Emails uncover Nomad owner’s horrifying anti-Semitic slur
High-profile restaurateur Al Yazbek hit his Jewish landlords with an age-old anti-Semitic slur during a dispute over the premises of his restaurant, as his wife takes control of the Nomad empire.
High-profile restaurateur Al Yazbek called his Jewish landlords “Shylock & Shylock” during a dispute over the premises of his Nomad restaurant, an age-old anti-Semitic slur that flies in the face of his claims to simply be protesting Israel’s actions in Gaza.
Mr Yazbek, who last week pleaded guilty to charges of knowingly displaying a Nazi symbol during a pro-Palestine rally, also demeaningly referred to one of the landlord’s employees as “the little bald Jewish guy who works for you”.
The comments were made in emails to prominent Sydney real estate investors Robert and Geula Burke, who own the five-storey Surry Hills building housing Mr Yazbek’s swanky ground floor Nomad restaurant.
Highly regarded members of Sydney’s Jewish community, Mr Burke, 75, and Israeli-born Ms Burke, 73, are understood to have been appalled by the emails but not surprised when Mr Yazbek was revealed to have brandished a sign bearing a swastika superimposed on an Israeli flag.
Mr Yazbek’s long-term lease on Nomad’s Foster St site has at least two years left to run, but cancellations have hurt the restaurant and his two Victorian eateries, Nomad Melbourne and Reine & La Rue in the wake of the charges.
Ms Yazbek claimed her husband was no longer involved in the management of the business and on Friday announced a restructure of the company, to be renamed Edition Hospitality, in which she would become the sole director.
Celebrity accountant Anthony Bell, founder & CEO of Bell Partners has been appointed as business advisor to the group.
Ms Yazbek said her husband was booked to depart for an Ashram in India and would return for his sentencing on the Nazi flag protest charges on 10 December.
In a separate statement to The Australian over his use of the slur ‘Shylock & Shylock’, Mr Yazbek said: “This is a massive overreaction. People call me names in jest or frustration, and I don’t take offence to terms like ‘mad wog’ or ‘crazy Leb’. It’s Aussie vernacular.
“The term was used after what I felt were multiple unsuccessful interactions with Mr Burke. It was wrong to use the phrase. I have always attempted to stay on good terms with Mr Burke, inviting him into the restaurant to dine, for example.”
Shylock was a stereotyped greedy Jewish money lender in Shakespeare’s play The Merchant of Venice who demands “a pound of flesh” from his Christian rival.
Anti-Semites have used the Shylock trope to support persecution of Jews for more than 400 years, playing off the ‘blood libel’ - the ancient false allegation that Jews coveted the blood of gentiles for sinister purposes.
Mr Yazbek has explicitly denied being anti-Semitic and has apologised “unequivocally” for his flag protest, but that apology was undermined when The Australian revealed he was questioned by police after acting suspiciously outside a Bondi synagogue in Sydney’s east in 2014, where his car was found loaded with “water bomb” balloons.
The next day, Mr Yazbek made his way into a rally for Israel in nearby Dover Heights where more than 10,000 members of Sydney’s Jewish community had gathered, before the restaurateur was spotted by security and removed by police.
The “Shylock & Shylock” gibe occurred in the midst of a bitter legal dispute between the Burkes and the Yazbeks, stemming from a fire that started in Nomad’s wood fire oven in September 2019.
The Yazbeks began repairs after the fire but refused to allow the Burkes access to the property. The Burkes then sued Nomad in the NSW Supreme Court, seeking an injunction to allow them to carry out work to comply with a council fire safety order.
Mr Burke, who is also a lawyer, used his own law firm Gilbert Mane, to bring the action against Nomad.
In a 1 June 2021 email Mr Yazbek described correspondence from Gilbert Mane as “more rubbish from the firm of Shylock and Shylock”.
Mr Burke’s son, Edan, who is employed as Hanave’s property manager, said in an affidavit to the court that the email contained “anti-Semitic undertones”.
Mr Yazbek made other offensive comments about Edan Burke in the email, describing him as “your idiot son” and “a liar”.
The following day, Mr Yazbek sent an email saying he “would be happy to show through the little bald Jewish guy who works for you by way of an update.”
Edan Burke stated in his affidavit that Mr Yazbek had acted aggressively towards him, yelling at Hanave’s fire experts to “get out” and obstructing attempts to comply with the fire order.
In another affidavit, dated 3 August 2023, Edan Burke alleged that Nomad’s solicitors notified them on the eve of Yom Kippur that a fire safety shutdown of the building was to take place the following day, “being less than 24 hours prior notice in circumstances where the holiest day of the Jewish calendar began at sundown on the same day”.
That meant the company didn’t have time to inform other tenants of the building about the impending shutdown, Mr Burke said.
Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-chief executive Alex Ryvchin said the revelations about Mr Yazbek were “entirely in keeping with the conduct of a person who taunts Jewish Australians with swastikas and was questioned by police for acting suspiciously around a synagogue.”
“His gratuitous references to the Jewishness of someone involved in a property dispute and the reference to the moneylender Shylock, shows a fixation with Jews and that his offer of an ‘olive branch of peace and love to the Jewish community’ was purely self-serving and cynical. He can take his olive branch and plant it.”
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