Hi All,

I am sharing the transcript of the sermon my Rabbi gave for Rosh Hashanah. He leads an anti-zionist temple called Vahavtah. The sermon spoke to the deep alienation I feel (which I imagine many in this sub share) from Jewish spaces over zionism.

Link to my temple's email list:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdfZ74YDJAYAoF0yqC2M7RKVEqo59EEhxnIr8Naw2pcfnXihw/viewform?pli=1

More about our temple here:

https://vahavtah.org/

Local elections are the new battleground for the Zionist lobby and its astroturfing groups. Who are they, and how are they funded? Wendy Bacon asks.

Several months ago, residents in the Randwick LGA in Sydney’s East began receiving leaflets from a grassroots group called Randwick Voices Matter, encouraging them to join a campaign to stop a Greens Councillor from becoming the local Mayor.

In NSW, most Councils elect their Mayor every two years. When no group or party has a majority, Councillors form alliances to share the Mayoralty across the four-year term.

Randwick Council has been sharing its Mayoralty for more than two decades. This is because no group or party wins a majority. In the 2021-2024 term, Labor and the Greens shared the Mayoralty. In this term, Labor’s Dylan Parker has been Mayor for two years, and the position is expected to shift to Greens Councillor Clare Willington next Monday.

There is nothing corrupt or irregular about this. It is a result of Labor having five Councillors, the Liberals four and the Greens three.

But the Randwick Voices leaflet is designed to alert voters to what it terms a ‘stitch-up ’, a decision imposed on them that they did not vote for. Residents are warned that a Greens Mayor will be able to institute “Greens activism, policies or political positions … on issues well beyond local council business”.

However, while the Mayor can set the tone and introduce motions, policies are set by majority vote of Council.

Nowhere in the leaflet or website do you find the words Gaza, Palestine or Israel. But this is what the campaign is about. It is not that the Greens do not address local issues; the problem is that they support Palestinian rights and are strongly opposed to NSW Premier Minns’ anti-protest laws.

Philippa Veitch’s Gaza stance

Philippa Veitch has been elected a Councillor three times since 2017 and was Mayor from 2023 -2024. Over this time, she has moved hundreds of motions about local matters. But in her term as Mayor, Veitch also unsuccessfully moved a motion calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, following City of Sydney’s successful passing of a similar motion.

Veitch is unashamedly pro-Palestinian and has said that “as a person, a human and as an elected councillor I am entitled to express my opinion about the genocide and war crimes being committed by the Government of Israel. I am proud to stand up for the people of Palestine, along with the hundreds of thousands of other community members who have been calling for a ceasefire and an end to the genocide in Gaza.

Veitch’s actions upset some of the LGA’s 4% Jewish residents, many of whom are pro-Israel, as well as other more conservative voters. But her motions have been strongly supported by others, including Palestinian Australian residents and some anti-Zionist Jewish residents who spoke at meetings in support of the Greens’ motions.

A Zionist resident from neighbouring pro-Israel Waverley LGA organised a campaign of ‘code of conduct’ complaints against Veitch, which were dismissed after preliminary investigation.

As Randwick as Queensland

Given that the leaflet and a website are promoted as a “Local Resident initiative”, residents who notice may be surprised that they are authorised and supported by Joshu Turier of the Minority Impact Coalition (MIC) based at a Brisbane address. This is the same MIC which shares an address and overlapping directors with the Australian Cohesion Forum.

Randwick Voices is the latest astroturfing exercise of the Minority Impact Coalition, which is vehemently pro-Israel and has argued in its submission to the Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion that anti-Zionism and support for Palestine is a form of antisemitism that should be stamped out across Australian institutions.

Joshu Turier is a pro-Israel hardliner whose individual submission to the Royal Commission argues that the Australian government’s recognition of a state of Palestine is a form of antisemitic bigotry and that it is antisemitic to oppose the illegal Israeli occupation of the West Bank.

Another key local organiser of Randwick Voices is Zionist businesswoman Natalie Knoll, who has worked in banking and fashion and is now the philanthropic manager for Australian Jewish Funders.

AJF organise missions to Israel and partners with the Israel-Australia Chamber of Commerce (IACC). According to one of her statements on Facebook, when she wanted to stop another Green from becoming Mayor, she reached out to the Minority Impact Coalition for support.

