With Australia awash in antisemitism, a Jewish cleaner scrubs off Melbourne’s swastikas for free |
MELBOURNE, Australia — When 37-year-old father of three Heshy Adelist started his cleaning business around five years ago, he had carefully plotted how to make it profitable. Spending more than 1,000 pro bono hours scrubbing away antisemitic graffiti from walls, fences, schools and synagogues across Melbourne was not part of that plan.
Prior to the bloody Hamas-led massacres in Israel on October 7, 2023, Adelist’s business, HGA Cleaning Solutions, was steadily growing. Based in Melbourne, Australia, where he has lived his entire life, he specializes in pressure cleaning, focusing mainly on windows and gutters. His days were mostly spent restoring apartment buildings, preparing homes for sale and washing down driveways until they sparkled.
Then came October 7, 2023, and almost immediately, Adelist’s phone started ringing.
As antisemitism surged across Australia amid the war in Gaza sparked by the Hamas onslaught, synagogues, Jewish schools, communal buildings and private Jewish homes around Melbourne were targeted with hateful antisemitic graffiti. Swastikas were daubed on fences and footpaths, and violent or profane messages such as “Fuck the Jews” and “Kill the Jews” were spray-painted onto fences.
Adelist received calls asking him to remove the graffiti because many in the Jewish community knew he had professional cleaning equipment and experience removing difficult stains quickly.
Despite spending an estimated 1,000-plus hours scrubbing the hateful messages off walls and fences across the city, Adelist has never charged for his work.
“I don’t want to be paid for that, it’s my mitzvah,” said Adelist, using the Hebrew word for good deed.
The beleaguered community has, since October 7, suffered one of the worst waves of antisemitism globally. The Times of Israel has reported that in the last three years, Jews in Australia have seen synagogues, schools and homes firebombed, two nurses threatening to kill Jewish patients in their hospital, and the........