From the time I was 5 through my teenage years, I grew up as an American Jew in Melbourne, Australia, returning to the United States twice a year to visit my father.
Melbourne is where my Jewish identity was formed and where the rhythms of Jewish life shaped who I am today. My mother and three siblings still live there, along with their spouses and children.
Melbourne and Sydney are home to Australia’s largest Jewish communities. Melbourne is known for its beaches, vibrant arts scene, sports culture and unique wildlife. Sydney is famous for its harbor, the Opera House and Bondi Beach.
Since the Hamas attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Sydney’s iconic harbor has repeatedly been the site of hostile and, at times, violent anti-Israel and antisemitic demonstrations.
Protesters have burned Israeli flags and chanted slogans like “Where are the Jews?” and others containing profanity. These events were deeply unsettling for Australian Jews, who warned that unchecked rhetoric would lead to violence.
Those fears became painfully real on Dec. 14, when a public Hanukkah candle-lighting ceremony at Bondi Beach was attacked by two gunmen, killing 15 people and leaving many injured. What should have been a joyful, communal celebration instead left the Jewish community stunned and grieving, once again asking why their pleas to rein in provocative antisemitic discourse had not been taken seriously.
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The Hanukkah attack did not come out of nowhere. Antisemitism in Australia was never abstract to me; it was visible and real. As a child, I remember yeshiva students being harassed while walking down the street wearing kippot, and car-bombing scares near a Jewish institution in Melbourne. Even when I didn’t fully grasp their seriousness, these incidents became part of the background noise of growing up Jewish in Australia.
Oct. 7 marked a turning point, when the intensifying antisemitism across the country reached a fever pitch that has not abated. My mother and one of my brothers live within walking distance of Adass Israel Synagogue, which was set on fire in 2024. In a separate incident that same year, East Melbourne Hebrew Congregation was also set on fire during a Friday night gathering. These attacks were not distant news stories; they struck close to the places and people I know and love.
Growing up, one of my favorite community events was Hanukkah in the Park. Because it is summer in Australia during Hanukkah, Jewish communities gather outdoors for carnivals and public menorah lightings. At the time of the Sydney attack, my family was attending a similar event in Melbourne, about 430 miles south of Bondi Beach.
On Dec. 14, I woke to a photo my brother had sent to our family group chat the day before: he and his sons together at a table, eating at the Hanukkah celebration. After hearing what happened in Sydney, I couldn’t look at that image the same way. It could have been them.
The next day, my brother sent another photo: flowers left at a kosher bakery in the Melbourne suburb of East St Kilda, accompanied by a handwritten note from local residents expressing solidarity with their Jewish neighbors. Later, strangers stopped my family in a shopping mall simply because they were visibly Jewish, offering words of support. Those moments mattered, but they did not erase the larger reality.
I kept hearing the words, “shocked, but not surprised.” Those words struck me deeply. When violence against Jews evokes inevitability as much as outrage, something is profoundly broken. The tragedy in Sydney was carried out by individuals who committed unthinkable crimes, including acts of terror. Yet their ideas are not confined to the fringes. They reflect a broader global rot that normalizes and enables antisemitism.
When attacks happen in places we know, on streets we’ve walked, at events we’ve attended, it becomes impossible to treat them as distant or hypothetical.
It could be us.