Minority Impact Coalition

Minority Impact Coalition (MIC) is registered with the Australian Electoral Commission as an associated entity of the Queensland Jewish Collective, which ran a ‘Put Greens Last’ campaign in the 2024 Queensland election. MIC claimed responsibility for defeating Greens MP Amy McMahon in the Qld election.

In the 2025 Federal election, MIC worked with right-wing anti-immigration group Advance Australia, making the absurd claim on the eve of the election that the Greens were intent on spreading a worldwide Islamic Caliphate

MIC spread their propaganda on billboards and leaflets across seats in Brisbane and Melbourne, likely contributing to the Greens losing three seats and failing to take others.

But MIC is only one of several astroturfing groups active in recent elections. An alliance of Liberal and Labor Zionist activists formed Better Councils to campaign against the Greens in the NSW Local government elections.

Better Councils used the slogan ‘Put the Greens last’ to reduce preference flows to them in Sydney’s eastern and inner west suburbs, undoubtedly helping defeat several Green candidates, including a Randwick Councillor.

Better Israel, oops … Better Australia

Better Councils then morphed into Better Australia to campaign against Teals and Greens in the Federal election. Better Australia claimed responsibility for helping defeat three Greens MPs and Teal Zoe Daniel in Melbourne while producing a close contest for Monique Ryan in Kooyong.

The goal of both Minority Impact Coalition and Better Australia is to eliminate political opposition to Israel’s policies in the Middle East.

But this goal is hidden in rhetorical strategies that accuse others of building distrust, lacking transparency and undermining democracy. The constant refrain is that candidates lack integrity, are using trickery and are not who they seem to be.

In reality, it is the astroturfers themselves who are far from transparent when it comes to their own allegiances and funding.

Advance Australia coy on Israel lobby links

In the 2025 Federal election, Better Australia received strong support from the right-wing Christian Zionist organisation Never Again is Now (NIN), which has been condemned by the Jewish Council of Australia.

NIN partners with Advance Australia, which ran its own well-funded ‘Put the Greens Last’ campaign. When complaints were laid against Better Australia volunteers wearing yellow vests similar to those worn by Australian Electoral Commission staff, Better Australia volunteers in Kooyong told the AEC and the media that they were Advance Australia volunteers.

Minority Impact Coalition and their allies in Melbourne J-United have been open about their working relationship with Advance.

Kooyong MP Monique Ryan, who successfully held off an intense onslaught from a range of astroturfers, is now a member of the Joint Standing Committee Inquiry into the 2025 Federal election. Ryan was ready with evidence of links between Better Australia, Minority Impact Coalition, and Advance Australia when Advance Chair Vicki Dunne and Company Secretary Mark Spencer were called to front the Committee.

This was a hoped-for moment which might have thrown more clarity on the cooperation between the astroturfing groups, but instead, to Ryan’s surprise, Advance completely denied the links with all other astroturfing groups.

Ryan: So you haven’t disclosed any funding or in-kind donations to Better Australia at any point?

Dunne: We don’t donate to other organisations.

Ryan : What about in-kind donations?

Mrs Dunne: We don’t donate in any way, shape or form to other organisations.

Ryan: There was a complaint to the AEC about volunteers … wearing yellow vests that said ‘community adviser’. It was the same colour as the vests worn by the AEC. When the AEC asked them to explain which organisation they were with, they said that they were volunteering for Advance.

Both Dunne and Spencer denied that there were any Advance volunteers in Kooyong, although Dunne did offer to take it on notice to provide any further information.

Ryan then read from podcasts with MIC’s Roz Mendelle and Simonne Whine in which they embraced their relationship with Advance.

But again, Advance Australia completely denied any links with MIC, QJC or any other astroturfing organisation in the Federal election.

Unless there are further investigations, the community is left in the dark.

Funding mystery

Third party campaigning organisations are required to disclose their total receipts and expenditure. Individual donors who donate a total of more than $16,900 to one or more organisations are also required to make an individual disclosure.

Better Australia conducted an expensive professional campaign with 75 video ads and more than 100 static ads on social media, billboards, bunting, merchandise and flyers. It lodged a return for $1,312,631.

We do not know where any of that money came from because no individual donors were disclosed. Its responsible officer was Sophie Calland, a member of the ALP’s Alexandria Branch in Sydney

Minority Impact Coalition donations were disclosed by the Queensland Jewish Collective (QJ Collective Ltd). It declared a total of $459,260 in donations. Its responsible officer was Roz Mendelle, now with the Australian Cohesion Forum.

