Sinas Chinam VI – Sins of the Cross

 

We are all taught that when we have a wound or a mosquito bite that scabbed over, just leave it alone. Do not pick at the scabs. If you do, you are just irritating the wound and it will take longer to heal. Not just that, it is likely to leave an uglier scar than if it was just left to heal by itself. Don’t keep picking at it.

I truly wish Nicole Meyer and her sisters would know this lesson. They claim that they were “wounded” by the “evil” Mrs. Leifer. Well, that was beyond 18 years ago and there hasn’t been any wounding since. But they just keep picking at it. And it still hasn’t healed. And, as long as they keep picking at it, it isn't going to heal. 

First, they needed to disrupt 10-15 years of their lives for a pursuit of misplaced “justice” which is really revenge. You would think that after they finally got their revenge justice, they could just leave everything alone and let it "heal”. But…No-o-o. They need to keep picking at it. They need to make sure they don’t heal and that the scars stand out. It’s another form of self-harm.

Not only won’t it heal, but it will spread. They are seeing to it that it spreads.

To start with, Dassi Erlich came out with her dishonest and poisonous book bent on blaming everyone in the world. I discussed it at length. At the same time, Nicole has taken to TikTok. Her account is over three years old and currently has about 20,000 followers. I cannot determine how many video posts there are, but they number in the hundreds. 

How many of these hundreds of videos are clear of any lashon hara or motzi shem rah? 10%? 20%? It’s hard to assume it is any more than that, but even if it reaches 50%, we still have hundreds of short videos chock full of lashon hara, motzi shem rah and sinas chinam for her 20,000 followers. They are meant to be available on the Internet forever! 

One thing that stands out is that every single thing she says about Malka Leifer is derogatory. Not a single thing positive to say. Zero.

How does somebody do teshuva for that? How can somebody heal from that?

As an example of one video that I actually looked at, Nicole displays a picture of Malka Leifer smiling and all dressed up wearing pearls. She tells us that this picture is cut in half. She is in the other half but cannot share it. Today is her 18th anniversary and she tells us that Malka Leifer abused her even on her wedding day.

Let’s assume this narrative is totally 100% true. This post is dated Aug. 20, 2024. Mrs. Leifer has been “found guilty” and is in jail for over a year. Why does anybody need to know this “truth”? Who does it help? What is the toelles?

I may get back to TikTok later but what I really want to discuss is that Nicole has likewise gone riding the podcast circuit. This gets much more exposure. I’m not talking about Jewish podcasts like The Struggle or Meaningful People. I am talking about raw secular non-Jewish podcasts where she is paying homage to their gods, not ours.

I have no idea how many “appearances” she has made since 2023, and perhaps she was initially keeping a low profile. But in 2025, shortly before the privileged documentary was released, she participated in two very high-profile podcasts in the non-Jewish arena. 

One was a serial podcast called I Catch Killers. This is hosted by a fellow named Gary Jubelin. Gary Jubelin was a very successful and highly celebrated homicide detective in NSW, Australia. Sometime around 2023, Jubelin was convicted of unlawfully recording conversations of suspects, fined AU$ 10,000 and forced to retire. As do so many [Australian] folks forced into early retirement, they go into show business and make even more money and get even more famous. As you may assume, the focus of this podcast would be to assess the criminality of our episode.

The other one is likewise a serial podcast called Sins of the Cross. This is hosted by an Aussie named Glen Fisher who grew up in a very bad neighborhood. He was abused multiple times (real abuse – by men) and fell into homelessness and drugs, the works. Miraculously, he pulled himself out of it, went straight and found religion. He got many of his abusers into trouble. Started charities, wrote a book and now hosts a podcast where he interviews fellow “survivors”. Understandably, the focus of his podcast is to assess the horrors of abuse.

Incidentally, Glen Fisher was also featured on I Catch Killers.

Both of these podcasts are in a non-Jewish setting and reflect non-Jewish values and standards. They are all about abuse, abuse, abuse, victim, victim, victim, and justice, justice, justice. And they employ the secular non-Jewish definitions of all of them. 

