Children's Author Vilifies Bondi Victims: "We Don't Mourn Fascists"

An award-winning Australian children's author and illustrator, Matt Chun, has ignited widespread condemnation with a newsletter titled "We Don't Mourn Fascists," where he viciously attacked the public mourning for the 15 victims of the December 14 terrorist massacre at Sydney's Bondi Beach Chanukah celebration, including a 10-year-old girl and Holocaust survivors, while smearing the murdered British-born Rabbi Eli Schlanger as a "Zionist zealot" who supported the "eradication" of Palestinian Arabs. This is absolutely atrocious: spreading vicious lies about innocent victims of terrorism and downplaying their deaths simply because they were Jewish is disgusting. What happened to humanity when someone attempts to justify the murder of Jews? Chun is an antisemitic disgrace, essentially standing with the very terrorists who committed the horrific attack with his words.

Chun denounced the shock and grief following the shooting at the "Chanukah by the Sea" event organized by Chabad, claiming it was not an innocent religious gathering but part of a "violent supremacist organisation" complicit in Palestinian oppression. He alleged the narrative was shaped by "Zionist lobbyists, politicians, police and witnesses," granting the murdered "default innocence and virtue" due to their identity and location. Chun criticized extensive media coverage and memorials, framing them as reflecting "white, Jewish settler victimhood." He said the piece was written in consultation with his community, including Indigenous people and anti-Zionist Jews.

Chun, recipient of a 2021 Australian Picture Book Illustrator Award and public funding, targeted Rabbi Schlanger personally, a beloved community figure killed while helping families celebrate Hanukkah. The attack claimed lives from a petting zoo play area to candle-lighting, yet Chun's words strip victims of humanity, echoing terrorist propaganda that glorifies such slaughter as "resistance" and attempts to take value away from Jewish lives. Amid global antisemitism surging 400% since Hamas terrorists' October 7, 2023, massacre killing 1,200 Israelis, Chun's rant normalizes hatred, ignoring the gunmen's ISIS inspiration and the innocence of children like little Matilda shot while playing.

This betrayal from a children's creator, meant to foster empathy, exposes how far antisemitism has infiltrated cultural spaces, turning grief into accusation and victims into villains. As Australia mourns and Jews worldwide face rising threats, Chun's refusal to see Jewish blood as worthy of uncomplicated sorrow stands as a moral failure, fueling the very division terrorists exploit.