Attacking a Melbourne restaurant does nothing for peace in the Middle East
A group of about 20 people – some wearing the Palestinian keffiyeh – threw food, upended tables, and smashed glasses and a window at Miznon restaurant in busy Hardware Lane, terrifying customers and staff, few of whom are Israeli.
Is this who we are in Melbourne, a place that people come to escape conflict, to find peace and to celebrate diversity? Is it not safe to go out for cauliflower and sweet potato?
I am Jewish, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor and, as I've realised since October 2023, I carry the trauma of broken glass and hateful slogans and sudden, violent disruption. My cells shrink inside me and I feel paralysed, as though fear has frozen my bones.
As a food writer, it's Melbourne's cultural richness that I love most. I eat Congolese fufu and Persian soup and Chinese noodles and Colombian biscuits, learning and drawing closer to culture and shared humanity. I celebrate restaurants as places of gathering and welcome, proving every day we can find similarities in all our differences.
At Miznon, simple ingredients are cooked with care and served with joy. When I interviewed the restaurant group's Israeli founder, Eyal Shani, as the restaurant opened in 2017, he told me about the mission to source the perfect pita.
He discovered a local Turkish baker and was delighted that a Jew and Muslim worked together for weeks to create the perfect bread pocket. 'We changed the whole recipe for his wood oven,' he marvelled. 'We discovered each pita has a birthmark from fire, each one is unique and its own creation. In the end I have a better pita in Melbourne than I have in Israel.'
Miznon's two Melbourne restaurants – there is another in Collingwood – are part of an international hospitality group, part-owned by Israeli businessman Shahar Segal. Segal is also a spokesman for Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a food aid group backed by Israel and the US which has been widely criticised for its lack of impartiality and using aid as leverage.
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