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Dave Portnoy said the mass shooting at a Hanukkah celebration in Sydney, Australia, which officials are calling a targeted terror attack on the Jewish community, seemed “borderline inevitable” amid rising antisemitism.
“I wish I could say I’m shocked or surprised, but attacks like these seem borderline inevitable with what’s going on in the world,” the Barstool Sports founder said on “The Sunday Briefing.”
“It’s tragic, and it’s sad, but not surprising. And that in itself is probably the saddest part of it — that I’m not surprised.”
At least two gunmen opened fire at an annual event called “Chanukah by the Sea,” where Australian Jews had gathered to kick off the first night of Hanukkah. Authorities say at least 16 victims were killed and dozens more were hospitalized.
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In the wake of the attack, Portnoy decried the openly antisemitic rhetoric that he said has moved into the mainstream.
“There are online bloggers, people who are openly saying radically antisemitic stuff and being accepted as part of the mainstream,” he said. “So does this shock me? No, it’s inevitable.”
He also pointed to political leadership for the surge, criticizing New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani for failing to condemn inflammatory rhetoric tied to the Israel-Hamas war.
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“You have a … mayor now in New York City who refuses to say that globalizing the [intifada] is bad. So I mean, if it just keeps building and building and building, things like this happen.”
Portnoy condemned the lack of pushback against antisemitism and the persistent scapegoating of Jews.
“Jews retaliate, it’s the Jews’ fault. No matter what it is, it’s the Jews’ fault,” he said, citing open discrimination on college campuses that administrators fail to stop.
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He said antisemitism has surged in the last couple of years, driven by the conflict in the Middle East and what he described as Israel losing the “war of public opinion.”
Portnoy told the program he now receives 30 to 50 social media messages daily telling him to “kill yourself, Jew,” or “you should die, Jew,” which he called a “new” and “unsettling” trend.
“But you know, you gotta be loud, and you gotta kind of be proud,” he said. “They may want to make it seem like Jews are the problem. No, no, no. We’re not the problem.”
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“It’s all these other idiots. And I’m not talking about the conflict in Israel,” he continued. “I’m talking about just pure hatred in the United States right now for no apparent reason.”
He added that many Jews feel pressure to stay quiet to avoid becoming targets.
“To be honest, for a lot of Jews, I think the easier thing to do is just be quiet and not put yourself in the scrutiny of the public eye,” he added.
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Portnoy said he doesn’t have a perfect solution to antisemitism, but urged “normal, rational thinking people” to push back publicly.
“What has to happen, in my mind, is normal, rational thinking people all have to show support, be like, ‘Enough,'” he said. “So the normal people — I still think there are a lot of them — have to loudly… be like, ‘What are we doing? You’re a jerk, you’re a piece of crap. We’re gonna alienate you and punish you for these views and push it back into the corners where it belongs.‘”
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