Sunday, May 31, 2026

05/30 Links: Mamdani just offered NY's Jews a 234-year-old bargain; Ireland Can't Stop Thinking About Israel; Hezbollah targets Israeli home front with series of rocket, drone attacks

From Ian:

Hen Mazzig: Giant
I went into Giant braced for a hit job, and I was wrong about that. Mark Rosenblatt does not put Roald Dahl in the dock and read out the charges against him. He gives him wit, a beautiful house in the country, a fiancée who adores him, and a new children’s book about to ship... And then he lets Dahl talk. John Lithgow plays him as charming, the kind of man you would want at your table. By the end you understand that the charm and prestige were doing the work the whole time. It was how the cruelty traveled.

Liccy, his fiancée, catches the contradiction before anyone else in the room. You keep telling me the Jews in Israel are violent monsters, she says, and yet you tell me the Jews here are weak. She cannot make the two fit together. She is not meant to. The Jew who is too powerful and the Jew who is too cowardly are the same invented Jew, convicted in both directions at once. The charges against him have never needed to agree with one another.

Then there is Tom, Dahl’s British publisher, who is Jewish and wants no part of any of it. “I’m British!” he proclaims. This has nothing to do with me. Yes, I was rolling my eyes too. Later he exclaimed that when his people do something good he feels a flicker of pride, or maybe not pride, maybe just relief at not having to be ashamed for once. When they do something bad, he is ashamed. It is the diaspora bargain, the hope that enough distance from Israel will buy you a pass. It does not. Dahl turns on him anyway and calls him a house Jew. A house Jew? The man who worked hardest to be left out of it gets the ugliest name in the room.

Dahl saves a stranger argument for Jessie Stone, the executive his American publisher sent to manage him. His real quarrel, he tells her, is with Ashkenazi Jews like her. Europeans, with no claim to the Middle East, unlike the “Arab Jews and the Ethiopian Jews.” The flattery is a weapon. It makes some Jews native so the rest can be called foreign. I hear the identical argument now, usually from people who have never read a line of Dahl. The Israeli becomes the white colonizer and the Mizrahi the real thing, and none of it is meant to honor anyone. It is a way to decide which Jews are allowed to belong where they already live. Dahl got there in 1983. The sorting is a pose, and it does not survive the afternoon. By the end he stops pretending any of them are the real ones. He hates all of us.

The play is funniest right before it is at its worst. Stone presses Dahl on Israel fighting a defensive war and asks what Britain would do if its own cities were bombed. We would never be as barbaric as you are to the Palestinians, he says. She gives him two words back. Dresden. Nagasaki.

Later, cornered, he turns to his cook and asks whether she would ever visit Israel, whether she would boycott an Israeli avocado. Does the avocado know that it’s Israeli, she asks, and the house laughed. The laugh matters. The whole logic of the boycott comes apart the moment a real piece of fruit is in your hand.

What lifts Giant above a period piece is that Dahl wrote the ending himself, in life, and Rosenblatt understood that.
No, ambassador: Israel's anger with France is not 'staged,' it is earned
The ambassador defends France’s stance on Lebanon, but he ignores the rhetoric that accompanied it. To hear Macron accuse Israel of “spreading barbarism in the region” as it fought to stop Hezbollah’s relentless rocket fire was a breaking point. It felt less like a strategic critique and more like a defense of France’s historical raison d’être in Lebanon at the expense of Israeli lives. To use the word “barbarism” against the victims of October 7 while they fight an Iranian proxy is an inversion of reality that no “friend” should utter.

Then came the diplomatic sucker punch: the announcement of an upcoming, unconditional recognition of a Palestinian state. By moving toward recognition then, without a negotiated settlement or the release of our brothers and sisters still rotting in Hamas tunnels, France effectively rewarded the October 7 massacre. This move did not advance peace; it actively derailed the delicate negotiations to free our hostages by signaling to Hamas that it need only wait for the West to hand it a victory.

To add insult to injury, France then moved to boycott Israeli defense companies at major exhibitions. How can a nation claim to support our “right to self-defense” while simultaneously banning the very tools we need to exercise that right? A diplomatic double standard

Ambassador Journès, you claim there is a “double standard” being applied to France. On the contrary, we are simply applying the same standard to you that you apply to us. We see the consistency with which France treats Israeli security as a secondary concern to its own Mediterranean grandstanding.

