Let me start by saying this loud and clear as an Australian Jew, born and bred by the shores of Bondi. We should not have to ‘Rest in Peace’ so that we can live in peace!

Sunday the 14th of December, 2025. A day marked forever by atrocities that were, tragically, predictable.

Sydney, Australia – our beautiful slice of heaven on earth. Our sacred land down under. A nation for everyone. A place that, no matter how far or how wide I roam, I will always call home.

‘A sunburnt country. A land of sweeping plains, of ragged mountain ranges, of droughts and flooding rains’. Those words come from iconic Australian poet Dorothea Mackellar’s 1904 poem ‘My Country’. They are recited with pride, taught in classrooms, woven into our national mythology. But directly after those iconic phrases she writes something far less quoted: “I love her jewel-sea, her beauty and her terror.” On Sunday, those words became iconic for an entirely different reason.

Down by the iconic jewel-sea of Bondi Beach, one of the most recognisable places in the country, terror arrived with devastating clarity. Not somewhere distant. Not somewhere foreign. Here. At home. At a Jewish community gathering held to celebrate light.

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A Celebration of Light, Deliberately Targeted

On the first night of Chanukah, Jewish families gathered publicly by the water to light candles and spread light to a world that desperately needs it. Chanukah is a story of survival. Of a small, persecuted people refusing to surrender their identity. Lighting candles openly is not incidental to the festival – it is the point. That visibility made us a target.

Gunfire tore through the crowd. Panic followed. Screams, confusion, parents searching for children, people shielding strangers with their own bodies. In minutes, lives were ended and others irreversibly altered, leaving wounds both physically and mentally that can never be fully healed.

Fifteen people were murdered in cold blood. Dozens and dozens were wounded, with many still fighting for their life in hospital. Among those killed was Rabbi Eli Schlanger z”l, a community leader who helped organise the event. His wife was shot. His two-month-old baby was seriously injured. Writing those words still feels unreal but reality does not soften itself for our comfort.

This was not random violence. This was not senseless chaos. This was not something that “could have happened anywhere.” This was a terrorist attack, motivated by ideology and directed explicitly at Jews, at a Jewish event, on a Jewish holiday. It still doesn’t sit well with me that many are expressing their love for the “Bondi community”. Whilst i am fully aware of the traumatising nature of the attack, there is a simple fact that many are choosing to overlook. Had this event taken place in Dover Heights, in Vaucluse, in Rose Bay, that is where the attack would have happened. This attack was specific and the location just so happened to occur on the iconic Bondi Beach. Any single post that either does not use the words “attack specifically on Jews”  and the word “antisemitism” is simply a farce. Let’s not forget this, The attackers (i will not say those animals names) were hunters that came with high powered shot guns and im sorry to say went ‘Jew Hunting’.

Language matters. Because when we refuse to name what something is, we weaken our ability and our will to........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)