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In a shocking move, Australian police arrested Osher Feldman for showing up to a pro-Palestinian protest to wave an Australian flag.
On Sunday, October 6, 2024, on the eve of the one-year anniversary of October 7, 10,000 pro-Palestinian protestors in Sydney, Australia were attending a rally in support of Palestine, donning keffiyehs, holding up “Ceasefire Now” signs, and chanting “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”
Osher Feldman, an Australian rabbi and lawyer who wears a kippah, showed up to the protest to display his patriotism.
“I wasn’t waving an Israeli flag; I was waving an Australian flag,” he told Aish. “Everyone is allowed to have their political beliefs. Obviously, I disagree with theirs vehemently, but at least above all, we should unite here in Australia as Australians. Why should this conflict make us divided and hate each other? Let’s unite under the Australian flag so we can live together in harmony.”
As soon as the rabbi arrived at the protest, Australian police spotted him and told him they were going to escort him around for his own safety. He agreed. As he was walking, he didn’t have any negative interactions with the protestors.
Suddenly, however, things took a turn.
“Out of nowhere, a senior police officer comes and says, ‘You are detained,’” Osher said. “I think they must have gotten a command from a higher officer that I’m a threat, which was just false. Had he asked me to leave, I simply would’ve left, since I’m a law-abiding citizen.”
Rather, according to Osher, the higher officer and his colleagues “dragged me out of the park like an animal, as if they wanted to make a spectacle of me,” he said. “I continued to ask them to stop dragging me, and I can simply walk away if that’s what they want, but they didn’t care. I also pleaded with them to let me put my kippah back on, that fell off while being dragged, before continuing to move, but they also didn’t care. I had to move without it on my head, while they dragged me, which is against my religious beliefs. Eventually, they gave it back to me.”
Osher, a lawyer, told the officers that he had the law on his side. It didn’t matter, though.
“They put me in the back of their boiling hot van,” he said. “It made me physically ill. They took me to the station and then said, ‘You are free to go.’ I said, ‘What do you mean? Why then did you arrest me?’ They said, ‘You weren’t under arrest, we just wanted you to leave the park.’ Which was totally untrue. Because besides the initial officer saying I was detained, they can’t drag me in the circumstances and fashion that they did and shove me in the back of a police van against my will, unless I’m arrested. And even if I was, they can’t use excessive force.”
After the arrest, Osher, who was visibly shaken up, asked the police if they could drive him back to near the park so he could retrieve his car. They refused, and he had to call a taxi to get it.
When he finally got home, he tried to process what had happened to him.
“I was very upset and shocked,” Osher said. “I never thought this could happen to someone in Australia. It wasn’t even the protestors who were abusing me. It was the police, which was surprising.”
The rabbi took to X to write about what happened, and the tweet went viral, garnering 1 million views. He was subsequently all over the media, including the Daily Mail and Sky News, where he discussed his arrest.
“In my legal opinion, it was an unlawful arrest,” he said. “It was ridiculously excessive and unnecessary on all levels.”
Australia is no stranger to antisemitism. Just days after Oct. 7, over 1,000 pro-Palestinian protestors stood outside the opera house in Sydney, which was lit up with the colors of the Israeli flag, and people yelled, “[expletive] the Jews!”
On October 6, 2024, the Sydney protest was not the only one that happened – similar protests for Palestine were held in Melbourne and Brisbane.
“It made me sick how people can be so insensitive in pretending to be these warriors for peace when, on the eve of the day that the biggest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust occurred, they were protesting against Israel,” Osher said.
He comes from generations of rabbis who served the Australian Jewish and wider community.
“We’ve contributed a lot to the Jewish community in Australia and society in Australia in general,” he said. “The arrest was a real kick in the guts for me and my family.”
While he is still reeling from his arrest, Osher refuses to stand down. He is determined to hold the police accountable for their actions, keep fighting on behalf of his people and fellow citizens, and speaking up for what he believes is right.
“October 7 brought antisemites out of the woodwork and normalized antisemitism here in Australia,” he said. “But I will not be intimidated. I will soldier on as a proud Australian Jew.”
Stay confident. Don't even trust Australian authority, they are not to be trusted at all. Few true Australian Nationals are coming out strongly against such unruly behaviors. We stand with Israel and un-ceasingly praying for Jewish people around the world. Shalom!
Leave Australia which doesn’t deserve you and go to Israel.
Rabbi Feldman, your treatment from the Australian Gestapo only shows how alone we are in this World. We should not be fooled or surprised. We have always been alone. Our prayers and blessings go out to you and our brothers and sisters in Australia (from the United States of America) . Fight the good fight. Stay safe!
This text is obviously not about any kind of secret police, which is what the Gestapo (Geheime Staatspolizei [Secret State Police]) were. That doesn’t change anything about how unacceptable the way Australian coppers treated the man is, obviously, but you, Jay, should be careful with your words.
Disgusting how you were treated
Antisemitism like in Nazi Germany in the 1940same spirit is here. Shame on the police and the political leaders. Pray you’ll know what to do.
As much as I distrust the police (due to personal experience) and agree that their behaviour was unacceptable, be careful about comparisons to Nazi Germany! He would have been beaten up, detained, or mistreated beyond the initial arrest in the thirties and sent to camp in the fourties. Again, no excuse for the coppers, but such comparisons don’t help.
