Eighty-eight years ago, on Nov. 9-10, 1938, synagogues burned across Germany and Austria. Jewish businesses were smashed and looted, homes ransacked and families terrorized. Approximately 30,000 Jewish men were sent to concentration camps.
The shattered glass gave the Nazi pogrom its infamous name: Kristallnacht, the “Night of Broken Glass.” It marked a devastating escalation in persecution, revealing what happens when antisemitism becomes normalized and violence against Jews is tolerated.
The world knows what followed.
For generations, we have promised “Never Again,” building museums, erecting memorials and teaching our children the consequences of hatred. Yet on this 88th anniversary of this dark event, Jews across the Western world again confront attacks on synagogues, businesses and their lives.
Have we truly learned from history?
Perhaps no story captures this anniversary’s significance more painfully than that of Eva Geller.
Eva survived Nazi persecution as a child in Romania before rebuilding her life in Australia. Last year on Dec. 14, she attended a Chanukah celebration at Sydney’s Bondi Beach, where father-and-son gunmen opened fire on Jewish families celebrating the “Festival of Lights.”
Fifteen people were killed and dozens wounded. Eva, then 89, was among those shot. Other Holocaust survivors were also affected by the massacre—a devastating reminder that even those who escaped Nazi persecution have not escaped anti-Jewish hatred and violence.
Despite serious injuries and repeated hospitalisations, Eva reportedly managed to walk again after doctors told her she never would. But on Nov. 5, just days before Kristallnacht, she died at the age of 90, becoming the attack’s 16th victim.
Consider the heartbreaking symbolism: A woman who survived Hitler’s Europe, found refuge and built a life in Australia, was shot nearly nine decades later while openly celebrating her Jewish faith.
What does “Never Again” mean when a Holocaust survivor cannot live out her final years free from antisemitic terror?
For Australian Jews, the warning signs have been impossible to ignore.
In December 2024, Melbourne’s Adass Israel Synagogue was firebombed while worshippers were inside. Authorities classified the attack as terrorism. In July 2025, another synagogue in East Melbourne was deliberately set alight with approximately 20 worshippers inside. That evening, protesters also targeted the Israeli-owned Miznon restaurant.
Sydney has experienced antisemitic graffiti and arson, including the October 2024 firebombing of Lewis’ Continental Kitchen, a kosher delicatessen in Bondi, and the January 2025 firebombing of a childcare center in Maroubra. Australian intelligence attributed the first two attacks to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Iran denied involvement.
Then came the Bondi massacre.
Australia prides itself on multiculturalism and religious freedom. Yet Jewish families have watched synagogues attacked and burned, and relatives murdered at a Chanukah gathering.
And it’s not alone. In March, a synagogue in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, was firebombed, and an explosion damaged a synagogue in Liège, Belgium. Jewish institutions in Germany have faced vandalism and attempted arson, while Canadian synagogues have been targeted by gunfire. In Manchester, England, an attack at Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation on Yom Kippur in October 2025 left two people dead.
Different countries, different circumstances, but a common and disturbing reality: Jews face intimidation and violence in democracies that promise to protect them.
The symbolism surrounding this anniversary is particularly unsettling in the U.S. city of Philadelphia.
On Nov. 8, the eve of Kristallnacht, pro-Palestinian activists planned a “Boycott Ride” identifying six Jewish-owned or Israeli-associated restaurants and businesses. Promotional material reportedly declared, “No business for Zionists!” and “These Zionist Establishments must go! Not in our city!” The plan drew condemnation from Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker and multiple Jewish organizations.
Shortly before commemorating a pogrom that destroyed Jewish businesses, establishments associated with Jews are again being publicly singled out as unwelcome. Of course, a planned boycott in a democracy is not equivalent to Nazi state violence. But the language of exclusion carries a chilling historical echo.
The organizers describe their campaign as anti-Zionist rather than antisemitic—meaning against Israel and not Jews. Yet when Jewish business owners are targeted because of their identity or presumed allegiance to Israel, that distinction becomes difficult to sustain. A Jewish restaurateur in Philadelphia is not the Israeli government. Jewish families should not have to defend their right to operate businesses because others object to Israel.
Antisemitism has always adapted to the political vocabulary of its time. Jews have been accused of disloyalty, conspiracy and collective responsibility for events beyond their control. Today, hostility towards Jews can be expressed in the language of anti-Zionism.
Criticism of Israeli government policy is not inherently antisemitic if consistent application is made against other countries. But when synagogues are firebombed, Jewish businesses intimidated and Jewish communities blamed collectively for events in the Middle East, then the boundary has been crossed.
No political slogan makes the intimidation of any civilian legitimate protest.
Kristallnacht reminds us that violence is preceded by the normalization of exclusion, hatred and indifference. Our world in 2026 is not Nazi Germany in 1938; the Holocaust remains historically unique in its systematic destruction. But history need not repeat itself exactly for its warnings to matter.
In remembering the broken glass of 1938, we must remember Eva Geller: a woman who survived Nazi persecution, rebuilt her life and lived nine decades, only to die following an antisemitic terrorist attack in the country she called home.
Her story should never have ended this way.
“Never Again” wasn’t meant merely as a promise to remember the dead. It was meant as a commitment to protect the living.
