A popular city center bakery has been defaced with shocking anti-Semitic graffiti, with a threatening note reading “be careful”, but the owner has defiantly left the graffiti there.
Avner’s Bakery in Surry Hills, Sydney, suffered the menacing attack sometime between 10pm on Saturday and 1.30am on Sunday, with an inverted red triangle painted on the bakery window and the note pushed underneath of the door.
The triangle is a Nazi symbol that was used to mark people in concentration camps and has been used by the terrorist group Hamas to identify Jewish targets.
Former TV chef and Better Homes and Gardens star Ed Halmagyi, owner of the bakery, revealed the shocking attack on his social media channels.
“Being Jewish in Sydney, 2024 edition,” his Sunday morning post read.
‘This note was stuffed under the door of our bakery overnight.
“But the fact is, it’s hard to be intimidated by inner-city, middle-class cosplay radicals who graduated from elementary school without their pen license.”
But Halmagyi decided not to remove the graffiti from the bakery window Sunday morning because “people need to know” what happened.
A popular bakery has been defaced with shocking anti-Semitic graffiti, with a threatening note reading “be careful”, but owner Ed Halmagyi (pictured) has defiantly left the graffiti there.
A threatening note (pictured) was stuffed under the bakery’s door overnight
The bakery was open to the public on Sunday, and customers were drinking coffee in the sun with the triangle symbol still on display.
The former Better Homes and Gardens star continued serving customers Sunday afternoon.
“The only reason I didn’t take it this morning… I thought about it, but I thought it’s a really dumb thing to do because people should know that these things happen,” he said. The Australian.
‘The reaction of wanting to delete it immediately and pretend it’s not there. That implies two things. One, that it was effective and made me feel somewhat vulnerable.
And at the same time it says that you are a victim of your circumstances. “I’m not a victim,” he said.
Halmagyi said many people came to his store on Sunday to ask if he was okay.
“I’m fine, but the fact that they wanted to find out is really representative of the community we’re building,” he said.
The bakery, on Bourke Street near the CBD, opened earlier this year and sells Jewish and Eastern European products.
Avner’s Bakery (pictured) in Surry Hills, Sydney, suffered the menacing attack sometime between 10pm on Saturday and 1.30am on Sunday.
It is the latest anti-Semitic attack to hit Australia following the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, in which terrorists crossing from Gaza massacred 1,139 Israeli civilians and took 251 hostages.
Of those taken hostage during the attacks, 97 remain missing: 105 were released in exchange for prisoners, four were unilaterally released by Hamas, and eight were rescued by the Israel Defense Forces.
A year after the attacks, Israel’s response in Gaza has led to the deaths of more than 41,000 Palestinians.
NSW Police have been contacted for comment.