In these podcasts, Nicole comes across very articulate, very intelligent, very poised. Nevertheless, since these are all amicable, sympathetic interviews, nothing she says is challenged and there is no pushback. These podcasts are mere echo chambers. Abuse, victim, justice, abuse, victim, justice, lather, rinse, repeat.

In spite of everything I already knew, or thought I knew about this episode, these podcasts were very revealing. This is especially since most of noise that I filtered until now has come from Dassi Erlich. She’s not even pretending to be religious. But, in these podcasts, it’s Nicole, the oldest and the “observant” one, who is showing her cards.

Let me say that regarding the objective facts of what happened, Nicole comes across very credible. All indications are that some forms of abuse took place and she is not making up the basic story. I see a lot of pain and a lot of trauma. I believe the pain is genuine and the trauma is genuine. 

But her subjective analysis of her experiences show something else. They show a lot of hatred and a lot of anger. A tremendous amount of anger. In England and South Africa, and I assume, in Australia as well, people do not say they are angry. They say they are cross. 

In Judaism we say that it is a severe sin to be angry. A severe sin to be cross. כל הכועס, כל מיני גהינום שולטים עליו. One who is cross, all forms of purgatory dominate him (or her). So, it’s a sin to be cross. Let us discuss the Sins of the Cross.

Nicole Meyer is very, very cross. What is she cross about?

Well, for starters, she is cross that the evil Mrs. Leifer abused her for so many years. Yet, when she finally shlepped her all the way to Australia with every intention of getting full revenge justice, interminable jail sentences, and validation for her perpetual victimhood, it didn’t work out that way. Mrs. Leifer was acquitted of every charge that pertained to her. Of the remaining 22 charges, she was convicted of 18 of them and acquitted on the rest. This brought a total sentence of 15 years minus time served. 

To some extent, this contradicts numerous statements that we heard from Dassi Erlich when she said, “All I want is to face her in an Australian court.” [This quote is from memory and may not be exact.] What they really meant is that they wanted to deface her in an Australian court. They did what they did and got what they got but they are still not satisfied. 

In some post-trial interviews, Nicole said that she does not understand why Mrs. Leifer was acquitted for all charges pertaining to her. She knows “her truth”. Despite this, she did indeed mention two contributing factors:

• She wasn’t allowed to present all of the evidence that she wanted. A lot of evidence was ruled to be inadmissible. Of course, we will never know the strength of this so-called evidence and why it was considered to be inadmissible. For sure, Nicole won’t tell us.

• The defense asked Nicole to read out to the jury a few letters that she had written to Mrs. Leifer thanking her “for her help and for putting a smile on my face.”

I am sure they had a lot of impact, but I think there is a third, much stronger reason. This is where I found her podcasts, especially the one with the detective, to be so revealing, and it is something that I suspected from the get-go. 

From what Nicole tells Gary Jubelin, the discussion about seqsual abuse was very marginal. It wasn’t really seqsual abuse. That was just a by-product. It was a venture of total domination and mind control. Like a cult leader. A condition that has recently been called coercive control or narcissistic abuse.  

Here is how she describes it (30:00):

I've actually thought I could write a book on the seven years that I was with Malka Leifer because it is so extensive. And the coercive control and the impact and the control she had in every single area of my life is extremely difficult to understand unless it's really fully understood.

And 1.5 minutes later:

Like she groomed a community. She groomed the teachers. She groomed all the students. It was Mrs. Leifer at this and Mrs. Leifer at that…I would say she groomed majority of the community with her actions, her behaviors, where she was, her visibility was always there.

So, Nicole claims that Mrs. Leifer groomed the entire community. 

This is very much like Joan Samson’s The Auctioneer. This is a 1970s fictional thriller about a sleepy rural town in New Hampshire just minding its own business until a charismatic man of the world arrives out of nowhere and suggests holding an auction to support the town’s one-man police force. Soliciting donations from the townsfolk, his auction goes so well that he holds another, then another, then another, week after week, month after month. Eventually the beleaguered townspeople have nothing left to give, but the auctioneer, backed by the increasingly powerful police department, is unrelenting in his demands for more. Those who resist meet with violent “accidents.” In short, his charisma and smooth talk undoes the entire peaceful town. 