I am not a fan of the current Israeli government. I protest its policies and worry for our democracy. But being a critic of my government does not make me suicidal for my country. Loving France does not mean I must accept its gaslighting.

We don’t need “smooth conversations,” Mr. Ambassador. We need an ally that doesn’t treat our survival as a bargaining chip for its own regional relevance.

Our anger isn’t “staged.” It is the natural response of a people that expected more from the patrie of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity.
Author Theo Baker says he feels more Jewish as a result of antisemitism at Stanford
Theo Baker describes himself as “an accidental journalist.” But at just 21, his writing has already sent shockwaves through the academic world.

As a freshman at Stanford University in 2022, he exposed then-President Marc Tessier-Lavigne’s decades-long pattern of manipulated data and research in scientific papers he co-authored or supervised, ultimately leading to his resignation. Baker, the son of New York Times reporter Peter Baker and New Yorker columnist Susan Glasser, became the youngest recipient of the George Polk Award for his reporting on Tessier-Lavigne.

During his sophomore year, Baker published a much-discussed essay in The Atlantic called “The War at Stanford,” exploring campus culture following the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks in Israel. He called college “a factory of unreason” and argued that anti-Israel demonstrations and rhetoric had created a pervasive climate of fear, accusing Stanford of failing to adequately condemn the attacks or protect Jewish students, all while training the next generation of tech and industry leaders.

Baker reflects on his turbulent college years in his new memoir and exposé, How to Rule the World: An Education in Power at Stanford University, published earlier this month. The book lays bare an elite university corrupted by Silicon Valley’s pursuit of power, all while Stanford saw a historic rise of antisemitism.

Whether it was navigating the release of ChatGPT or grappling with the impact of the Oct. 7 attacks, Baker said every year of his experience at the elite Palo Alto, Calif., university presented a unique challenge. Weeks away from graduation, Baker spoke with Jewish Insider about his past four years on campus, the role that technology plays in rising antisemitism — and what the future might hold for universities.

Jewish Insider: You’ve described yourself as coming from a home with “just a tiny bit of cultural Judaism.” How has covering antisemitism changed your Jewish identity? What about your relationship with Israel?

Theo Baker: In fall 2022, I went home for Thanksgiving and said, “There’s so much antisemitism at Stanford.” I was shocked by that. It’s not something I really countered growing up. As soon as I arrived at Stanford — even in the first week — someone asked me, “why are all Jews so rich?”

By the end of that year — and this is before Oct. 7 —- someone in my dorm, a kid who was Jewish, talked about being Jewish for the first time and someone put a bunch of swastikas and an image of Hitler on his door later that day.

So Jewishness is an identity and not one I would have placed much investment in prior to coming to college. It was something that I knew about myself but was not particularly salient. Certainly, I, like many college students in the last few years, have been made to feel more Jewish just by the circumstances around us. It was certainly interesting to be here on campus as a reporter when the biggest story happening was something that also intersected with my own background.

I have not taken trips to Israel [in college] but I lived in Israel briefly when my dad was the Jerusalem correspondent for The New York Times. I’ve tried to center my reporting on the things I have expertise on. Stanford is 7,000 miles away from Israel. It’s so fascinating that it became such an important issue for people, and then disappeared seemingly so quickly from the public conversation.


Zohran Mamdani just offered New York's Jews a 234-year-old bargain
In the winter of 1789, a French aristocrat named Stanislas de Clermont-Tonnerre stood in the National Assembly and argued that Jews should be made citizens. He won. But he attached a condition that has shadowed Jewish life ever since. "To the Jews as individuals, everything," he said. "To the Jews as a nation, nothing."

It was emancipation in exchange for disappearance.

You could be a Frenchman of the Mosaic persuasion. You could not be a member of a people. Pray at home, quietly, and the Republic would have you. Stand up in the street as a nation, with your own peoplehood and your own collective fate, and the offer was void.

Zohran Mamdani has just made New York's Jews the same offer. He almost certainly does not know it.

Look at what the mayor actually did. For 61 years, every sitting mayor of New York marched in the Israel Day Parade. Mamdani will not. His police commissioner, Jessica Tisch, will serve as grand marshal, and the city has promised a full security plan.

