Security precautions in this country following the Bondi attack will include armed police at Jewish community sites on Monday. The Jewish community in New Zealand had a supportive relationship with police, including communication following the Bondi attack, New Zealand Jewish Council president Juliet Moses said. “They are taking this very seriously,” she said. “We do have armed police at our community sites today. We will have to see how things progress over the next few days,” Moses said. “It’s an extremely sad reality for Jewish people around the world, but we would prefer to have armed police right now than not have them.” The Jewish community in this country was reeling after the Bondi attack, Moses said. “We are sickened by it, shocked by it, but not surprised by it, sadly. This is the environment we are in.” A permissive environment had developed, where hate speech and incitement to violence had been normalised. “It is an international problem, but I think Australia does seem to have had it particularly bad, for whatever reason,” Moses said. Anti-Semitism and the dangers facing the Jewish community had been increasing for some years. Since the October 2023 attacks in Israel there had been a precipitous rise in incidents, including in New Zealand. It was coming from many different sources, including the far left, far right and Islamists. In the past month or so the “groyper” phenomenon, a…Read more