I cannot believe that Mrs. Leifer seqsually abused the entire community. Evidently, seqsual abuse was not her real game. It was the attention.

We’ve all heard of this – narcissism, gaslighting, mind control, domination, isolation. It is the exact same abuse she got from her parents except they did it by force and Mrs. Leifer did it by charm. Yes, this behavior is abusive and traumatizing and debilitating. But there is one problem. 

It is not a crime.

There is one very chilling statement in The Auctioneer: “Just remember this,” he said. “Whatever I’ve done, you’ve let me do.”

In truth, I came across a YouTube clip of a woman therapist presenting a very legal definition of coercive control and claiming that it is now a crime in about seven US states. Though, it is very difficult to establish and would require precise documentation. [Tznius alert – the woman therapist is not properly dressed in the clip so I cannot recommend watching it, only listening to it. Perhaps, scroll out the media window or switch to your emails or solitaire app while you listen.]

Still, in most places it is not a crime and will probably never be one. I assume such to be the case in Australia, especially since she wasn’t charged with it.

Do you know why it won’t be a crime? It is because, most of the time it is not driven by criminal intent. It is usually a result of a cycle of emotional abuse, insecurity, low self-esteem, not knowing how to love or to be loved, PTSD, a craving for power, paranoia, and other pathologies. These should put abusers into therapy but not prison. In general, they have committed no violent crime.

But Nicole and her sisters are very cross. So, like our DoorDash girl, they need to redefine this coercive control as a violent crime in the name of getting revenge justice. The way to do it is to overblow every touch and caress into seqsual “abuse” and “rape” to get it to constitute a horrific crime. This is even without any claims of being forced.

Well, they get mob bosses on “tax evasion” and “racketeering”, don’t they? Just, these guys do have criminal intent.

In any case, in Nicole’s case, she was basically at the age of consent all the way through and the seqsual aspect was relatively marginal. especially since female-to-female seqsual activity is much harder to define and to substantiate. As such, my assumption is her case was too weak for a conviction.

And so, Nicole is very cross. And when you consider that, by the rules of our Torah, none of this is criminal, Nicole is sinfully cross. Allowing oneself to be manipulated does not carry much currency in a Beis Din. Emotional pain may be considered damaging and damages need to be compensated, but it is not criminal by our standards. Conversely, vengeance is criminal. And sinful.

This brings me to the other “revealing” factor which was always self-evident. This was an exchange at the end of the podcast with Glen Fisher and it blew me away. 

Bear in mind that the focus of Glen Fisher’s podcast, Sins of the Cross, is discussing the horrors of abuse as they affect the victims, not the criminality of the abusers. Most of the podcast was Glen Fisher and Nicole Meyer comparing notes on their respective experiences. Clearly, Glen Fisher had it much worse since he was genuinely seqsually molested with real acts of se%. He was allegedly molested by male parts. Nicole was allegedly molested by female fingers.

The part that fascinated me was about the 55:00 mark of the podcast. Glen fisher brings up the fact that he may have the opportunity to actually speak to his abuser when he will be assessed for parole. He says that initially he felt that he should approach his abuser to tell him these three words:

I forgive you.

This blew me away.

He then clarified what he meant by saying that he wanted to show the abuser that he no longer has power over him and that he is not letting him live rent free in his head. In other words, he has learned to let go. Interesting choice of words, nonetheless.

This is one of the only segments that Nicole did not fully concur with the host. She emphatically agreed that she, too, longs to have a “conversation” with Mrs. Leifer, but nothing along the lines of “I forgive you”.

In the Gary Jubelin podcast (45:40), she is a little more articulate. Her dream is to give Mrs. Leifer some kind of mussar shmooze first itemizing everything she did to her and then to say, “but you cannot break me and you cannot take away my life. I'm taking it back what you took and I'm going to show you that what you have done to me is not going to break me and not going to impact me the way you think it did.” 

