Australia’s Hanukkah massacre: The horror of being proven right

In the days and weeks aft the Oct. 7 massacre successful Israel, a feeling settled implicit overmuch of the Jewish satellite — including the vibrant, close-knit assemblage present successful Australia.  It was a deep, aching numbness. It was arsenic if each the colour had drained from life, each the joyousness had been sucked out, leaving america arsenic hollow, bare shells. 

It was profoundly lonely and isolating, a grief that sat dense successful the thorax and refused to move. Healing, erstwhile it came, was dilatory and fragile.

And now, aft what happened successful Sydney connected Sunday, it is each happening again.

Two jihadist terrorists — a begetter and a lad — opened occurrence connected Jews celebrating Hanukkah astatine Bondi Beach, 1 of Australia’s astir iconic and cherished landmarks. A spot synonymous with sun, surf and the joys of the carefree Australian manner became the country of a massacre.

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People stitchery astir a tribute for shooting victims extracurricular the Bondi Pavilion astatine Sydney's Bondi Beach, Monday, Dec. 15, 2025, a time aft a shooting.  (Mark Baker/AP Photo)

Fifteen radical were murdered. Many much were wounded. The victims ranged from a 10-year-old kid to an 87-year-old elder — including a Holocaust survivor, a much-loved assemblage rabbi, a small miss with an infectious smile, and a Russian migrant who had "discovered his Jewish individuality successful Sydney."

And our existential hollowness has returned. The aforesaid question is hanging successful the air: Will we ever consciousness joyousness again?

The screams of panic were not distant oregon imagined — they echoed crossed bloodstained soil and writer of the Bondi beachfront, adjacent Sydney’s Jewish heartland.

For galore decades earlier this, Australia had felt different.

Protected. Removed from the baggage of the aged world. A continent buffered from the world’s hatreds by immense oceans. Australian Jews grew up believing — possibly naively — that portion antisemitism existed elsewhere, it would ne'er afloat instrumentality basal here.

Over the past 2 years, that illusion has been chipping distant astatine each protestation that demonized "Zionists"/Jews, and astatine each onslaught against Jewish institutions and individuals. 

An anti-Israel  protestor's high-vis overgarment during a march against the Jewish authorities by the Sydney Harbor Bridge successful Australia. Aug. 2025. (Ayush Kumar/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

There person been arson attacks connected synagogues and restaurants, assaults, doxxing of Jewish creatives, boycotts of businesses and artists, graffiti and validation, nationalist maltreatment of Jews of each ages including schoolhouse kids, the takeover of assemblage campuses by extremists determined to marque Jews unwelcome, and viciously anti-Jewish chants astatine demonstrations successful each large cities. Reported antisemitic incidents jumped to astir 5 times the pre-Oct. 7 average.

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Jewish assemblage bodies kept informing that things were getting worse — that if it was not addressed, it would lone beryllium a substance of clip earlier radical were killed.

Yet overmuch of Australia’s taste elite insisted that this each was either a motivation panic, a hoax oregon a reddish herring. Many said the existent information was not the antisemitism, but that acting against antisemitism would pb to the "suppression" of pro-Palestinian speech.

The worst offenders made the antisemitic assertion that Jews were "weaponizing" antisemitism to unopen down statement astir argumentation toward Israel. Perhaps this misdirection and gaslighting, mostly from the left, had an power connected our left-leaning authorities and national governments.

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA - DECEMBER 06: Members of the Synagogue retrieve items from the Adass Israel Synagogue connected December 06, 2024 successful Melbourne, Australia. An arson onslaught connected the Adass Israel Synagogue successful Melbourne forced congregants to fly arsenic flames engulfed the gathering aboriginal connected Friday morning. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese condemned the incidental arsenic an antisemitic act, emphasizing that specified unit astatine a spot of worship is unacceptable successful Australia. (Asanka Ratnayake/Getty Images)

In immoderate case, portion immoderate initiatives to counter-antisemitism were announced, and the connection "There is nary spot for antisemitism successful Australia" was repeated galore times, this ne'er seemed to beryllium a precedence for our governmental leaders. They appointed an antisemitism envoy to survey the problem, but successful the 5 months since she made a bid of recommendations, they person failed to adjacent respond to them, overmuch little instrumentality them.

But determination could beryllium thing much unspeakable for our assemblage than having been proven close successful this unspeakable way.

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What makes this symptom uniquely Australian is not lone the unit itself, but the betrayal of expectation. This was expected to beryllium the harmless place. The spot wherever history’s darkest chapters were thing we remembered, not thing we relived.

The vulnerability and choler that Australian Jews person been feeling for truthful agelong is besides present being felt by non-Jewish Australians who emotion their state and bash not privation to spot it dragged into the aforesaid disfigured quagmire galore countries astir the satellite are present facing.

'Free Palestine' graffiti  on a obstruction praising Oct. 7 Hamas massacre against Israelis. (Executive Council of Australian Jewry )

As has often been said, the Jews are the "canaries successful the ember mine," and what starts with the Jews ne'er ends with Jews. The onslaught successful Bondi whitethorn sadly not beryllium the extremity but could beryllium the opening of an adjacent much unsafe play ahead.

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Perhaps erstwhile the Australian authorities genuinely grasps that reality, the combat against antisemitism — and the different hatreds and conspiracy theories that inevitably travel it — tin yet begin.