“This is a terror event against the Jewish community, with approximately 10 fatalities and 60 injured. The terrorists have been neutralised.”
An old woman, dead in her blood-soaked dress, sprawled across a picnic bench; families cowering with their babies against the beach wall; weeping cops; parents screaming for their children, paramedics, lifeguards working like hell on lifeless bodies, empty bullet casings on the ground, panicked crowds running as a mob, a beach empty save for the abandoned detritus of a summer Sunday eleven days before Christmas.
This is Bondi Beach on a summer’s day eleven days before Christmas, and today the first day of Hanukkah.
I heard gunshots from my front room. No sirens. Ran outside. Swarms of beachgoers running. I run towards the noise. Cops get there. More gunshots.
I see the dead, the weeping, Jews against the wall, knowing it never stops. It always comes.
Never again? Yeah, right.
Here, at the Hanukkah festival behind the playground there at the north end, where two gunman stood on the small concrete footbridge that links the beach to the beachfront thoroughfare Campbell Parade and fired into the families, into the rabbis, into the kids, shortly before JHews in Australia light the first Hanukah candle.
In 2025, it begins at sundown on December 14 and ends on December 22.
The central ritual of Hanukkah is lighting these candles each night: one on the first night, adding one more each evening, using the shamash (helper candle) to kindle the others. Blessings are recited, including “Baruch atah… lehadlik ner shel Chanukah” (to kindle the Hanukkah light).
It symbolizes the miracle of light enduring and publicizing faith.
Magen David Adom said, “This is a terror event against the Jewish community, with approximately 10 fatalities and 60 injured. The terrorists have been neutralised.”
Heroes?
Yeah, here’s one. Man hides behind a car, waits til the barrel is empty and tackles the shooter.
A statement from the Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett on the Bondi Beach terror attack
The writing was on the wall. The Australian government bears responsibility.* Tonight Jews were attacked in Australia in the Bondi Beach Hanukkah massacre. A Jewish holiday gathering turned into a scene of terror. This is a moment of grief, and time for accountability. I have just spoken with several Jewish community leaders in Sydney. They are fearful and outraged.
For months they warned of rising antisemitism. The writing was on the wall. It was ignored.
This violence did not come out of nowhere. When antisemitic hatred is tolerated and threats are downplayed, attacks become inevitable. I demand that the Australian government take immediate, decisive action to protect Jewish communities and confront antisemitism as the serious threat it is.
Statements of sympathy are no longer enough.
Jews should not have to fear for their lives anywhere, including Australia.
After Islamic terrorists blew up a bunch of kids at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, Morrissey wrote a song called Bonfire of Teenagers.
The chorus is instructive.
And the silly people sing: “Don’t Look Back in Anger”
And the morons sing and sway: “Don’t Look Back in Anger”
I can assure you I will look back in anger ’till the day I die