Sounds very defiant, just that, despite the alleged coercive control and narcissistic abuse, I am not convinced that Mrs. Leifer was ever really trying to break her or take away her life. So, it would be a pyrrhic victory, in my opinion.

But what’s clear is that Nicole cannot let go. Unlike Glen Fisher, she cannot forgive. Forgiveness is not in her vocabulary. Her hatred runs so deep. She keeps picking at the wound and it will never heal. The sins of the cross are eternal.

I came across this TikTok video.  In it, Nicole once again expresses the three top things she would say to Mrs. Leifer if she could have a conversation with her.

(1) She would tell her that “she didn’t break me.” -  I commented on this earlier. There is no evidence that Malka Leifer was aiming to destroy anybody. It looks like she only needed to fill her own empty spaces. And, if so, why does Nicole Meyer need to break Malka Leifer?

On the side, the more she tells us - 18 years later - that Mrs. Leifer didn't break her, the more broken she looks to be.

(2) She would ask, “did she know what her abuse was doing?” – How would Nicole respond if she says "No, I didn’t"?

(3) She would ask, "will she ever admit what she did?" – My answer is that she can’t. The Sapper sisters won’t let her. 

I have followed this case for over ten years. All I saw was a quest to prosecute, punish, imprison. Never, ever did I see any attempt to make Shalom, to reconcile. To just ask for an apology and leave it at that (they already got money from the school). Never any attempt to settle this quietly or to first make a personal demand and then say "if you don’t do it, then we will contact the authorities". It was straight to authorities from the get-go. Go straight to jail - Do not pass go, do not collect anything. 

From the start, they wanted blood and vengeance and not peace. And it was always hidden behind the battle-cry of “justice”. And they still want it. Never any attempt to fix, they only want to destroy. Hence, to admit anything would only assist in their destructiveness and make things worse for her. Why should she even try?

If Nicole wants to have a sincere conversation with Mrs. Leifer, there is one question that she will need to ask her before any other one. But I know she could never bring herself to do it. She won’t have the courage. It might undermine everything she worked for since 2011 and destroy her persona as a victim. Nicole cannot take that chance. 

The question is:

Mrs. Leifer, did anybody molest you when you were young? Are you [also] a victim of abuse?

The sins of the cross. כל הכועס, כל מיני גהינם שולטים עליו. 

I am not sure who is the evil one. 

Sinas Chinam V - A Ruse by Any Other Name Would Smell as Foul

Ever since the story broke last October, I have debated whether to write about the DoorDash Girl.

On the one hand, this is certainly not the kind of news item that should be on our radar screen. On the other hand, there is a very important lesson that emerges from this story that is a clear and frightening sign of the times. 

I assume most American readers know what DoorDash is (I only found out in October). DoorDash is a freelance courier service that restaurants or other retail shops use to deliver online or telephone purchases to the customers. It is a competitor of Uber Eats. Here in Israel, we have those Wolt motorcycles. 

Any capable person with a vehicle can sign up to be a DoorDash delivery person and make a handful of cash. Many folks do it, some for basic income and some for money on the side.

This event took place on October 12, 2025 in Oswego, NY. A 23-year-old woman who was driving for DoorDash was called to make a delivery. I would guess that this woman is not married and indications are she does not even have a boyfriend. 

The call was to a man’s home with explicit instructions to leave the delivery outside the door and not to bother ringing the bell or coming in.

 

According to her, when she arrived at the home the door was wide open. It seems that the door was not locked and may have been slightly open but nothing in her TikTok video confirms the claim that it was wide open. The man inside was not fully dressed, incapacitated and unconscious on his couch after drinking alcohol. A little bit like Noach. ויתגל בתוך אהלה.

Instead of just leaving the delivery as instructed, or taking a blanket and walking backwards to cover up the indecency, she did a true maaseh shel Canaan (or Cham). She pulled out her cell phone while outside the home, and recorded the man while he was totally unconscious on his couch. She didn’t just tell her immediate family members (if she has any), but rather posted the video online to the entire world – currently more than only eight people. It is said that up to 30 million viewers viewed her revealing video on her TikTok page. 