The whole story sits inside that arrangement. The mayor will send officers to protect the Jewish body. He will not bring himself to honor the Jewish people. He will guard the Jew as an individual citizen entitled to safety, and refuse to stand with the Jew as a member of a nation.

That is Clermont-Tonnerre, almost word for word, 234 years later. Everything to the Jew as an individual. Nothing to the Jew as a people.

'To the Jews as individuals, everything; to the Jews as a nation, nothing'
The man who revived the bargain calls himself the most progressive mayor in America. That is the part that should stop people cold.

The oldest reactionary condition ever placed on Jewish belonging, the demand that Jews shrink from a people into a private faith as the price of acceptance, has just been handed back to the largest Jewish community on earth outside Israel, by a politician who is certain he stands with the marginalized.

He has reinvented the 1789 deal and mistaken it for justice.


‘Outrage, disgrace, disappointment': Israel’s first lady slams UN over sexual violence blacklisting
Israeli first lady Michal Herzog on Friday condemned United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres for placing the Jewish state on a list of parties suspected of committing sexual violence in conflict, calling the move another “stain on the record” of the world body.

“Outrage. Disgrace. Disappointment. I cannot choose the right word for how I feel when reading the U.N. secretary-general’s report on conflict-related sexual violence,” Herzog said.

“As someone who has met with and seen the pain and suffering of the hostages who returned home from unbearable captivity in the dungeons of Gaza, I ask: How can one accept a one-sided report that begins with a paragraph claiming that their accounts of sexual violence cannot be verified?

“If you cannot believe the victims at the start of your report, why should anyone believe the rest of it?” she continued.

“This shameful report is yet another stain on the record of the United Nations. To the brave hostages who endured the hell of sexual violence at the hands of terrorists and returned home: We believe you. We are here for you. And your voices will be heard,” she said.
Sylvan Adams: UN chief ‘morally bankrupt’ for including Israel on sexual violence blacklist
The United Nations’ decision to place Israel on a list of parties suspected of committing conflict-related sexual violence is the latest in a long series of politically motivated actions taken under the “morally bankrupt” leadership of U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, World Jewish Congress-Israel President Sylvan Adams told JNS on Thursday.

“It is in line with the U.N.’s attitude and obsession with Israel. It doesn’t matter whether people are being massacred in Sudan, or that Iran murdered 30,000 to 45,000 of its people over the course of two days—it receives almost no coverage and virtually no condemnation,” Adams said.

“When a poorly sourced, logically impossible and unsubstantiated article by lousy reporter Kristof is published in The New York Times, we end up on a list. It is cynical, pathetic, politically motivated and consistent with the U.N.’s constant Israel-bashing,” he added.

On May 11, the Times published a column by opinion writer Nicholas Kristof citing Palestinian allegations of “widespread Israeli sexual violence against men, women and even children—by soldiers, settlers, interrogators in the Shin Bet internal security agency and, above all, prison guards.”

Among the story’s most extraordinary allegations was a claim that Israeli personnel used dogs to sexually assault Palestinian detainees.

Adams pointed to the timing of the article, noting that it was published one day before the release of a report by the Civil Commission on Oct. 7 Crimes Against Women and Children documenting Hamas’s sexual violence during the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre. He described that report as thorough, well-documented and comprehensive—the “exact opposite” of the Times article.

“The timing is too obvious to be a coincidence. Instead of condemning the terrorists, they created this equivalence between the savagery of those terrorists and the sovereign State of Israel, which lives by the rule of law and punishes wrongdoing when it occurs,” he said. “This is heinous.”


Ireland Can't Stop Thinking About Israel
I watch a lot of soccer, enough that I’m trying to talk my wife into letting me fly to the World Cup this summer. I had never seen a game interrupted by a protest against a country that wasn’t on the pitch. That changed Thursday night in Dublin at the Aviva Stadium. Ten minutes in, the game stopped. Tennis balls came down from the upper tiers, each one printed with a Palestinian flag, and the players stood around on the grass while stewards picked them up. It happened again at twenty minutes, and on and off through the first half.

“Free Palestine,” the crowd chanted. “Stop the game.”

The chants were not spontaneous. Supporters’ groups from across Ireland planned them. The point of it was a match that hasn’t yet been played. Ireland is scheduled to play Israel in the UEFA Nations League in late September, and again in Dublin on October 4th.

