‘No support’ from Tony Burke for Jewish deli targeted by Iran
The family behind Lewis’ Continental Kitchen thought about leaving the business when it was firebombed at the beginning of a campaign of anti-Semitic vandalism last year. Now the spectre of bankruptcy looms.
The family behind a kosher deli firebombed by Iranian terrorists say their business is on the brink of insolvency and the Albanese government has refused their desperate requests for financial support.
Speaking for the first time since their business was set ablaze last year, Lewis’ Continental Kitchen mother-daughter duo Judith and Karyn Lewis told The Australian they were “barely going from month to month”, facing the prospect of shutting down the generational family business, with “no attention” from government.
Judith and Karyn made multiple appeals to Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke for assistance, even enlisting the support of their local member Allegra Spender. But no support has arrived.
Karyn recalled her feeling of hopelessness watching a line of politicians pledge their support to rebuilding the Adass Israel Synagogue in Ripponlea, while their business wound into decline – despite being targeted under the same circumstances in an act of state-sponsored international terrorism masterminded by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and at the very beginning of a months-long anti-Semitic vandalism rampage.
“You saw ministers, one after the other, and the Prime Minister all there. We did not see even a single council person,” Karyn said.
“Will we survive another 12 months? I have no idea, I haven’t got a crystal ball.
“If support doesn’t come around, I don’t see us going any further, we might just run out of puff.”
Lewis’ Continental Kitchen was set ablaze just after 4am on October 20 last year, three days after the front door of another Sydney venue, the Curly Lewis Brewing Company, was torched in a suspected case of mistaken identity. Judith and Karyn were forced to close their Curlewis Street storefront, opened in 1970, and considered shutting down the business entirely. The next time they close, they fear it won’t be by choice.
“Tony (Burke) contacted Allegra (Spender) … and she rang me and she said ‘Tony hasn’t got any money. They don’t have any money to give’,” said Julia, sitting at a desk above the pair’s new kitchen in Darlinghurst.
“No one’s offered anything. There’s no money. What we really urgently need is financial support to tide us over.”
Deprived of their kitchen and forced to relocate, the Lewises were deemed in breach of the contractual requirements set by two airline catering firms that made up 80 per cent of their business. They have lost two-thirds of their staff since.
Their frustration with the drought of support extends past their personal circumstances, leading to a deeper anger at perceived government inaction.
“Tony Burke rang me and said they found out who did it, and that they were throwing out the Iranian ambassador. That actually really frightened me, because it meant an overseas country was firebombing little Lewis’ in Bondi. I mean, it’s just out of proportion,” Judith said.
“And quite basically, if (Anthony) Albanese had stood up and stopped that fiasco at the Opera House, none of this stuff would have happened.
“But they just were silent. It took him three days to go to see the synagogue in Melbourne. Three days.”
With their backs to the wall, Judith and Karyn have pleaded for an “act-of-grace payment”.
The Albanese government in March committed $30m in reconstruction funds to the Adass Synagogue in Ripponlea after it was targeted by the IRGC in December. While the circumstances are distinct, Ms Spender said the government should extend similar compassion to the Lewises.
“I have spoken with Judith Lewis … and she described the anguish not only of the destruction but also the significant impact this has had on their financial stability,” Ms Spender wrote in a letter to Mr Burke.
“The financial damage is significant, and the emotional toll even greater.
“I respectfully ask whether the commonwealth could consider offering targeted support to Lewis’ Continental Kitchen. Whether through business recovery grants, resilience funding, or other means, such support would help reaffirm their place in our multicultural tapestry and ease their path to recovery.”
Mr Burke was contacted for comment.
“This is a family business built on 56 years of hard work and sacrifice and they are now on the cusp of ruin. They have received no assistance from any level of government,” Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-chief Alex Ryvchin said.
“Lewis’s was always a beloved institution and an Australian success story, and they need help, just like other victims of violent crime. We can’t let terrorism prevail.”
Under the tragedy and its aftershocks, for the Lewises, is the spectre of a far worse catastrophe – the potential fatalities that could have occurred.
“There were 21 people living upstairs, and a petrol station behind it. There was gas connected to the kitchen, four deep fryers and stoves. Think about the worst scenario, they could have blown half of Bondi away,” Karyn said.
Little was salvageable from the fire. They recovered some old advertisements, a menu board and some newspaper clippings. These mementos, far from any place of prominence, are now relegated to garages and storage lockers.
“You can’t put it in a house because the smell is just so bad still,” Karyn said. “It smells of smoke, and everything you touch is black.
“Going through after the fire, you’d see a thing of Gladwrap sitting there untouched. It was all alone in this room, the walls had lost all their paint, the windows didn’t have any glass left in them. And you’d find one thing that’s untouched in all the soot around it. And you think: ‘Well, how did it do that?’.”
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