In the Noach story, Rashi says that Noach was physically assaulted and, although intoxicated, he was unequivocally the victim. But this woman, after filming and posting this man’s “deficiency” complained to her DoorDash superiors that she was se%ually assaulted on the job. The complaint was forwarded to the Oswego Police Department and they investigated the matter obtaining statements from both the driver and the customer. 

The police determined that no actual se%ual assault (SA) occurred. Moreover, they determined that the woman violated two felony offenses. For this she was arrested and later indicted. She is now charged with unlawful surveillance in the second-degree and dissemination of an unlawful surveillance image in the first-degree. She now faces up to four years in prison for each felony which, could add up to eight years in the pen. 

In an Oct. 16 statement, DoorDash said that the driver’s DoorDash account was deactivated along with that of the customer. “Posting a video of a customer in their home and disclosing their personal details publicly is a clear violation of our policies,” read the statement in part.

But it seems that after she lost her job and faced prosecution, she went absolutely berserk. In some of the online versions of this news story, they show an excerpt of a TikTok video that she made after being fired where she can be seen screaming at the top of her lungs, “How can I be fired? I was SA’ed! I am the victim!”

She is saying that the mere fact that this person was in his own home totally unconscious and totally unaware of her presence, and that he was not covered below the belt, and that the door of the house did not prevent her from trespassing is his act of SA toward her.

Thank G-d, she didn’t get anywhere with this. At least upstate NY is not half as crazy as is metro NY. But it is very disturbing all the same. 

Even if she couldn’t convince her employers, the cops, or her viewers that she is a victim of SA, she certainly convinced herself. It’s not that she’s pulling a ruse and she knows it, and is just trying to “get away with it”. No, from all appearances she truly believes it. And this makes a big difference when liberals like her do indeed get positions in the DA’s office. Yeah, it didn’t play in Oswego and it wouldn’t play in Peoria, but it might play in Manhattan or Chicago.

I have no idea what the millions of viewers thought, but it’s a safe bet that there is at least a fair minority on her side. In a world where clearly stated definitions become subjective, anything goes.

This is not a new tactic. If the events don’t fit the crime, just redefine the crime to fit the events. This is how they put vaguely defined crimes on the books such as “bribery” and “racketeering” and “conspiring to...” to nab crooks and politicians (more or less synonymous) and Kosher meatpackers to help fill the prisons and justify the hard work of prosecutors. 

However, in the past, this used to be done on the sly. In today’s world, it is done blatantly and shamelessly. Hence, the shamelessness of the DoorDash girl.

בעקבתא דמשיחא חוצפא יסגיא.

This is no more apparent than in the two-year-old debacle of the ICJ accusations against Israel. We know that the South Africans, who are the genuine Bnei Cham, wanted us to be prosecuted for “genocide”. Thus, they filed a complaint to the International Court of Jesters Justice (ICJ). As we know, all Jew haters worldwide have been chanting the “genocide” song ever since October 7, but when an international court needs to apply judicial process to the claims, the stakes are much higher. 

Firstly, the court at least needs to present a façade of jurisprudence to retain a sense of impartiality and credibility. This is no small feat for them. Secondly, in so doing, the court needs to have clear definitions of the terms and apply them judiciously. Thirdly, they need to establish “beyond a reasonable doubt” that the conditions for prosecution, as defined, are being met.

To do so, they would need irrefutable evidence of incidents where civilians (non-combatants) were being targeted for hostilities or even combatants with no regard for the safety of civilians in the area. Even if an isolated incident or two is found, it needs to be established that this is the policy of the body that is accused and not an anomaly carried out by renegades.

They weren’t able to do that. So the next step was to move the goalposts. As such, in December 2024, our great friends from Ireland wanted to “broaden” the definition of “genocide” for the good of the poor civilians who weren’t being targeted. As I wrote above, if the events don’t fit the crime, just redefine the crime to fit the events.

Needless to say, such a move would open a Pandora's box and eventually come back and bite those who push for it. As far as I know, this did not get anywhere. Yet, the fact that a “concerned” sovereign nation could push for it tells us a lot about where we are.

