As we mark shloshim for Bondi Beach, we also ask: Can Australia’s multicultural project survive?
SYDNEY — “As a Holocaust survivor, I want my Australia back!”
This was the impassioned plea that garnered rapturous applause from several thousand mourners who converged in the pouring rain at Bondi Beach on Sunday evening to mark shloshim — the 30 days of mourning since the Hanukkah massacre that claimed 15 lives on Dec. 14.
Mark Spigelman, the long-lost cousin of Art Spiegelman, the American cartoonist most famous for his book “Maus,” recalled that he arrived in Sydney as a young refugee. “We were the leaders in the world of multicultural coexistence,” he said. “But on Oct. 7 something happened. Our icon, our Opera House, was taken over by hate. [Then] our wonderful Harbor Bridge was crossed by many well-meaning people but also by hate.
“And I thought: That’s two of the three icons that Sydney is renowned for. Then came Dec. 14.”
The Opera House. The Harbor Bridge. Bondi Beach.
Each one an icon, a totem, a postcard. More than just a place, they imbued the very idea of Australia: a land of optimism, freedom, egalitarianism — the so-called Aussie “fair go.”
Whether the foaming mob of pro-Palestinian protestors chanted “Where’s the Jews?” or “Gas the Jews” on the steps of the Opera House on Oct. 9, 2023, the intent was the same: F–k the Jews.
The “March for........
