Hebrew Hammer
Welcome to The Third Intifada
It is currently one in the morning on the last night of Hanukkah and I should be in bed by now. Over the past week, I should have been doing a million other things, like writing articles for my day job and finishing art commissions before Christmas, but instead of doing anything that would give me any free time at all this week, I worked on three different versions of this drawing—a reference to a cult classic Adam Goldberg movie from 2003.
Is it perfect? No. I wish the lettering was a bit better, a bit more “comic book super-hero-esque” but its layers of acrylic paint on layers on pencil and ink, a message drawn instead of written down. And after the week we have all had (and I mean “the Jews”) and my subsequent long accidental hiatus from this Substack, I was pretty determined to finish it and vomit out a corresponding essay before the most Zionist of all Jewish holidays1 comes to it’s unexpectedly cinematic conclusion this year.
I think everything that can be said about Bondi Beach has already been typed out and plastered all over our screens by now. We warned you. I warned you. Australian Jews warned you. But the non-Jewish world would not listen. A tale as old as time.
And there will be more attacks. As there already have been; the Chabad Jews beaten up on the New York City subway, the Jewish families in Amsterdam surrounded by angry mobs, the Hillel that was firebombed in California and so on and so on.
I have written, and will continue to work on future posts about Australian Jewry. Now, more than ever we need to write stories about what is happening to our communities across the globe. And I have not forgotten or moved any energy away from this project—even with my two month absence.
I was actually in the middle of trying to map out a new post for the Z600 Series several days prior to the events that unfolded on Bondi Beach, where a massacre reminiscent of the Nova Music Festival October 7th 2023 catastrophe transpired. I had already reconnected with Aussie contacts, and had spent two days in internet rabbit holes collecting information about Australia prior to the unspeakable atrocity that unfolded by the ocean in Sydney at an event that was supposed to be a light-hearted summer celebration.
I will not obfuscate who was the main target of this attack: Australian Jews. I will not all lives matter this, or lump everything in with every other global atrocity which happens so often to our communities. A father and son went out to the beach that day emboldened by the ideology of the Islamic State to hunt Jews. The victims ranged in age from a 10 year old child of Ukrainian refugees to an 87 year old Holocaust survivor who died shielding his wife of 5 decades from rifle rounds normally used for hunting large game.
And, of course, there was the same silence from non-Jews. I should expect this by now, but it’s still an uncomfortable new reality. Let’s be honest with ourselves here—or maybe I just need to be honest with myself, the only people who really seem to care about Australian Jews or Jews in general, are other Jews.
Yes there are righteous gentiles, and for the few that I can count on my two hands, I appreciate you. You check in on me, and my life has been made brighter this year by your presence. And I hope that for my fellow Jews reading this message (because that is the majority of my audience here) that you have your own special non-Jews who you can count on as well.
They are precious and rare.
That is why they are called the righteous among nations. Because there are only about 28,000 people recognized by Yad Vashem for holding this title. With the Netherlands having the highest percentage of these special people during World War 2, of one out of every 1,700 people.
And this is why its darkly hilarious to me how many people in our modern age think that their character can measure up with the brave and the few. Like those lost souls who attend these “No Kings” rallies who larp as “anti-fascist” activists. The people who plop resist signs in their yard and go to protests which are goaded on by authoritarian regimes like the CCP and the IRGC.
I used to be angry with them—but I think pity is a healthier response. They do not know what they do not know. They think they are fighting Nazis and that Trump is Hitler. I have been told this to my face—me, a person who had family in literal concentration camps. I don’t think Trump is morally righteous—but he is more of a bumbling echo of a Silvio Berlusconi than a bastion of the Third Reich. But mostly, I would like to know, for instance how many of them checked in with their Jewish family and friends after October 7th? How many of them have posted misinformation about Gaza on social media? How many have shared Instagram stories calling to “Globalize the Intifada?” What about now?
However, this post isn’t for begging the non-Jewish “progressive” world to understand anymore. It is to talk to all of you—Jews and Israelis, ex-Muslims, gender critical feminists, and all the rest of the heretics who have found themselves on the accidental wrong side of history. The Third Intifada has begun. There will be more Jewish—and gentile blood spilled and there will be more justifications for vile acts that will be memory holed or explained away with a hand wave, a shrug, and a “what about Gaza?” corollary remark.
I want you to remember—because I need to tell myself this as well, that we will beat this. Because we always do. The story of the Jews: “they tried to kill us, they failed let’s eat”2 and so on and so forth.
I have embarrassingly sat silently in my room this week and chanted “we will out live them” looking up at the sky. I am still an agnostic, but sometimes you got to believe in something bigger than yourself to get by and to survive.
But I also know something else that is just as magical, ancient, and mystical to be true: in hard times making art is the way. Because art outlives us all—it is our own immortality. Which is why authoritarian movements and governments always seek to quash artistic expression first. It is why our culture has become so dull and so grey. And right now we need art—great art. That is our weapon.
That’s why I watch Hebrew Hammer every Hanukkah. Because that’s the thing the other side is absolute shit at. Their jokes, their sonnets, their paintings, their movies, are hollow. Because their art is a political cause—not a spiritual calling. Their art is propaganda dressed up as aesthetic vibes fed to them by hostile states that suppress free speech in their home nations.
So if you want to fight don’t yell at a screen. Pick up a pen a paintbrush or a pencil and get to work.
And PS:
Do me a favor, and watch the Hebrew Hammer. Because we also need to laugh.
Shabbat Shalom Motherfuckers—Stay Jewish.
Yes-JVP “Jews” and there truly are so few of you considering JVP is a Muslim Brotherhood front…I said what I said.
A kind reader emailed me today to remind me it’s: “They tried to kill us, they failed, let’s eat” not: “They tried to kill us, let’s eat.” Corrected-and thank you =)