Another “redefinition” of bad behavior is one that I have written about in numerous previous posts generally in regard to the Malka Leifer affair. But this one is a double whammy. The bad behavior in question is: pedophilia.

In my preamble post 10 years back titled Thinking Like a Jew, I stated the true definition of pedophile (from Wikipedia). Here is an excerpt:

Pedophilia - a psychiatric disorder in which an adult or older adolescent experiences a primary or exclusive se%ual attraction to prepubescent children.

Notice the word prepubescent. This means a child who has not yet reached puberty. For a girl, the cutoff would be about 12 and maximum 13.

This indicates that any se%ual offender who is just as eager to assault a person beyond puberty as they are one below puberty doesn’t fit the definition of pedophile. This person doesn’t really discriminate and, as such, there is no primary or exclusive attraction to children. More so, one who hasn’t even offended a prepubescent child at all.

But, just like the “anti”-genocidists, liberal folks need to demonize and dehumanize the offender to the utmost. Hence, they redefine a pedophile as one who experiences a se%ual attraction to children. Somehow, they dispense with the modifiers, “primary or exclusive” and “prepubescent”.

To help accomplish this, they utilize today’s liberal redefinition of the term "child". In today’s world it basically means any person, at any age, who cannot think for themselves, which technically includes any liberal person at any age. 

By broadening the definition of child, not only do they broaden the definition of pedophile (hence the double-whammy), but they also broaden the definition of genocide. Countless times we have heard the news announce: “There have been a gazillion civilian deaths – mostly women and children…” 

Hey, if a 15-year-old post-puberty boy who is trained to fight, is armed to the teeth, and is present on the battlefield constitutes a “child”, there will be many such “children” on the casualty list. And if this applies to a 17-year-old and to a 19-year-old and to a 21-year-old – and I don’t even think it ends there – there are bound to be lots and lots of dead “children”.

These first few “redefinitions” (SA, genocide, pedophile, and child) all have to do with defining - or redefining and broadening - crimes. 

I have one more redefined term to discuss. This one is not meant to broaden the crimes to fit the events, but to legitimize the punishments. The term is…Justice.

What does the term “justice” really mean?

Let’s check out Wikipedia. Here is what it says:

In its broadest sense, justice is the treatment of individuals fairly. According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, the most plausible candidate for a core definition comes from the Institutes of Justinian, a 6th-century codification of Roman law, where justice is defined as "the constant and perpetual will to render to each his due".

So justice means fairness. And here is an amazing corollary: the term “justice” is more applicable to the perpetrator than it is to the victim. It means that if one is accused of something, or sued for something, the defendant must be treated fairly. Lynching a suspected horse thief is not “justice” even if he really is a horse thief.

Yet, somehow it came to mean something else. It is redefined as "seeing to it that a wrongdoer gets his comeuppance". In my previous Sinas Chinam post (June 18), I made a big fuss out of this. Currently, justice is redefined as prosecution, punishment and retribution. Somehow, now, a victim gets justice, not a perpetrator.

How did this come about?

In my very first post about the Malka Leifer affair - Mesira XII: Justice is Blind...and Deaf - Midas Ha"Din" – I explained how today’s concept of justice is built. I made a few points. Here are the main ones:

The human being abhors monotony and craves drama. As such, whenever possible, a monotonous event will be dramatized to the utmost.

The human being firmly believes that good should be rewarded and evil should be punished and, as such, has a craving to administer justice and to exact revenge.

The normal human being (not a psychopath) cannot conscience unjustified violence. As such he must have some battle-cry or pretense which he will swear by to justify his actions. (E.g., righting a wrong - serving justice, avenging the "victim".)

This says that there is a universal bloodlust for crime and punishment. If the crime does not exist, it needs to be created. The old definitions need to be “broadened”. If the consequences of the crime are not debilitating and they do not mollify our bloodlust, they need to be intensified. Whereupon, they are explained away as “doing the right thing”. Fairness has nothing to do with this. The ends justify the means. 

