Defeated Jewish wine bar owner reveals the shocking six words an extremist said to him forcing him to consider closing up shop for good

A small business owner with Jewish heritage has been forced to consider closing up his wine bar after a member from the extremist ‘far left’ walked in and said ‘we don’t need your kind here’.

Tim Cohen said he has faced streams of abuse while working in his Brunswick East wine shop, in Melbourne’s inner north, in a video to social media on Friday. 

Mr Cohen, who runs Brunswick East Wine, appeared defeated as he told his customers that his abusers ‘had won’ and that he felt ‘truly broken inside’.

He explained a woman, who he believed to be an extremist from the far left section of society, had walked into his store on Thursday and said she was glad to see it empty.

‘She just said ”It’s so good that you’re quiet. We want you gone from this suburb. We don’t need your kind here” and she turned around and waddled out,’ Mr Cohen said.

‘I feel after 10 years I’m truly broken as a person and as a business owner in this suburb.’

Mr Cohen has been the target of attacks from the far left since October 7 last year when Hamas invaded Israel and slaughtered hundreds of revellers at a festival. 

Since then he has had two inverted red triangles painted on the outside wall of his bar.

The symbol is used by Hamas militants to identify targets to kill and the first time Mr Cohen found one on his shop it was accompanied by a threatening message warning people not to buy from there. 

Another one showed up with no accompanying text on September 8.

Mr Cohen said he had had enough of the abuse and vilification of Jewish people in Melbourne’s inner-north.  

‘I have been getting a lot of hate from the extreme left, its not coming from the extreme right,’ he said. 

‘The extreme left in the inner north, because of my jewish heritage and I can’t deal with it anymore.’

Mr Cohen said the woman who abused him had a ‘smug’ look on her face, and added the interaction left him crying on a crate behind the counter for the next hour. 

‘I’ve just been sitting on a crate in the corner thinking ”wow this is hateful, this is brown shirt material. This is hitler youth material”,’ he said.

Mr Cohen said that it was not the first time he has been attacked by the ‘far left’ and that he has also found Hamas symbols graffitied outside his wine bar

He specifically called out the ‘hate’ that he claims Greens members have been fermenting since Hamas’ invasion of Israel. 

‘The sycophants of the Greens like Adam Bandt and Tim Read who have done nothing except don a [Palestinian] keffiyeh scarf and spread hate,’ he said. 

‘Tim Read, Adam Bandt and Samantha Ratnam, these are your sycophants these are your followers. 

‘I’m just broken inside.’

Now Mr Cohen says that his business is quiet and ‘dying’ thanks to the ‘extreme left’, and ‘hateful, hateful Jew-hating people’.

‘You’ve won. I’m done. It’s not going to be long until you’ve seen the back of me. Good on you,’ Mr Cohen said to end the video. 

On two separate occasions Mr Cohen said he found inverted red triangles painted on his walls – a symbol used by Hamas to mark places where political enemies live 

Anti-Defamation Commission chair Dr Dvir Abramovich said Mr Cohen’s story tells the entire Jewish community that it is not safe in Australia.  

‘When someone like Tim Cohen, a man who simply wanted to build a life, a business, a dream, is met with hatred, it tells the Jewish community, ”You’re not safe here”,’ Dr Abramovich told Daily Mail Australia.

‘This isn’t just hurtful; it’s terrifying.

‘When a person is told, ”You’re not wanted here” because of their faith or their heritage, it’s more than an insult.

‘It’s a denial of their humanity, a form of psychological violence that leaves scars far beyond what the world can see.’

Daily Mail Australia has contacted Mr Cohen, Mr Bandt, Mr Read and Ms Ratnam for comment.