warning: graphic content

Bondi Beach should never be a place associated with terror.

It represents life, freedom, sunlight, families, children, and coexistence. 

But on the first night of Hanukkah, as Australia became one of the first places in the world to welcome the festival of light, Bondi Beach became the site of a horrific terror attack against more than 2,000 Jews who gathered to light a menorah. 

Rabbi Eli Schlanger, the local Chabad-Lubavitch emissary whose event was designed to “fill Bondi with joy and light” was murdered, along with at least 10 others.

That should stop us cold: Jews were shot for celebrating Hanukkah.

Australia can feel a world away from the Middle East, from Europe, from the centers of global conflict. 

But in many ways, as my local rabbi Berel Gurevitch of Chabad of West Village has explained, Australia is the canary in the coal mine. 

This was not random: A public menorah lighting cannot be concealed. 

It was a visible and unapologetically Jewish event, and therefore it was targeted. 

The message was meant to travel far beyond Sydney for Jewish communities gathering worldwide to light their menorahs:........

© New York Post