This is the power of sinas chinam. This is the craft of Haman and Amalek, the duplicity of Kamtza and Bar Kamtza. It’s a trap that many of us fall into to this day.

Revised definitions, a ruse by another name, may not play in Oswego and Peoria, but they will play on Broad-way.

 

Big Brother Goes Down Under

Happy July 1st, everybody.

It’s such a special day today if you live in Australia. Today is the day that the new Austrac AML (Anti Money Laundering) regulations take effect.

Briefly, the new regulations say that if you have hired a lawyer, accountant, real estate agent, stock or mortgage broker, or even a jeweler or any such service provider to work for you, they are also working for the Australian government. This is because if these professionals merely suspect that any of your activities cross legal boundaries, they are required to report it to the Australian authorities (Austrac) under penalties of being fined or losing their license to practice their profession.

It’s not only that, but they are not allowed to tell you if they are reporting you. You will never know until you are nabbed.

This means those you need to trust for confidentiality and client privilege will offer no such thing.

KGB goes Down Under.

I learned about this from an Australian lawyer who explained it on his YouTube channel. You can see the video here:

Lawyers Will Be FORCED to Report You Starting Tomorrow - YouTube

Here are some excerpts from the transcript (don’t you love copy/paste?):

I'm on my way to court, so I can't sit down and do this properly with you. But everything is about to change at the end of the month, and you need to know this. This is about the people you trust, the people you should be able to trust.



Dealing with your life, some of the most important things that you have, money, relationships, legal advice, real estate agents, accountants, people who deal in precious stones and metals, because come July, they're no longer just going to be working for you. In fact, if they notice anything suspicious, they're going to be required to report it to the government, and they're not allowed to tell you. And there's a real question as to whether or not this fundamentally changes the relationship between lawyers and their clients forever. And as a lawyer, I can tell you it's very concerning because there's a real question as to whether or not everything you tell a lawyer is going to be privileged or if this continues, that privilege starts to disappear.



So, let's start with when this kicks off, because it kicks off on the 1st of July, 2026. That's not far away. And while everybody's being distracted by the budget and the changes to tax and incentives and thresholds, this is almost largely being ignored in the mainstream media. And part of the reason I think this is probably not hit the news properly is it doesn't sound like it's going to affect you. That's the brilliance of it. Cuz what this is, is touch two of the anti-money laundering and counterterrorism financing regime which, if you just read that, you would never think it applies to you but it goes a fair bit further. We're talking about lawyers, accountants, real estate agents, conveyances, brokers. The important thing is these are not fringe industries. These are these are professions where people need that degree of trust. They need to know that if they tell this person something, they're not just going to turn around, tell the government, tell Austrac, and not be able to warn you that you are now under investigation.



The people you trust with your most private affairs are now built in. They're wired into the reporting system. So, the mechanism is something called a suspicious matter report. And that report goes to Austrac.



And it's not about believing that somebody's committed a crime or that they're about to commit a crime. The threshold is just suspicion. If things don't add up, and ordinarily before this regime, they could probably ask you about it. But the issue is that now if they're even suspicious based on a lack of information that could very well trigger an obligation to send that report to Austrac. And suspicion can come from simple innocent things. It can come from things being rushed. It can come from things being recorded badly or not properly looked after in terms of records. And even if you trust your lawyer, which I certainly hope you do, or your accountant, I can tell you that when people are running a business, when they have these professional obligations, and when the risk of not reporting something means that they could lose their livelihood, they're going to report it.



The most concerning part is that once they decide or are concerned that there's some sort of suspicious activity going on, they file the report. That's it. They can't tell you. They're not allowed to under penalty. It's something called the tipping off rule, which, in the simplest way to explain, means that the person reporting you can't advise you. They can't let you know that you might be under investigation.



So, in many ways, it almost prevents your lawyer or your accountant from being able to help you get ahead of a badly reported or a missed document. To put it into context, you could be sitting down for a conference with your lawyer or accountant and at the end of it they can shake your hand, say it was good to see you, see you out the door, and that's the end of it. You won't get a warning. You won't get a letter. You may never know. And it might not just be that one professional. It might be both. It might be more if you have a mortgage broker as well or somebody who looks after your real estate.