The opponent that night was Qatar. Let’s sit with that for a second.

Qatar built its World Cup on migrant workers it treated as disposable, with thousands dying in the years of construction leading up to the tournament. Qatar jails people for being gay and spent more than a decade hosting Hamas's political leadership in Doha. No tennis balls for any of that. Nobody was there to protest Qatar. The target was Israel, a team that won’t arrive for another four months.

At first, I thought it was only in the stands. I was wrong. After the final whistle, RTÉ’s post-match pundit Richie Sadlier, a former Ireland international, stood pitch-side and called the coming fixture against Israel a meeting with a country guilty of “the worst crimes imaginable,” in the middle, he said, of a years-long genocidal campaign.

The opponent on Thursday night was Qatar. This is what RTÉ’s post-match coverage chose to talk about. (Source: RTÉ2)

He couldn’t understand how refusing to play Israel had become a controversial position rather than the obvious one. This is the national public broadcaster, which has impartiality duties written into law, treating one of the most bitterly contested questions on earth as a matter of fact.

Consider the phrase itself: “the worst crimes imaginable.” The ceiling of everything human beings have ever done to one another, delivered from the pitch between bits of team news. You can think the war in Gaza a catastrophe and still notice that this is not a sentence a serious person says about it. Rwanda killed eight hundred thousand people in a hundred days. The Khmer Rouge emptied the cities and buried more than a fifth of the country. Those are the things the words were built for. A phrase of that magnitude, presented as the only reasonable view to describe the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, is a symptom of what Irish discourse on Israel has become.

The framing leaves out something larger still. The war Sadlier was describing began on a morning: the 7th of October 2023, when Hamas crossed the border and killed about twelve hundred people in a day. It was the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, and took some two hundred and fifty more into Gaza as hostages. Hamas killed innocent Jews and Arabs that day. None of that reaches the studio or the stands. The story being told in Dublin starts in the middle, with Israel already the aggressor and the dead of that morning written out of it.

Look at what he was actually objecting to, though. Not a policy. A flag hanging from a pole, an anthem coming over the speakers, some Israeli fans in a block of seats, an official obliged to shake a hand. There’s nothing on that list an Israeli government could change to make it stop, because none of it is about what Israel does. You can’t repeal an anthem. Whatever you make of the war in Gaza, keeping those people out of the stadium doesn’t reach anyone in Jerusalem. It reaches the Israelis who showed up — the players, who don’t set policy, and the fans, who bought tickets to a soccer match.


What’s the Deal With Iran?
When conducting diplomacy, Americans often make two fatal errors: The first is that they tend to ignore or downplay the ideologies and narratives that motivate their counterparts and hope that offering economic benefits will paper over other differences. The other is that they think initial agreements build goodwill that will lead to further, better deals.

These blindnesses contributed to the failures of two of the most consequential American diplomatic acts of the past four decades, the Oslo Accords and the Obama-era JCPOA nuclear agreement with Iran. Oslo was a fine provisional measure for establishing some governance over disputed territory. But it could not lay the foundation for a fuller peace because it did not resolve the fundamental contradiction between Zionism, the belief that the Jewish people should have their own state in their historical homeland, and the anti-Zionism rampant in the region. Similarly, the JCPOA did not lead to a new understanding between America and the "death to America" crowd.

There are two better ways to conduct diplomacy. One is developing a serious understanding of how other countries view their own interests and creating options for them that are more robust than the typical Beltway pablum about overcoming differences and taking risks for peace. When negotiating with people whose goals are either fundamentally opposed to America's or are irrelevant to its interests, the goal of diplomacy should be to change facts on the ground in our favor rather than to create good feelings.

Unlike the JCPOA or the Oslo Accords, the Abraham Accords worked because they fit the overall goals of the Arab countries that joined. They generally saw their fossil fuel reserves as wasting assets and wanted to transition into other industries, including tourism and emerging technologies. Few tourists or investors relish visits to war zones, so this transition requires peace and stability. A partnership with Israel offered important benefits: Israeli military strength was a powerful deterrent for Iranian aggression, and Israeli innovation promised to leap them ahead technologically.

The new leaders in Tehran do not appear likely to abandon their raison d'être, to destroy Israel and harm Americans, so using the negotiations to lock in tangible gains is the best course left. They promised to reopen the Strait during the ceasefire, but did not and triggered the blockade. Imposing consequences for further violations will be important.

