Threatening the competitor after jumping on the castle email
A Sydney woman has received death threats after she was mistaken for the owner of a bouncy castle company who refused to hire her at a Jewish school.
A western Sydney company has come under fire for refusing to rent a jumping castle to a Jewish high school.
On Tuesday it was revealed that the owner of Western Sydney Jump had refused a booking from Masada College in St Ives, writing in an email: “There is no way I will book a Zionist booking. I don’t want your blood money. Free Palestine.”
Shortly after the story broke that night, Rebecca Luker Cole, who runs a business called Western Sydney Jumping Castles & Face Painting, received hundreds of threatening phone calls and abusive messages from strangers.
One man sent a message on Facebook that read: “I will come and jump on your Nazi face.”
Rebecca Locker-Cole owns Sydney’s Western Bounce Castle and face painting
A threatening email from someone who confused Western Sydney Jumping Castles & face painting with a Western Sydney jump. Photo: Supplied
Ms Locker-Cole believes she was wrongly subjected to a hate attack, which devastated her business’s hard-earned social media following, and left her fearing for her family’s safety, as Western Sydney Jump deleted their social media profiles and temporarily disabled their website .
“Since last night we have received over 100 phone calls. People have said to us: ‘You Nazi, you fat pig, we know where you live,'” she told NCA NewsWire.
“I was broken down all day, crying. We have worked hard at our business for the past seven years.
Ms Luker-Cole and her husband Michael received the first message on Tuesday night at around 7pm and initially thought it was a scam, but by Wednesday morning they were contacting police, working quickly to remove their home address from the site.
While the company typically receives 20 inquiries a day, it did not receive any on Wednesday.
“It’s not worth the risk — we have a lot of trailers in our front yard for advertising and for the safety of our two kids. It’s been very difficult,” she said.
The owners of a different Sydney business were abused and threatened after the story broke on Tuesday night. Photo: Instagram
Ms Locker Cole has since made multiple posts on Facebook and Instagram categorically stating that the company “does not support any hatred towards other human beings”.
“Please understand that these comments were made by another company called Western Sydney Jump,” the letter said.
“This was not created by our company Western Sydney Jumping Castles and Face Painting. Different companies together.”
Politicians and Jewish groups have condemned the actions of the Western Sydney Jump, with NSW Police attending St Ives School to conduct investigations.
NSW Health Minister Ryan Park said the messages were “appalling, despicable and disgraceful”.
“I can’t condemn them more. They have no place in modern Australia,” he said.
“I find these comments to be not only offensive, but extremely racist. They should be called out for who they are.”
Masada College (a Jewish school in St Ives) was refused rental of the bouncy castle by Western Sydney Jump on the grounds of it being Jewish. Image: X/Supplied
He also called on the owner of Western Sydney Jump to apologize for his email, and said it was “the last thing” needed in the community, “particularly in light of the challenges we see out there every day”.
CEO of the Executive Council of Australian Jews, Alex Revchin, said the incident was “an indicator of rising anti-Semitism” in Australia.
“Refuting to rent a jumping castle to children who happen to be Jewish is the height of low-level prejudice and bigotry. Business people should be ashamed,” he said.
“The reference to blood money of course invokes the blood libel, a classic anti-Jewish myth.”
After her initial post, the owner emphasized her “right to refuse any booking” before sharing a long post about the conflict in Gaza.
“Just to be clear, this is about the Zionists. Not the Jews. She continued: “I have no problem with the Jewish community.”
‘You know what really amazes me… when Palestinians chant ‘from the river to the sea’. Palestine will be free!’ You find the Zionists crying and saying: Look, they want us all to die.
But when Zionists actually say “level Gaza to the ground,” or “give them hell,” or “there must be no limit to the number of civilian casualties in Palestine,” they are saying nothing.
