Bondi Beach attack comes amid years of escalating antisemitic incidents in Australia |
JTA — Australia’s Jewish community has faced an alarming uptick in antisemitic violence and threats in recent years, a trend that reached an unprecedented and tragic peak Sunday when gunmen opened fire on a Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach, killing at least 15 people and wounding nearly 40 others in what authorities have called an antisemitic terrorist attack.
The Bondi Beach massacre, during an event hosted by Chabad of Bondi in Sydney marking the first night of Hanukkah, involved at least two gunmen firing on hundreds of attendees from a footbridge overlooking the crowd.
One attacker was killed, and the other was in critical condition. Investigators also found suspected improvised explosive devices near a suspect’s vehicle.
While Australia has historically been considered a relatively safe environment for its Jewish minority, a range of incidents in the past few years signaled shifting dynamics.
The Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) has documented what it calls an unprecedented surge in antisemitic incidents. In a special report released earlier this month, the group recorded more than 1,600 incidents nationwide in the year ending September 2025, several times the annual average seen in the years before October 7, 2023, the Hamas attack on Israel that began the two-year war in Gaza. The previous year saw a record high of over 2,000 incidents.
The incidents span a wide range: abuse directed at visibly Jewish people, threats sent to synagogues and schools,........