So will preventing Iran from reconstituting its war machine. The bombing offensive severely degraded the regime's ability to enrich uranium or build long-range weapons. Removing existing stockpiles of enriched uranium from their control would reduce the threat still further. The mullahs could use any sanctions relief to rebuild their arsenals, but they would risk an uprising from their furious and impoverished subjects.

If the negotiations actually begin, that is. Reports of Revolutionary Guard attacks on international shipping began swirling shortly after Sec. Bessent described Trump’s red lines. Their masters in Tehran are unremittingly hostile to Americans and their allies, after all.
Iran's Regime - No Matter How Hard Any Western Leader Tries to Sell It That Way - Has Not Changed
America should follow its own vital national interests, not the priorities of others who stand to gain from a weakened Iran that will surely have its allies help it regroup.

No country pressing for a softer stance toward Iran really cares about US interests – nor should it. Each one of them is looking only after itself — for economic gains, regional influence, or domestic political stability. They have virtually no concern about the direct threat Iran poses to the United States.

What is most important now is for the US to abandon its illusion that the current Iranian regime -- whatever lower layer is left of it -- will ever alter its stance toward the United States or the West and become a "normal" partner. Iran's regime -- no matter how hard any Western leader tries to sell it that way -- has not changed. It will continue to brutalize its neighbors and its citizens as hard as it can.

[I]t is clear that meaningful change requires changing the regime itself. America should support the Iranian people's aspirations for freedom. Many reject theocracy. Softened stances or premature deals only legitimize and strengthen the current system.

The only reliable partner sharing this burden is Israel.

Sustainable peace will come only from empowering the Iranian people against a system built on hatred, brutality and confrontation. Illusions of reform through softer positions or deals have failed for decades. US interests demand dealing with the root problem: Iran's regime.
Hegseth: Trump will conclude a ‘great deal’ with Iran, or it will face the War Department
U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth reiterated on Saturday that the Trump administration will only conclude a “great deal” with Iran and warned that failure to reach such an agreement could lead to renewed military action.

“Any deal that the president is willing to make, he’s only going to make it if he believes it’s a great deal for our country and the security of the world,” Hegseth said.

“Only one president was willing to lay it out on the line and ensure after 47 years that Iran is not capable of having a nuclear weapon,” he continued. “Those goalposts haven’t shifted at all, which is the expectation of the American people and what we’ve stated to Iran.

“So, in the middle of negotiations, the closer they come to that reality—both now and into the future—the closer we’re going to get to that kind of a deal,” added Hegseth.

“They can either do this now through a deal, and we think we’re in a good place to make that deal, or they can deal with the War Department. And we are prepared—we’re postured even stronger today than we were on day one—to address it that way if we have to. But he [President Trump] would prefer not to.

“Iran knows very, very clearly what our expectations are, and that’s on the negotiating team to deliver. They’re coming in our direction; the talks have been productive. I think they know where it needs to go, and I’m quite confident with our president,” he said.

President Donald Trump stated on Friday that he was lifting the U.S. naval blockade on Iran and that he was meeting in the White House Situation Room to “make a final determination” on an agreement with the Islamic Republic.

“Iran must agree that they will never have a nuclear weapon or Bomb,” the president stated on Friday. “The Hormuz Strait must be immediately open, no tolls, for unrestricted shipping traffic, in both directions.”
IDF chief: Damage inflicted on Hezbollah ‘unprecedented’
More than 7,500 Hezbollah terrorists have been killed since the Iranian-backed terrorist group launched a war against Israel a day after the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, massacre, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir said on Friday.

“The cumulative and multi-system damage inflicted on Hezbollah is significant and unprecedented, with more than 7,500 terrorists eliminated since the start of the war, including 2,500 since the beginning of ‘Operation Roaring Lion,’” Zamir said, referring to the U.S.-Israel military operation against Iran that began on Feb. 28.

“We will continue striking the enemy wherever we can and we will expand upon our achievements,” he added.

“Our objective is clear—to intensify the damage to Hezbollah, push the terror threat away from our civilians, and strengthen the defense of the northern communities. This is the central goal guiding us in every action and every decision,” Zamir said.

