Published: 25 April 2024
Last updated: 7 May 2024
On a quiet morning in Melbourne’s Jewish heartland, community stalwarts gather in a small room at Beth Weizmann to hear from an unusual champion: a Christian minister who believes ‘only Jesus’ can defeat hate.
Mark Leach is the leader of grassroots Christian movement Never Again is Now (NAIN), which aims to address and stamp out antisemitism across Australia.
NAIN is behind a campaign of public rallies in Australian capitals to raise awareness of antisemitism. A Sydney rally of around 10,000, headlined by former Prime Minister Scott Morrison, was held in February and a Melbourne rally is scheduled for May 19.
Leach is passionate about the dangers of antisemitism. His motivation to speak out stems in part from a “really scary” experience being chased by a group carrying a knife after he waved an Israeli flag during Sydney’s pro-Palestinian rally on October 9, he told the Beth Weizmann audience.
Comments3
M McL16 June at 02:22 pm
Protestantism has promoted Zionism for 200 years. At the end of those 200 years we’ve got a secular Zionist state that won’t join sanctions against Russia and harbors oligarchs.
Moishe Ben Zorach1 May at 01:33 am
I have heard Rev. Leach tell his story several times. The knife reference must have come from his relating that one of the assailants drew his finger across his neck as an overt threat to slit his throat.
Michael27 April at 02:09 am
Where did this knife enter the tale of the mob pursuit? It was not mentioned in Mark Leach’s original tweet on the event (see below), nor had I read of it since. Is the story growing a beard?
https://twitter.com/markleach/status/1711348831424848017