In one of the first interviews I did after Bondi, a reporter said something I have not been able to shake.

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"It feels like we're living in a twilight zone."

At the time, I thought I understood her. I don't think I did.

In the months since, those words have taken on a far deeper meaning, becoming almost painfully reflective of what I have watched unfold.

What has felt so strange is how quickly things once beyond argument have become negotiable. Behaviour that would have shocked us is debated. Hatred is qualified, explained or excused depending on who it is directed towards. The line shifts slowly enough that we can almost convince ourselves it has not moved.

For Jewish Australians, the numbers are confronting.

In the decade before October 2023, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry recorded an average of 342 anti-Jewish incidents a year. In the year to September 2025, it recorded 1654.

Then, on December 14, 15 people were murdered at Bondi Beach during a Chanukah celebration, in what the Prime Minister described as the deadliest terrorist attack ever carried out on Australian soil.

It would be a grave mistake to understand that only as a Jewish problem.

When hatred against one group is explained away because the politics are complicated, the target is unpopular or the grievance feels justified, we lower a standard that protects all of us.

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke described a "direct line between the temperature in society and the likelihood of attacks". He spoke about Bondi alongside anti-First Nations extremism, an anti-Muslim terror case and the Christchurch massacre.........

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