Australia’s Jewish community is reeling in the wake of the Bondi terror attack targeting their community, in which 15 people were killed and dozens more injured.
Two gunmen opened fire on hundreds of Jewish people as they gathered for Chanukah by the Sea on Sunday, a celebration marking the first day of Hanukkah.
The tragedy has left Australia’s Jewish community in a state of mourning. “We’re numbed as a community,” Alex Ryvchin of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry told 9News this morning. “We’re still contemplating what happened here.”
In a seperate interview with the ABC, Ryvchin said the community is at a loss for words.
“I don’t think there’s words right now. At the moment, we’re broken. We have to grieve. We have to process this,” Ryvchin said. “This destroyed whole worlds and things will always be different for us. It has fundamentally changed this country.”
Colin Rubenstein, executive director of The Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council, said he was “horrified” by the tragedy and commiserated its implications for the Jewish community and the country as a whole.
“This is not just a terrible day for the Jewish community, for Bondi, and for Sydney but for all of Australia, and for the values we hold dear, that are the bedrock of what for so long has been our inclusive, harmonious society,” Rubenstein said in a statement.
The tragedy has also distressed Jewish communities overseas. New Zealand’s Jewish Council said it was “utterly sickened and horrified” and “haunted by the scenes we have seen”, while The Board of Deputies of British Jews said “the scourges of terrorism and antisemitism are shared”.
Elsewhere, The European Jewish Congress described the terrorist attack as “unconscionable”.
“It is unconscionable that Jewish families gathering to celebrate a joyous event in one of the most multicultural cities in the world should be slaughtered in cold blood by terrorists,” the group’s president Moshe Kantor said, per The Guardian.
Albanese expressed solidarity with Australia’s Jewish community while addressing the media on Sunday night.
“I say on behalf of all Australians to the Jewish community, we stand with you,” he said.
“We embrace you and we reaffirm tonight that you have every right to be proud of who you are and what you believe … There is no place for this hate, violence and terrorism in our nation. Let me be clear: we will eradicate it,” he added.
The alleged gunman have been identified as a father and son, aged 50 and 24. The father was shot by police and died at the scene, while the 24-year-old is in hospital.
Some of the victims — who range from 10 to 87 years old — are beginning to be identified, including a Holocaust survivor and a London-born rabbi.
Australians wanting to help are being urged to donate blood, particularly those who have type O negative.
Lead images: Getty Images
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