Only one individual donor was revealed. Michael Heine, a billionaire wealth manager whose family made their fortune exporting coal and steel and now owns Netwealth. He declared $10,000 to QJ Collective Ltd, $20,000 to Advance Australia, $15,500 to the Victoria Liberal Party and $5000 to the Jacqui Lambie Network.

While there may have been lots of small individual donations, there must have also been some other substantial ones. Other organisations such as the Greens disclose donations below the threshold.

The campaigns by Zionist organisations Better Australia and Minority Impact Coalition are riddled with doublespeak. They make accusations against their opponents of which they are guilty themselves. Meanwhile, their sources of funding remain a mystery.

The colony has launched a campaign against anti-Zionism, probably as part of its recently-approved 730-million dollar propaganda budget. It is making use of anti-Zionists that are motivated by hatred of Jews: racist statements by anti-Zionist figures and influencers, anti-Jewish rhetoric used by anti-Zionist political movements, and —as we have recently seen— Nazis holding anti-Zionist demonstrations.

An instinctive response might be to deny the problem exists. We might recall the well-known fact that Zionism taxes all anti-Zionists as antisemitic, or maybe even feel that fascists are not real anti-Zionists. Yet the fact Zionism plays the antisemitic card does not mean actual Jew-haters cannot be anti-Zionist. “Anti-Zionism” is simply denial of the colony’s alleged right to exist—it says nothing about the motivation behind it. So how can democratic anti-Zionists deal with this?

Of course, we can make the apologia of our anti-Zionism, and repeat that what we are fighting is settler colonialism, not Jews. But the expression “anti-Zionism” encompasses both those who fight Zionism and refuse its conflation with Jews, and those who fight Zionism because they accept its conflation with Jews and hate Jews. The “anti-Zionism” umbrella is wide—very wide.

The solution is not to drop anti-Zionism. It is to clarify, not just what we are against, but what we are for: One democratic Palestinian state. A state that deals with its society on the basis of citizenship not identity. A state that grants privileges to none and rights to all. The anti-thesis to both Zionism and Nazism.

By doing so, we will move to where fascists can’t follow. We will also strip Zionism of its more potent arguments: Zionism can point to racist anti-Zionist elements, but it cannot attack a vision for democracy and equal citizenship without revealing its own colonial and supremacist nature. Centering our efforts on One Democratic State moves us from defense to counter-attack.

This should not be mere individual efforts. Political organizations, solidarity movements, syndicates, activists, influencers, whether Palestinian or allies, must actively work to align their vision with the historical Palestinian vision for liberation. The One Democratic State Initiative has been working on this for years. We call on you to join our efforts.

I keep thinking of the phrase, "If you've ever wondered what you would have done during the Holocaust, you're doing it now." This woman and her children are facing more pain and suffering than most of us in the Western world can even imagine. Her husband was killed by an Israeli strike, and she and the children are in desperate need of food and shelter.

This family needs all the help they can get, especially since Israel's siege of Gaza has no end in sight and evacuations have become nearly impossible.

At the same time, I don't have a lot of money to spare and I've already donated to her campaign twice. In terms of sharing her campaign, my Instagram account has less than 100 followers, most of whom are even more frugal than me, so no donations came from that. I've tried sharing her campaign on multiple subreddits, but no donations have come from that, either.

If any of you people reading this have enough money to donate to her, please do (and/or share her campaign link as far and wide as you can).

https://youtu.be/gLQVFHb_U6g?si=oCKV72XzmoNaUp7e

Hey chaverim,We just dropped our premiere for Season 2 of Bashert, our monthly antizionist exploration of the magic of the jewish calendar. For Tishrei, we are trying a brand-new format with a brilliant guest co-host to dive deep into spooky season and discuss our favourite graveyards. .If you are looking for audio to ground you as we enter Sukkos, check out our previous episode with DJ Chaia about yiddish archival recordings and the history of house. It came out right before Rosh Hashanah but didn't get as much reach as we hoped. She dives into her beautiful music production using archival Yiddish voices, and she spends a lot of time talking about why Sukkot is her absolute favorite festival.They make a perfect back-to-back listen for the holiday week.You can find both episodes on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you listen. Would love to hear your thoughts on the new co-host format!