Sue the police, in America if you wave a American flag and/ or Israeli flag they might rip or burn it, and they could assault you too, what happened to the world since before the Holocast and during the Holocaust there is a lot anti semitism, and now they try to disguise as anti zionism, but being anti zionism is really anti semitism, these pro palestinans are against their host countries, these protestors want the world to become Muslim, and others don't understand if you are with Jews, Israel, your host country then you are on the good side, and the other side is the evil side before this happening these days, I dreamt there will be a spirtual fight good vs evil, it looks like this is unfolding before our eyes, are the police afraid of the protestors, in France there is no go zones,
Sydney has a LARGE mslm community.. It has a large Jewish community too, but the mslms would out number any community.. That mslm community also has the largest unemployed and crime rate.. Our government, labour and liberals have allowed this!
This is Australia not nazi Europe! This is Sydney not Lebanon! It's time the government cleaned it up! Australians need to unite against anti semitism because.. this Rabbi represents every one of us... if this can happen to him it can happen to any one of us!
The mslms don't, and will never take over Australia... NEVER.. Shame on the police!
They will take over just like they are doing in France and England and Norway and Sweden and Denmark and Belgium and ever other country. Anti-semitism is in the bloodstream and DNA and represents a stronger proactive activity then anti-islam. Jews of the world are in big trouble
Bloody disgrace.
This is Australia not Lebanon.
These marches have to stop.
Why are Jews treated differently in this country?
Jee hatred is why!
Our Australia has been hijacked and our Labor Government confined it.
We have to fight back at the ballot box.
Vote Labor out,!
You are right, same thing is happening, in the United States
This is unbelieveable ‼️
It truly is
I am not Jewish, but all believe in the same God, right. Why can all religions live in peace??
Keep strong, Osher! Stand up for your country and against the Jew haters.
Right, I agree 100%
Why doesn't he sue the police?
That may not be possible in Australia. The defense would likely be that he was not harmed nor charged. I am an attorney in US and it’s unlikely to be justiciable here.
Sue them for everything they worth Australia police/mafia tricked him and lied to his face and embarrassed him and molested him .they had no rigjt to drag him linke an animal. He can and must sue so the pd won't molest jews again. He will win if it goes to court.
Right
We would!
I say sue, sue, sue
Sorry to hear this story. The world is in a dangerously ill condition. Lefties would have you believe that their causes will bring us to the Garden of Eden, when in fact it is the reverse. It is a warped and twisted morality. Left wing fascism has become acceptable normality in western civilisation. Anything else, including that which used to be centrist, is labelled as 'far right extremism'. There is no difference between today's left wing fascism and the fascism of 1930's Germany, just that one is from the left and the other was from the right. Extremely dark times ahead. Time is running out for the silent majority to use their voices and their votes.
Right, the world doesn't seem like we are in 2024, sometimes it seems we are in Europe in the 1930s/1940s to me it is personal I am a child of a Holocaust Survivor(obm), survivors of the Holocaust had a fear to not to get comfortable in the host countries, they warned their families this could at any time, I remember that Rabbi Meir Kahane(obm) if anyone remembers him(obm), said this would happen in exile, and what will happen in Israel and unfortunately he(obm) right on both accounts
More like the twenties than the thirties, but I (descendant of a man who fought against Germany in WWII) get your point. Being in Europe, I sense how things get worse, but I still wouldn’t refer to the racist extremist Kahane.
Unless you mean the very early thirties, prior to the beginning of the Nazi regime. If so, sorry, but ‘Nazi Germany and the occupied territories’ is the first thing coming to my mind when I read ‘Europe in the 1930s/1940s’ even though the preceding years are obviously a part of the period, too.
What does what happened to Osher Feldman have to do with the left wing? Coppers in general tend to the right (from conservative to extremist [like the NSU 2.0 group in Germany], not the left. Besides, you should learn what fascism is about: radical nationalism, authoritarianism, and so on. Study Italian history for a start. And even though parts of the current left definitely aren’t kosher, neither is your generalising comment about them. ‘There is no difference between today's left wing fascism and the fascism of 1930's Germany’ is easily the biggest nonsense of all that I read in the comment section.
The Australian flag equates with Western civilization and Western values. Western values equate with Israel. The keffiyeh wearers represent a totalitarian mindset---a culture that has a simple goal: Destroy Israel---which presents as a thorn in the map of extreme Islamism---destroy all Western culture (a process already rooted in Europe) and subsume it all, replacing it with Sharia law.
I can only imagine what these mumzerim would have done to Rabbi Osher Feldman if he had waved an Israeli flag!
Yeah, they still hate us everywhere.Why are we surprised though? Mbe we got too comfortable.
When the police genuflect to the Nazis, be they in Los Angeles, London, or Australia, things have gone too far. Abusing human beings and protecting vile sewer rats is the mark of a fascist dictatorship.
Ephraim, it happens all over the world! Be it Australia, New Zealand, America, Great Britain, Germany or The Royal Kingdom of The Netherlands. In The Netherlands there is police personel that refuses to guard buildings like Jewish schools, restaurants or be it the prayer houses.
The Holocaust was around 80 years ago, and once against there is big anti semitism around the world and the Nazis(may their name be erased) and now they got company Muslims I think they are fighting, actual there was a connection between the Nazis(may their name be erased) and the grand mafti of Jerusalem(Muslim), and the Muslim a relative of Yasser Arfat came up with the " final solution" to kill Jews, they are both evil and the arch enemies of the Jewish people, what am saying Ben Shapiro talked about this
I mean once again not against
Sorry, wrong link; here’s the correct one: https://youtu.be/Ka4Lz-u_BgY
I didn't write a link, I only wrote a comment