“Even at this moment, our soldiers are advancing and operating with determination, in the air and on the ground. We are acting precisely and responsibly; every additional achievement strengthens the security of our civilians and helps create better conditions for improved future security arrangements,” he said during a visit with troops alongside Northern Command chief Maj. Gen. Rafi Milo and other senior officers.

As part of the visit, Zamir conducted an operational assessment at IDF observation posts in the Mount Dov area overlooking the Ayoun Valley and the ridges to the north and west in Southern Lebanon.

“You are operating with creativity, initiative, and responsibility, including moving into new areas, and continuing to push back against the enemy, dismantling its capabilities, and striking key targets,” Zamir told troops.

“There is no place that can serve as a fortress for Hezbollah, and no place where it will have immunity. The Forward Defense Line is a basis for further operations; wherever we identify a threat, and wherever we are required to remove one, we will act,” he said.

“Every blow to Hezbollah is also a blow to the Iranian axis of terror and Iran’s investment in terror proxies in the region. We are prepared for every development and remain at a high level of readiness against Iran as well,” Zamir added.


Hezbollah targets Israeli home front with series of rocket, drone attacks
Hezbollah continued targeting northern Israel on Saturday, launching rocket and explosive drones at civilian communities, the Israel Defense Forces said.

At around 3 p.m. local time, a “suspicious aerial target” launched from Lebanon toward the Galilee Panhandle was intercepted, triggering air-raid sirens in Metula and Kibbutz Kfar Giladi over concerns about falling interceptor debris.

About an hour earlier, another “suspicious aerial target” that did not cross into Israeli territory triggered air-raid sirens in Kibbutz Misgav Am and Metula.

Minutes before that, Israeli air defenses intercepted a Hezbollah drone launched from Lebanon. Concurrently, another aerial object hit inside Israel near the Lebanese border. No injuries were reported.

In the preceding hours, the IDF said several additional rockets were intercepted in at least five separate attacks.

One impact was identified in the Kiryat Shmona area, causing no injuries.

The IDF said on Saturday that, in accordance with a situational assessment, it is preparing for the possibility of additional fire following the advancement of IDF operations in Southern Lebanon.

“The IDF emphasizes that, at this stage, the public should remain vigilant, act responsibly while continuing to adhere to the Home Front Command’s protective guidelines,” the military said.

It added that there are currently no changes to Home Front Command guidelines, and that the public will be informed of any updates.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Friday that IDF troops are operating beyond the Litani River, approximately 18 miles north of the border in Southern Lebanon.

“Our forces crossed the Litani and are operating in Beirut as well as in the Bekaa Valley, across the entire front to strike Hezbollah directly,” Netanyahu said.


Production at Israel’s largest gas field exceeds initial estimates
Israel’s biggest gas field, Leviathan, has exceeded its annual production capacity forecast from 14 billion cubic meters to 15.8 BCM, financial outlet Globes reported on Wednesday.

The first-quarter results were reported by Leviathan partner Ratio Energy, following the connection of a third pipeline to the gas field.

Before the laying of the third pipeline, the site’s production capacity reached 12 BCM per year, the report read.

However, bottlenecks in the transport of gas are still causing delays in maximizing the gas field’s full potential.

The Ashdod-Ashkelon pipeline is slated for completion in June, which will increase the capacity to export gas to Egypt.

The new Nitzana pipeline, set for completion in 2028 after two years of delays, is expected to release the entire bottleneck, according to Globes.

After these projects are complete, Leviathan’s partners—NewMed Energy (45%), Chevron (40%) and Ratio Energy (15%)—will make their increased production available for both domestic and external markets.
With Australia awash in antisemitism, a Jewish cleaner scrubs off Melbourne’s swastikas for free
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 discovery of a trailer filled with explosives said to have been intended to cause a mass-casualty event at a Sydney synagogue.

In December, terrorists opened fire at a Hanukkah event in Sydney’s Bondi Beach, killing 15 attendees in the worst terror attack in Australian history.

Adelist, whose father’s family survived the Holocaust and whose mother’s family survived the Farhud in Iraq, sees removing the graffiti as his community service.

“I arrive and assess the damage. Sometimes it can literally be rubbed off easily. Other times it’s a good 20 or 30 minutes of cleaning,” he said.

For months after October 7, Adelist was called to clean antisemitic graffiti almost every single day, including weekends.





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