DVIR ABRAMOVICH: The same forces driving violence against Jews in the US are thriving in Australia

You’re walking with friends. It’s a quiet Sunday. You’re holding a flag. You’re walking not for war. Not for politics. You’re walking to call attention to hostages — women, men, and children — still being held in Gaza.

Then a man appears. He pulls out bottles of liquid. He lights them and throws them.

And then your clothes are on fire.

This happened today. In Boulder, Colorado. In broad daylight.

At a peaceful walk called Run for Their Lives, a weekly event organised to support the Israeli hostages, a man reportedly attacked Jewish participants with Molotov cocktails. Several were burned. One woman, according to witnesses, was wrapped in an Israeli flag. She now has burns across her body.

This wasn’t an outburst. It was the end of a fuse that has been burning for months.

And what I keep thinking is this. Fire doesn’t start with fire. It starts with words.

The slogans at protests. The chants that reduce Jews to monsters. The banners that call Zionism a disease. The conversations where Jewish students are made to apologise for their identity. The posters that accuse every Jew of genocide. The online posts that treat Jewish existence as a threat.

When that kind of language floods the culture, something happens. It doesn’t stay rhetoric. It moves. It festers.

It crosses oceans. It enters campuses. It fuels rage. And eventually. Someone throws a bottle.

And I am furious. Furious at how easily this could happen. Furious at how unsurprising it is. This wasn’t unimaginable. It was inevitable. Anyone paying attention could see where this was heading. The signs were everywhere — but too many looked away.

Too many said, “It’s complicated.” Too many thought the words would never become fire.But they have.

The Adass Synagogue in Melbourne was firebombed in 2024. Jews were targeted at their place of worship, their sacred space, their sanctuary. And now, a year later, they are being set on fire on the street for walking with flags.

Let me be direct.

A man threw fire at Jews for walking quietly with flags.

He did not ask who they voted for. He did not ask what their position was on Netanyahu. He did not ask whether they supported a two-state solution.

He saw people with Stars of David and he lit them on fire.

And around the world, that kind of thinking is spreading.

In recent months, two Jewish embassy workers were shot in Washington. Earlier this year, a Jewish school in Sydney was spray-painted with anti-Semitic graffiti. Jewish students have been harassed at universities and online.

And still the world hesitates. Still, too many people soften their language. Still, they ask if maybe there is some larger context to consider. No. Not here. Not now. Not when Molotov cocktails are being thrown at Jews on peaceful walks.

The new form of anti-Semitism wears fashionable clothes. It speaks the language of justice. It claims to be punching up. But it is the same old hatred, just with better PR.

You don’t fight injustice or defend human rights by burning people alive.

If this was your community. Your daughter. Your grandmother. Your pastor. Your friend. What would you want the world to say?

I am angry. I am heartbroken. I am shaking as I write this.

But more than anything, I am pleading.

Do not look away.

I have spent much of my life as a civil rights advocate. I have condemned hate in all its forms. I have screamed from the rooftops when others stayed silent. I have fought for dignity across lines of race, religion, and belief. But this. This breaks something open.

And for Jews around the world. Whether in Colorado or in Caulfield. In Jerusalem or in Bondi. This moment feels like a threshold. Like something has ruptured and we are standing in the aftershock.

This is not just a story about America. It is not distant.

It is relevant to Australia. Right now.

Because the same slogans echo on our streets. The same language that fuels hatred is now spoken in schoolyards and scrawled across city walls. The same normalising of hate is tolerated, and too often encouraged.

If you have ever rolled your eyes at a chant. Or said it’s just passion. Or thought the words don’t matter. This is where it ends.

With fire.

What happened in Boulder is a line in history. And history is asking all of us a question.

What will you do with it?

Because this time, no one can say they didn’t see.

And no one can say it wasn’t real.

Dvir Abramovich is the chairman of the Anti-Defamation Commission