The bagel shop run by Jewish celebrity chef Ed Halmagyi will shut down after “two years of near constant antisemitic harassment” in the wake of the Bondi terror attack.
Mr Halmagyi sent a note to patrons and has it on the front of his store alerting them of the decision after two gunmen shot at a Channukah event at Bondi Beach on Sunday, killing 15 victims and injuring another 40.
The massacre marks the largest mass shooting in Australia since Port Arthur and the largest killing of Jews since the October 7 attacks.
Mr Halmagyi told patrons his Sydney bagel shop Avner’s would be permanently shutting up shop and looking to sell.
“Just to let all of you know before we let our community know tomorrow, (Mr Halmagyi’s wife) Leah and I (with significant input from specialists) have made the heartbreaking decision to close the bakery effective immediately,” Mr Halmagyi said.
“We’re hoping someone will buy the asset, even if it is no longer a going concern.”
It follows Avner’s on Monday alerting Instagram followers the bakery would be closed on Tuesday “and possibly for a little longer” as the owners “try to make sense of the awful and mindless violence”.
Mr Halmagyi, who has a high public profile after a 20-year stint on the Seven Network’s Better Homes and Gardens, said the negative attention his business had attracted since opening early last year made weighed on the bakery.
“After two years of near constant antisemitic harassment, the pogrom at Bondi has made owning and operating a publicly-Jewish business untenable,” the note read.
“The risk of escalating and dispersed anti-Jewish violence is extremely real, and our business (as well as me personally) had come up in the course of police investigations.
“We have been in contact with NSW Police, the State Crime Command and the AFP on this.
“As has been experienced by vastly too many people around the world, a popular and high-profile Jewish bakery-cafe presents an easy target for those who want to do violence, and there is no feasible way to make it safer in any practical way without driving away customers.”
Avner’s was vandalised in October last year with the inverted red triangle symbols used to identify Jewish targets by Hamas alongside a note that read “Be Careful”.
After the attack, Mr Halmagyi chose not to scrub the symbol associated with the militant group off his shop’s windowfront.
“The reaction of wanting to scrub it off immediately and pretend like it’s not there. That implies two things. One, that it was effective, and made me feel somehow vulnerable. And it simultaneously says you’re a victim of your circumstances. I’m not a victim,” he told The Australian after the vandalism.
In Mr Halmagyi’s note to patrons, he recalled the actions of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza during the Second Intifada in the early 2000s.
“This was the philosophy of the second intifada, where pizzerias, clubs, playgrounds and cafes were the most common targets,” Mr Halmagyi said.
“Businesses like these will be part of whatever happens next, now that performative and hateful calls to ‘globalise the intifada’ have been realised.
“That creates a genuine concern about safety will drive customers away, for entirely forgivable reasons.
“Understandable fear, and the real potential of harm, have killed our dream. Anyway, we just thought you need to know.”
Mr Halmagyi opened Avner’s at the start of last year and frequently videos of himself on social media discussing baking and Jewish holidays.
His most recent post was about Hanukkah while he has shared posts about Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashannah over the past three months.
