A woman has been charged by police after allegedly calling the CEO of Australia’s most powerful Jewish lobby group an “evil Zionist” at Bondi Beach.
Executive Council of Australia Jewry (ECAJ) co-chief executive Alex Ryvchin said he was showing members of the Sydney Swans AFL team around Archer Park, the scene of the Bondi Islamic terrorist attack, on Wednesday when a woman allegedly asked him “why are there Zionists here?”
“I asked her what she said and she [allegedly] responded that she wanted to know ‘what an evil Zionist was doing here’,” Mr Ryvchin wrote on social media alongside a photo of the woman, and gave a similar account of the alleged confrontation on 2GB radio.
The alleged incident was immediately condemned by NSW Premier Chris Minns and Opposition leader Kellie Sloane, who both know Mr Ryvchin and regularly attend public events with him, and NSW Police on Friday confirmed they had charged a 67-year-old woman from Bondi with “offensive behaviour”.
“Officers attached to Eastern Suburbs Police Area Command were called to Archer Park about 4.30pm (Wednesday 22 July 2026), after a woman allegedly confronted a group of people,” police said in a statement.
“Police will allege the woman verbally abused members of the group making anti-Semitic comments.”
But the accused woman previously told The Daily Telegraph the alleged incident was the result of a “mix-up”, and said she was in the area to support marathon runner Chad Aziz, who was finishing a 4,000km run across the country.
“There was nothing, absolutely nothing,” she said.
“It was a misunderstanding. He was chatting to someone and there was some kind of mix-up.
“He felt insulted that we were there for Chad and not for the massacre. There really isn’t a story. You’ll find the word ‘evil’ was never mentioned – by anyone.”
She will face Waverley Local Court on September 23.
Mr Ryvchin, who earlier this year complained that new “hate speech” laws his organisation helped draft were “wholly inadequate”, responded to the charges by saying “the Jewish community will not succumb to hatred and vilification”.
“We will not allow the desecration of a sacred site. And we will not allow the poison of anti-Zionism, which places targets on the backs of virtually all Jews, to be passed off as benign political commentary,” he said.
“We cannot turn anti-Semites into good and rational people. But we can exact consequences when they endanger our society and break the law.”
Header image: Left, the woman being spoken to police at the scene. Right, Alex Ryvchin and Mr Minns (Facebook).