So, let's get back to the broad justification for this. The official line is that this closes the gap for criminal organizations and how they're able to support themselves. And in many ways, almost as always, that's true. It does, because the criminals that are making a lot of money do hire lawyers. They do hire accountants and they try to make it as legit as possible. They use company structures and trusts. So, it's kind of like a dragnet because it catches everything. But that's the problem. Catches everything. And that means you and me and anyone else who's watching this.

Nobody has to be corrupt. Nobody has to be malicious. This is the system working exactly as it's designed to. And that's why it's so important to know how the system actually works and what you can do about it or at least be aware of how it works and what's happening because almost always this is how power expands. It doesn't do it dramatically or with some big announcement or with boots on the ground. It does it quietly, slowly, and always with paperwork.


This is Big Brother Watching at its finest. I wonder if it applies to morticians, as well. (“Where’s the body?”)

So, this quiet law has now gone into effect in Australia (not one of my favorite places). Why Australia?

I wrote in a previous post, that Australia is one of only two countries that consider themselves “Western democracies” that do not have a constitution that includes a Bill of Rights. When there is no constitutional law to guarantee one’s privacy, it's guaranteed that there will be laws that invade one's privacy.

The other one is the great State of Israel. All Jews have the right to live here but, it seems, nobody has the rights to live here. Still, I think we are safe from laws like this. The Knesset would never pass it. The individual MKs have too much at stake.

But if you’re not Australian or Israeli, don’t relax just yet. I am sure the countries that do have Bills of Rights are going to be watching this very carefully. Now, most of these “Western” places are headed for Sharia law anyway, so it won’t much matter, but even if they manage to hold out, they are very good at creating new “interpretations” of the Bill of Rights. What if they call it, “Financial terrorism”?

Orwell calls this "Newspeak".

The Cold War may be over, but if so, the communists won. We can still “vote” for our leaders and our lawmakers (while we are dead or alive) and we can proclaim our “rights”. But the “authorities” can make their own rules, and when they do, there is nobody to complain to. It’s their ball.

Once one has a Google account or a Microsoft account, “they” know everything about you. You already have no privacy. But, just in case, your own lawyer and accountant will fill them in. At your expense. And when you land on “their” radar screen, you will never know it. They are not even allowed to tell you.

I suppose this means that they are probably not even going to tell you about this new AML regulation. (Probably many of the professionals will be clueless about it.) Don't expect your lawyer or accountant to "read you your rights" and to tell you, "From here on in, anything you tell me can and will be used against you in Austrac." They like to pass these new laws very quietly. (No worries, mayte, you 'eard it from me.)

Incidentally, he closes his diatribe by saying:

So, is there anything that any of us can do about this? I would say take advantage of the fact that hasn't kicked in yet. Take advantage of the fact that there is still a little bit of time where you can get advice as to whether or not anything looks suspicious and what you can do to remove that suspicion. Don't panic.

This video was obviously made a day or two before July 1. Yet, what he said about still having some time to adjust one's MO (method of operation) brings about the question, what if the professional is already aware of the way you do things? Is he required to report the "suspicions" he is aware of or does it only apply to newly rendered services as of July 1st? 

Some service providers may want to play it safe and be stringent.

For us Jews, this is even more scary. We Jews like to engage Jewish lawyers, Jewish accountants, Jewish real estate agents and Jewish jewelers. And, very often, we like to pay for things in cash. What will happen when a Jewish lawyer or accountant has grounds to “suspect” a Jewish client of "suspicious" activities?

What a mess! Just like the old KGB days in communist Russia. You cannot trust the gabbai of your shul.

Well, the KGB has arrived Down Under and they may soon show up at a theater of operations near you.

So, Happy July 1st. Happy Summer!

Is it any wonder that this year July 1 falls on erev 17 Tammuz?

Be worried. Be very worried!

ואין לנו על מי לסמוך אלא על אבינו בשמים.