The day after the Bondi Hanukkah Massacre, when I drove past my synagogue in Melbourne, I saw a dozen bunches of flower bouquets poking through the security door’s bars. As a Jewish man walked in, a woman approached, thrusting a $100 note in his hand. It was a donation, she said. She felt so terribly sad about what had happened to the Jewish community.

Later, a candle arrived on my doorstep from a neighbour. Texts of condolence pinged on my phone. A non-Jewish friend in Melbourne sent me a photo: outside her house, she had hung a massive sheet, emblazoned with the words: “We stand against the hatred of the Jewish people”. Cars honked as they drove past, and a Jewish person arrived on her doorstep with Hanukkah donuts and candles as thanks. My friend propped these up on her Christmas table, placing them side by side with the nativity figures her nanna had knitted. “In unity we are stronger than the evil,” she wrote to me.

A floral memorial is growing daily near the scene of the shooting at Bondi.Credit: Jessica Hromas

It had been a while since I’d felt so much kindness at once. For the past two years, ever since the attacks of October 7 when Jewish people were also the target, I’ve felt the effects of antisemitism, of sometimes being shunned, dismissed, threatened, hated, ignored. And so when the kindness arrives at once and in such abundance, it feels strange, and I’m........

© The Sydney Morning Herald