{"id":510673,"date":"2026-06-25T16:18:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T16:18:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/510673\/"},"modified":"2026-06-25T16:18:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T16:18:08","slug":"australian-woman-faces-antisemitic-tirade-called-a-dirty-zionist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/510673\/","title":{"rendered":"Australian woman faces antisemitic tirade, called a ‘dirty zionist’"},"content":{"rendered":"

A disabled elderly Jewish woman was allegedly subjected to a tirade of antisemitic abuse and filmed without her consent inside the Vodafone Elsternwick store in Melbourne<\/a> earlier this week.<\/p>\n

The woman, who asked to remain anonymous, recounted the incident to Dr. Dvir Abramovich, Chair of the Anti-Defamation Commission (ADC).<\/p>\n

She reported entering the Vodafone store at approximately 3:35 p.m. on Tuesday, June 23, seeking help with a pocket WIFI device.<\/p>\n

After several rounds of being told by a young man at the Vodafone store that the device only needed charging, the employee became visibly agitated and did the following: shouted \u201cFree Palestine<\/a>\u201d at the elderly lady repeatedly inside the store; called her a \u201cdirty Zionist<\/a>\u201d; told her \u201cJews are disgusting\u201d; insisted she hand over her personal mobile phone with no explanation; and filmed her on a phone without her consent while she stood trapped at the counter, unable to leave without her device.<\/p>\n

After the ordeal ended, the woman burst into tears in the street.<\/p>\n

\"Vodafone\"Vodafone (credit: FLICKR)<\/p>\n

She has since formally complained to Vodafone.<\/p>\n

\u201cHim saying Free Palestine to me basically felt like a call for my murder,” she told Abramovich. “I was very scared. I didn\u2019t know what he was capable of. And I just hope he doesn\u2019t have my details and that he doesn\u2019t doctor the video or use it in any way. I feel very unsafe and scared for my life and for my future.\u201d<\/p>\n

Antisemitism in Australia is becoming more frequent\u00a0<\/p>\n

Abramovich said, “The geography of harassment and abuse of Jewish people in Australia<\/a> is expanding by the minute.”<\/p>\n

“If you had described this chilling scene to an Australian five years ago, they would have laughed in your face. Today, this is the new normal for us.”<\/p>\n

He told The Jerusalem Post that the woman was likely identified as Jewish due to her Jewish-sounding surname, which would have appeared in the system. Otherwise, she wasn’t wearing anything to identify her.<\/p>\n

He also told the Post that he received an email from a Communications Head at Vodafone saying they’re taking the claims very seriously and investigating this as a matter of urgency.<\/p>\n

“If they don’t handle it properly, they’re going to lose a lot of customers. It’s quite rare for this kind of outburst to happen. So they would want to handle it as quickly as possible, as far as the optics are concerned.”<\/p>\n

“To Vodafone, this happened on your watch,” he said. “Inside your store. By your employee. Don\u2019t think about issuing a polite corporate statement and moving on. Suspend the worker concerned pending the outcome of an internal investigation and issue a public statement of accountability. And we want the video filmed of this woman recovered and deleted before it ends up in the sewer of social media.”<\/p>\n

“This is not just antisemitism on the rise. This is a war zone for us and every Jewish Australian knows it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A disabled elderly Jewish woman was allegedly subjected to a tirade of antisemitic abuse and filmed without her…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":510674,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[111,972,1903,42,18330,43,234345,125,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-510673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-antisemitism","tag-australia","tag-diaspora","tag-headlines","tag-melbourne","tag-news","tag-palestinian-freedom-movement","tag-technology","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=510673"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510673\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/510674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=510673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=510673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=510673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}