Channukah’s Lights Are Sacred Protest in the Shadow of Bondi Beach |
Tonight, as the first small flame of Chanukah prepares to pierce the gathering dark, our hearts struggle to hold the weight of this terrible day. Only hours ago, the shoreline of Bondi Beach, in Sydney, Australia, where Jewish families gathered to rejoice in the promise of light, became the site of brutal terror. At least eleven precious souls were taken. A community was assaulted. The world was shaken again by ancient, stubborn Antisemitism hatred that seeks to unmake Jewish life.
One of the murdered was Alex Kleytman, a Holocaust survivor who died shielding his beloved wife of fifty years, Larissa. The arc of his life, surviving history’s deepest night only to fall while protecting love itself, is almost too much to bear. May his memory and the memories of all who perished rise with the sanctity of the martyrs of our people. May their names be for an everlasting blessing.
And the wound has reached my own family. My brother, Arsen Ostrofsky, married to my precious sister Tzeira, who stood at Bondi Beach........