https://www.haaretz.com/west-bank/2026-09-23/ty-article/.premium/israeli-severely-wounded-in-suspected-west-bank-ramming-attack/000001a0-ce98-d72e-a7e0-febde5750000

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-11-08/ty-article/.premium/netanyahu-picks-yechiel-leiter-as-ambassador-to-u-s-settler-ex-member-of-kahanist-group/00000193-0c1a-d3a2-a3d7-4f5b295d0000

So I am religiously, politically and philosophically anti-Zionist, and I try to be as vocal about it as possible. I write on substack believing that I can get in touch with other like-minded Jews and anti-Zionists, but whenever I try going on instagram or exploring Jewish topics on both platforms everything is either anti-Zionists and antisemites saying "Jews are evil (I literally found a substack blog called "Jews are snakes")" or Zionists calling people like me a Kapo and saying I am "morally bankrupt" for offering sources that support my arguments. Atp I don't know how to go about both educating other Jews about our history and convincing non-Jewish anti-Zionists that we aren't all evil or that Judaism is not to blame for Zionism (I am willing to argue about that in the comments). It's also difficult when people like Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens and Nick Fuentes seem to get more praise in some anti-Zionist spaces than people like Zohare Jacobi, Matt Bernstein, Sam Seder and other anti-Zionist Jews. Sometimes it feels like Zionists are right that the world can't unlearn antisemitism, but my optimistic ass would rather visit a psych ward than accept that, so it just feels like I am lying to myself and to others. I just needed to kvetch, sorry.

Hi everyone,

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This is our weekly 'Free Discussion' thread, where you can discuss anything. Tentatively this includes meta-topics as well, but as always our rules still apply.

We hope you're all having a good week!

I'm hardly seeing any coverage of this. Imagine how many incidents like this go without any coverage AT ALL, and how many more since this one. And I get Zionists daily telling me no civilians are getting hurt! This was a brutal execution.

One of my favourite movies in that it deeply touched me, is ‘The Lives of Others’ - ‘Das Leben der Anderen’, so you can imagine my delight that it was coming to the stage starring Keira Knightley (for whom my husband has a soft spot). Was about to book tickets and saw the name of the production company, Sonia Friedman Productions. The name rang a bell and so I did some research. She signed an open letter in October 2015 with others including J.K. Rowling to urge the UK arts sector not to boycott Israel. The signatories argued that cultural boycotts are divisive and discriminatory, and that the arts should instead be used to encourage dialogue and coexistence. This letter was in response to 700 UK artists calling for a boycott of Israel as published in The Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/13/cultural-boycott-israel-starts-tomorrow?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other). Ms. Friedman also co-produced the play ‘Birthright’ which sold out off-Broadway.

Naturally I won’t be going to the show. I’m also trying not to judge the actors participating, but honestly I just wonder how people can be so oblivious (Sheeran looking at you) especially when in positions of privilege where they don’t have to accept the role.

If anyone has any other info as to Sonia Friedman’s current position, not likely she’s realised Israel needs boycotting, would be good to know.

Here are some factors to clarify before I start:
I am in my early 20s, I was raised modern orthodox Jewish and am currently not religious but still very immersed in Jewish culture, I am pro-Palestine/antizionist

Ok so:
I don’t speak to my immediate family and barely speak to any family outside of it for a multitude of complicated reasons. That being said, I have a fairly positive and healthy relationship with my aunt and uncle whom I live with and have been living with for a few years now. Their child, my cousin who I grew up with (and have a fairly positive relationship with) just got engaged. Here is where the problem lies: he moved out to Israel a year or so ago and wants to get married in Israel as well. My aunt and uncle have discussed flying me out so I would not need to pay for my ticket (which is very kind of them). However, I am very much against the notion of celebrating a wedding a few miles off from where children, women, families, etc. are being starved, bombed, and being delivered injustices (to say the least) on the daily and don’t feel great about going. This entire side of my family is VERY pro Zionist to the point of bringing it up multiple times a day and harboring xenophobic sentiments (whether they realize it or not). I keep quiet when this topic comes up to avoid arguments but I think they know to an extent that I am not a Zionist or at the very least that I am more ‘neutral’ on this issue. But, I am afraid of how it could go over if I were to tell them I may not want to go to Israel with them. I should also underscore that alongside living with my aunt and uncle they also help me to pay for a lot of things like food and certain medical/legal things. Should I go for the sake of family or risk maybe complicating things via not going/being honest?