They came seeking freedom: Russian-speaking Jews bore the brunt of Bondi attack |
The parents of 10-year-old Matilda, the youngest of the 15 people killed during Sunday’s terror attack at a Hanukkah party at Bondi Beach, hadn’t planned to address the large crowd that gathered for a heart-rending vigil at the Bondi Beach Pavilion days after the attack.
But as her father, Michael, got up to speak in his Ukrainian accent on Wednesday, he shared a poignant detail that revealed how he saw his family’s place in the country. (The family is withholding their last name for privacy.)
“I named her Matilda because she was our firstborn in Australia,” he said, sobbing. “I thought that Matilda was the most Australian name that could ever exist.”
“So just remember – remember her name,” he added, before breaking down and turning to his family.
It was a striking moment that shone a brief spotlight on the attitudes of Russian and Ukrainian immigrants within Australia’s larger Jewish community — a community that moved over the course of decades to the other side of the world to start new lives in a country known for its tolerance and liberal values.
“Most of the people here immigrated from the Soviet Union in the 1970s, and later in the 1990s, to escape what was happening there,” explained Anna Maylis, the head of Kangarusski, an organization for Russian-speaking immigrants run by the Zionist Federation of Australia. “Our community loves Australia, and feels very much part of the country, but we don’t see a bright future here at the moment.”
Immigrants from the former Soviet Union make up a sizable portion of Australia’s 120,000-strong Jewish community. There are about 5,000 FSU immigrants living in Sydney, and a bit more than that in Melbourne, Maylis said. If you include the Australian-born children of these immigrants, as much as a quarter of the country’s Jews have Russian origins, she added.
At the Bondi Beach Hanukkah party........