Posters depicting Bondi attacker as ‘Aussie’ outrages community

Posters depicting the man accused of carrying out the deadly Bondi Beach attack have been plastered across parts of Melbourne’s central business district, triggering widespread distress and anger within Australia’s Jewish community. It has also raised renewed concerns about the normalisation of extremist imagery in public spaces. 

Dr Vic Alhadeff, the former chief executive of the New South Wales Jewish Board of Deputies, described the posters as “beneath contempt”. 

“Those behind the image of the terrorist had one of two motives,” Alhadeff said. “Either they intended to glorify the horrendous actions of the terrorist and his father at Bondi Beach, or their aim was a racist message designed to say that not all those who are described as Aussie adhere to Australia’s democratic values. 

“At a time when Jewish Australians are reeling from the devastation of the massacre of 14 December, it’s a chilling and reprehensible image to put on display and with which to be confronted,” he said. 

The posters, which mimic the widely recognised Aussie poster series created by artist Peter Drew, feature the face of the Bondi Beach attacker alongside the word “Aussie”. Images of the posters circulated rapidly on social media after they were spotted on walls and street infrastructure in the city centre, prompting condemnation from Jewish leaders, educators, and community members who say the imagery glorifies terrorism and deliberately weaponises Australian identity. 

The Bondi Beach attack in December 2025 claimed 15 lives at one of Australia’s most iconic public locations. The accused attacker has been widely described by authorities as having targeted Jews. The placement of the posters in Melbourne, home to Australia’s largest Jewish population, has been experienced by many as a calculated act of intimidation rather than random vandalism. 

The imagery closely mirrors Drew’s original Aussie poster campaign, which was launched in 2017 and featured historical figures who were immigrants to Australia. The series was apparently intended to challenge narrow definitions of national identity and promote inclusion. Drew has previously criticised attempts to repurpose his work for extremist or exclusionary causes, describing such actions as a distortion of its original intent. 

For many in the Jewish community, the use of the “Aussie” branding to depict a mass killer represents a deliberate inversion of the campaign’s message and an attempt to normalise violence through familiar cultural symbols. 

Shana Upiter, Early Learning Centre Director at Mount Scopus Memorial College in Melbourne, said the posters reflected a profound shift in how safe Jewish Australians felt in public spaces. “Australia used to be known as the lucky country where people lived in harmony and with freedom,” Upiter said. “Now that has all changed, and we don’t know where to go. 

“It’s crazy that people can feel emboldened to glorify a terrorist who took 15 Australian lives at one of the nation’s most iconic places and call him an Aussie,” she said. “That’s definitely not what being an Aussie is about.” Upiter noted that Australia had long been seen as a destination for Jewish migrants seeking safety, including many South Africans. 

“Australia was once hailed as a safe place, and many South Africans who moved here did so because of safety concerns,” she said. “In recent years, we have felt more and more unsafe as antisemitism has been rising along with the general crime rate.” 

The posters have appeared against the backdrop of a documented surge in antisemitic incidents across Australia since 7 October 2023, when Hamas carried out its attack in Israel. Jewish organisations have recorded increases in harassment, vandalism, threatening behaviour, and the use of extremist slogans at protests in major cities. 

For younger members of the community, the Bondi posters have reinforced a sense that hostility toward Jews has become increasingly visible and tolerated. Tom Raviv, a 23-year-old Melbourne resident, said, “I came across the poster on a morning run, and it absolutely shook me. An image of a terrorist who has committed the worst atrocity seen on Australian soil.” 

Raviv said that though the poster deeply disturbed him, it didn’t come as a surprise. “Over the past two and a half years, we have endured countless acts of antisemitism. Often, my friends and I will go out on weekends to progressive suburbs only to be met with stickers on nearly every traffic post with ‘Boycott Israel’ or Nazi symbols instead of the Magen David, and hurtful sentiments.” 

Raviv also pointed out the regular weekend protests that have taken place in Australian cities since October 2023. “Australians have become accustomed to mass protests every weekend with chants like ‘Intifada Revolution’, and what has been done? Nothing,” he said. 

“We want this behaviour, and any member of society who praises the Bondi Beach killer through posters like the one pictured to be dealt with by the full force of the law,” Raviv said. “Australian Jewry are struggling to feel comfortable among a ‘progressive’ society that has been indoctrinated to see us as the devil.” 

Greig Rabinowitz, who emigrated from Johannesburg to Melbourne nearly four decades ago, said the posters struck at the heart of what many Jewish Australians believed their country represented. “I am – or was – immensely proud of my adopted Australian heritage,” Rabinowitz said. “This was always a country that prided itself on its multiculturalism.” 

Though he experienced antisemitism growing up and through sport, it was balanced historically by a broader culture of inclusion. “The majority of Australians were less worried about what religion you were and more interested if you were a good bloke,” he said. 

Rabinowitz pointed to the extensive contribution of Jews to Australian society, from public service and philanthropy to sport, law, and education, and noted that Melbourne has one of the highest per-capita populations of Holocaust survivors in the world. “That should have led to a community-wide dedication to fighting racism and antisemitism,” he said. 

Instead, he said, there has been a fundamental shift in recent years. “Since the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, Australia has experienced an unprecedented surge in antisemitic attacks that have fundamentally altered our prior sense of safety for the Jewish community,” he said. 

He described the Bondi posters as “psychological terrorism” that deliberately retraumatised a community still mourning the victims of the attack. “The posters were deliberately designed to mimic and misuse the original artist’s work,” he said. “The spirit of his original series was created to promote unity rather than hatred and division.” 

According to Rabinowitz, the use of the “Aussie” campaign to glorify someone who murdered Australians specifically for their Jewish faith reinforces fears that living an openly Jewish life in Australia is becoming increasingly unsafe. 

Authorities have removed several of the posters, and are investigating who was responsible for placing them. For many Jewish Australians, however, the incident has already left a lasting mark, serving as a stark reminder that public expressions of hatred and intimidation have become harder to dismiss as fringe or isolated.