Dirty Linen - A Food Podcast with Dani Valent · A Deep in the Weeds Production

Ed Halmagyi (Avner's Bakery) - why it finally became too much.

·43 min·2 clips

Ed says a man in a ute yelled, “I’m coming back to cut your head off, you effing Jew.”

Dani opens by framing Avner's as more than a bakery. It comes across as a place where people could learn, celebrate, and feast together. Ed Helmarji joins to talk about what it meant to run that space. The conversation is rooted in the aftermath of the Bondi Beach massacre during Hanukkah. Dani makes clear that the episode sits in the shadow of grief and the wider climate around antisemitism. Ed explains the pressure he felt around the bakery's visibility after the killings. He draws a line between intimidation and acts of violence, saying that intimidation is meant to shift your mentality or behaviour while violence happens to you whether you want it to or not. Dani lets him work through that distinction in his own words. The discussion stays with how people experience threats differently. Ed points to the gap between a nuisance and a real danger, using his own examples to separate inconvenience from actual harm. He talks about the burden of living with a climate that can make one kind of harm feel like the start of another. The exchange leaves room for disagreement, including Ed's blunt sense that some people in the Jewish community see this differently. That gives the conversation some real tension. It also keeps the episode from flattening into a single easy position. The bakery itself stays present throughout as a symbol of care, visibility, and routine hospitality. There is talk of lox bagels, babka, and the pleasure of eating well. Ed and Dani end on a gentler note, returning to the details that make a place memorable. Even there, the episode keeps the larger weight in view. It is a conversation about food business, yes, but also about community exposure, fear, pride, and what happens when a place closes under pressure. The final note is one of tenderness for the work itself, even as the reasons for ending it remain painful.

As heard by us

A bakery story that becomes a conversation about identity, safety, and the work of staying open.

Dirty Linen moves from bakery talk into a sharper question: what it means for a Jewish food business to be visible, loved, and then suddenly unsafe.

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Why you'd press play

You want a food interview that carries grief without sanding off the flavour.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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