I have to admit, I do not know who TV celebrity chef Ed Halmagyi is. I have no idea what television show he was on or the media commitments he has. What I do know is I am appalled at the attack on his establishment on Saturday night, the Hamas symbols painted on his bakery are just not on. Whilst this is a minority of ill informed idiots, there are protests at universities, there was a protest at the Sydney Opera House that embarrassed the whole country.

I really didn’t think anti-Semitism was real anymore, yes, I have been to Auschwitz and Birkenau in Poland back in 2018, so I thought I was pretty well educated on the matter. I have been to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews in Europe, that was in Berlin. I have made such I have read published text on the matter from a perspective of both history and a willingness for this to never happen again.

There was also the Mémorial des Martyrs de la Déportation in Paris, I was able to visit that in 2014, I had visited the memorial previously. That was a memorial for the 200,000 jews deported from Vichy France to the nazi concentration camps on the island of Île de la Cité in the centre of Paris. Countries under Nazi occupation deported their Jewish populations to the concentration camps, everyone knew it was happening and it was highly organised.

Sure, there are still neo-nazi groups around, but I really thought they were right-wing radical minority groups who were largely disconnected from the community. These are fringe groups that have no real traction in a civilised society, sure there are a few weirdos and conspiracy theorists, for the best part, the population is educated. So you can imagine my surprise with the anti-Jewish sediment running in Australia after the October 7 terrorist attacks in 2023. This is especially galling considering this is coming from our higher education institutions, this is not acceptable.