authority for issuing passports or civil documents and does not have appropriate screening and vetting measures,” the administration wrote.
The White House has signaled a cautious warming in its relationship with Syria’s new leadership, marked by increased diplomatic engagement. In November, Trump hosted the first-ever visit by a Syrian president to Washington, DC, vowing to help Syria as the war-ravaged country struggles to come out of decades of international isolation.
“We’ll do everything we can to make Syria successful,” Trump told reporters after his White House meeting with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, a former al Qaeda commander who until recently was sanctioned by the US as a foreign terrorist with a $10 million bounty on his head.
Sharaa led Islamist rebel forces that toppled longtime Syrian autocratic leader Bashar al-Assad, an ally of Iran, last year. Since taking power, he has sought to depict himself as a moderate leader who wants to unify his country and attract foreign investment to rebuild it after years of civil war. Many foreign leaders and experts have been skeptical of Sharaa, however, questioning whether he is still a jihadist trying to disguise his extremism.
The US has moved to lift many crippling sanctions it had imposed on Syria for years when Assad was in power.
In June, Trump had announced that citizens of 12 countries would be banned from visiting the US and those from seven others would face restrictions. The expansion of the policy announced on Tuesday will go into effect on Jan. 1, 2026.
The White House framed the travel ban expansion as part of the administration’s broader efforts to secure the nation’s borders and minimize threats from malicious foreign actors.
“It is the president’s duty to take action to ensure that those seeking to enter our country will not harm the American people,” the fact sheet read
The administration also emphasized the legality of the act, citing Supreme Court precedent which upheld previous travel bans, ruling that it “is squarely within the scope of presidential authority.”
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At White House Hanukkah party, Trump says Congress ‘is becoming antisemitic’
(JTA) — President Donald Trump said Congress “is becoming antisemitic” and warned about what he said was the fading influence of the “Jewish lobby” and “Israeli lobby” in an address to his Jewish supporters at a White House celebration marking the third night of Hanukkah.
During his remarks, the president also honored the victims of the recent Hanukkah terrorist attack in Australia and joked with his largest Jewish benefactor about her bankrolling a third presidential run prohibited by the U.S. Constitution.
“My father would tell me, the most powerful lobby that there is in this country is the Jewish lobby. It is the Israeli lobby,” Trump mused. “It is not that way anymore. You have a lot of people in your way. They don’t want to help Israel.”
Trump celebrated his own Israel policies, including a recent ceasefire agreement brokered with Hamas that returned Israeli hostages from Gaza but has not ended violence in the region. He has vowed to move the ceasefire into its second phase, accounting for Gaza’s postwar governance, in early 2026.
He also warned the room, “You have a Congress in particular which is becoming antisemitic.” He singled out “AOC plus three” — a reference to the progressive House “Squad” led by New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — and Rep. Ilhan Omar, whom Trump says “hates Jewish people.”
Trump also blamed universities for inculcating anti-Israel sentiment, and predicted that Harvard, with which his administration has been embroiled in lengthy settlement talks over antisemitism-related fines, “will pay a lot of money.”
Trump’s audience included Jewish Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Chabad-Lubavitch leader Rabbi Levi Shemtov, Holocaust survivors, and conservative pro-Israel megadonor Miriam Adelson. He brought Adelson to the podium with him, calling her his “number one” financial supporter.
Adelson, in turn, implied that she and pro-Israel legal scholar Alan Dershowitz believed there would be a way to keep Trump in power beyond his two-term limit.
“I met Alan Dershovitz, and he said, ‘The legal thing, about four more years,’ and I said, ‘Alan, I agree with you.’ So, we can do it. Think about it,” Adelson told a smiling Trump as attendees chanted, “Four more years!”
“She said, ‘Think about it, I’ll give you another $250 million,’” Trump quipped.
Early in his remarks, Trump turned to the Bondi Beach massacre at a Chabad-hosted menorah lighting. “Let me take a moment to send the love and prayers to the entire nation, to the people, of Australia and especially all those affected by the horrific and antisemitic terrorist attack — and that is exactly what it is, antisemitic — that took place on a Hanukkah celebration in Sydney,” he said. “What a terrible thing. We don’t learn.”
He also reflected on the meaning of the holiday.
“Against overwhelming odds, a small band of Jewish fighters rose up to defend the Jewish people’s right to worship freely,” Trump said. “The miracle of Hanukkah has reminded us of God’s love for the Jewish people, as well as their enduring resilience and faith in the face of centuries of persecution, centuries. And it continues.”
Absent from the Hanukkah party was the White House’s own, first menorah, added to its collection in 2022 under President Biden.
The post At White House Hanukkah party, Trump says Congress ‘is becoming antisemitic’ appeared first on The Forward.
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Australia’s Yiddish community is thriving, not reviving
As a professional translator of Yiddish literature, I was surprised by the characterization of the Australian Jewish community’s connection to the Yiddish language in the recent Forward piece “Australia’s Jewish community is defined by Holocaust survivors, Yiddishkeit and immigrants.”
Australia’s Jewish community has indeed been shaped by the Yiddish language. This is why, when I was a Yiddish Book Center translation fellow, I used the small travel stipend that came with the fellowship to visit Melbourne, the center of Australian Yiddishkayt.
What I was surprised by in the Forward‘s article, (which cites a Vice article from 2019 as its source) was the characterization of Yiddishkayt in Australia as a “revival,” with “young people who view it as a ‘language of protest’ leading the charge.”
What is remarkable about the Melbourne Jewish community’s connection to the Yiddish language is not that it has been revived, but rather that it has been sustained, for over a hundred years, thanks in large part to the role the Jewish Labor Bund has played in shaping the Jewish community of Melbourne. The Kadimah Jewish Cultural Center and Yiddish Library has a name that literally means “forward” in Yiddish and Hebrew. They have been leading the charge for 110 years. The particular young people mentioned in the Forward‘s article are new arrivals.
One might think, reading this piece, that teaching Yiddish as a subject at Sholem Aleichem College was a recent development, rather than the central reason for the founding of the school over 40 years ago, with earlier Bundist-modeled Yiddish-language Sunday schools preceding it.
In addition to Sholem Aleichem college, there is also the SKIF youth group, which Melbournian Bundist families have been sending their children to since 1950. When I visited Melbourne in 2019, I attended SKIF’s annual Warsaw Ghetto Uprising Commemoration, which featured children and teenagers reciting poetry and texts from the Warsaw Ghetto in the original Yiddish, a sharp contrast to the recent Yiddish learners profiled in the Vice article the Forward piece linked to, one of whom had only recently learned that bagel was a Yiddish word.
This is not to shame newer learners of Yiddish. We all have to start somewhere. I welcome everyone, Jewish and not, who decides to learn, but Yiddish is not only a language of protest. It is first and foremost a language of life, one that I hope will continue to be sustained in Australia following this horrific attack.
The post Australia’s Yiddish community is thriving, not reviving appeared first on The Forward.