Avraham Shalom Yemini (néWaks; born 17 October 1985) is an Australian-Israelifar-right provocateur and commentator.[6][7] From 2020 onwards he has worked as the Australian correspondent for Rebel News, a Canadian far-right website.[1][8] Yemini has been involved in numerous cases of litigation, initiated both by him and against him.
Yemini grew up in a large family in Melbourne, Victoria, and attended various orthodox Jewish schools in Melbourne and overseas.[1] When he was 16 he experienced substance abuse and at the age of 19 joined the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in an attempt to get off drugs.[1]
Yemini was born in Melbourne, Victoria to Zephaniah (formerly Stephen) and Hava Waks,[12] and grew up in the Melbourne suburb of St Kilda East.[1] He is one of seventeen children.[1] One of his elder siblings is Manny Waks.[4]
Yemini attended Yeshivah College, and was later sent to ultra-Orthodox schools in the U.S., Israel and Brazil. He returned to Melbourne when he was 16, and subsequently became addicted to heroin. He spent the next two years in rehab, foster homes and crisis care.[1]
Yemini lives in Berwick, Victoria with his wife, a hairdresser. They met at a coffee shop in 2018.[1]
Activities
Yemini joined the IDF when he was 19, in an effort to straighten out.[1] He served with the IDF's Golani Brigade from 2005 until 2008. Most of his active duty was spent along the border of the Gaza Strip.[13] After returning to Australia, Yemini opened his first IDF gym in Caulfield, Victoria, followed by a second in the Melbourne central business district in 2016.[14][15] In 2018, Yemeni sold the gyms.[1]
In 2020, Yemini became the Australian correspondent for the Canadian far-right outlet, Rebel News.[1][8] He is known for his performance skills and opportunistic nature.[1] Through his work with Rebel, Yemeni emerged as a critic of former Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews and what he sees as a middle-class, soft-left ideology, which he believes is supported by “woke elites”, an entitled political class, and the mainstream media.[1]
In August 2022, Yemini was denied entry to New Zealand due to a 2019 criminal conviction for assaulting his ex-wife.[11] Yemini claimed the decision was due to an article in The New Zealand Herald that described him and fellow content creator Rukshan Fernando as "Australian conspiracy commentators".[17][18] Yemini was allowed entry to New Zealand in 2023.[19]
Social media bans
In April 2016, the Facebook page for Yemini's gym was banned for three days for sharing an antisemitic post with the hashtag "saynotoracism". Yemini said he had shared the post to raise awareness of the intolerance faced by the Jewish community.[13]
In August 2018, Yemini's main Facebook page was banned for hate speech violations.[9] The decision came after Yemini doxxed journalist Osman Faruqi, resulting in Faruqi receiving abusive messages and death threats from Yemini's followers.[20][10]
In September 2020, two of Yemini's Facebook pages were banned following inquiries by Gizmodo Australia.[9] As of February 2021, Yemini was posting anti-vaccine and anti-lockdown content on Facebook.[21]
Legal issues
In 2016, one of Yemini's brothers, Manny Waks, sued him for defamation after Yemini claimed that Waks and their father were harbouring a known paedophile in the family home.[22] Waks dropped the lawsuit after Yemini apologised a few months later.[1]
In July 2019, Yemini pled guilty to assault after he threw a chopping board that hit his former wife on her forehead in 2016.[23] He also pleaded guilty to using a carriage service to harass by sending abusive text messages to her, and one charge of breaching an intervention order relating to a video of a man.[23] Yemini was fined A$3,600.[23]
In 2021 Yemini was ejected and banned from the Victorian Parliament precinct for 7 days after he gained access using a media accreditation issued by the federal Department of Home Affairs for foreign dignitary visits.[24] In March 2021, he applied for accreditation to allow him access to the press galleries of both houses of the parliament and the areas sounding the buildings.[24] Yemini's application was refused with no reasons being given.[24] He then took legal action against three Victorian parliamentary officials − including former Legislative Assembly speaker Colin Brooks.[25] Yemini subsequently lost the case.[26]
In June 2021, Zarah Garde-Wilson initiated a defamation lawsuit against Yemini after he published an image of Garde-Wilson with wording which stated that she had been arrested and charged for making threats to kill.[27][28] The proceedings concluded with a settlement in October 2021.[29]Rebel News agreed to remove the offending image of Garde-Wilson and issue an apology stating that no one had made any threats to kill.[29]
In March 2022, Yemini launched legal action against Twitter user PRGuy17 claiming that tweets from the account were defamatory.[30] In June of that year, Twitter were ordered to hand over IP addresses associated with the account.[30] After Twitter handed over IP addresses associated with the account, YouTuber Friendlyjordies interviewed Jeremy Maluta who stated that the account belonged to them.[31]
In 2023, Yemini sued Facebook fact-checkerRMIT FactLab after it contradicted claims made by him in a story about the Shrine of Remembrance's CEO.[32] He claimed that the fact-checker had defamed him by accusing him of spreading misinformation.[33] During the court case, defence for RMIT FactLab stated that Yemini had "failed to make any formal inquiries via appropriate channels with relevant persons" who had knowledge of the claims made in his story.[33] The case was dismissed in August 2023 when Yemini withdrew.[32][33] He stated that “[w]e had to withdraw due to the risk of losing the case and having to pay costs on top”.[33]
Views
Yemini is a far-right provocateur,[6][34] who has been described as having a pronounced dislike of trans-rights activists and climate science.[1] He has described himself as a "proud Zionist" and as being "proudly anti-Islam".[35] Yemini has described Islam as a "barbaric ideology", and Muslim countries as "Islamic shitholes".[36] At a 2018 demonstration against the imprisonment of Tommy Robinson, Yemini declared himself to be "the world's proudest Jewish Nazi".[17] The politics of the Avi Yemini's Australian branch of Rebel News have been described as "anti-leftist".[37]
^Chobocky, Barbara (2002). "Welcome to the Waks Family". Jewish Film Institute. Archived from the original on 16 April 2021. Retrieved 30 January 2024.
^ abLevi, Joshua (6 October 2016). "Manny Waks sues brother". The Australian Jewish News. Archived from the original on 29 January 2024. Retrieved 30 January 2024.
Perry, Barbara; Mirrlees, Tanner; Scrivens, Ryan (27 February 2019). "The Dangers of Porous Borders". Journal of Hate Studies. 14 (1). Gonzaga University: 61. doi:10.33972/jhs.124. Archived from the original on 9 August 2020. Retrieved 21 October 2020. Far-right Canadian media outlets, for instance, have bombarded its subscribers with all kinds of pro-Trump, racist and xenophobic dialogue, both before and after Trump's victory. Rebel Media, a popular far-right online media platform run by Ezra Levant, a controversial Canadian far-right political activist, writer and broadcaster, has been an outright supporter of Trump, publishing countless extreme-right leaning articles on why to support him.
