Bondi Beach attack casts shadow on Israel’s Hanukkah celebrations : NPR

Australian Jews and others hold vigil in Tel Aviv for victims of the Bondi Beach shooting on Sunday, December 14.

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TEL AVIV, Israel — A rabbi armed with a blowtorch climbs onto a scissor lift and is hoisted up to a giant Hanukkah menorah.

‘Are you ready!?’ he asks the children gathered downstairs.

“Yes!” they shout in unison.

Rabbi Shaul Reizes uses the blowtorch to light the first, rightmost candle, and leads the children and a crowd of adults gathered behind them to Tel Aviv’s Habima Square to sing Hanukkah blessings.

It was at a ceremony like this, thousands of miles away in Australia, that two gunmen opened fire on Sunday, killing at least 16 people, including a 10-year-old girl and a Holocaust survivor. The tragedy casts a heavy shadow over Israel’s Jewish Festival of Lights, where people of all ages looked forward to celebrating — especially this year, when a ceasefire has been in effect in Gaza since October and all but one hostage taken by the Hamas-led militants during the Oct. 7, 2023, attack have been returned.

A large menorah stands outside the walls of Jerusalem’s Old City, ready for daily ceremonies to light the candles each evening.

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The Orthodox Jewish movement Chabad lights these large menorahs each year in cities across Israel – and around the world. Reizes says what the attackers did at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia, won’t change that.

“What they want to do is bring more darkness to the world, and we are sure that our mission now, especially this night, is to bring more lights to the world,” he said.

In Tel Aviv, this is the first time there have been large public activities in honor of this holiday since the COVID pandemic and the wars that began on October 7, 2023.

“Hanukkah is back after several years of cancellation,” said Alice Eldar, as her child pranced around her with a glow stick, shouting “Hanukkah!”

Eldar said she is happy that things are returning to normal and that her family can attend public menorah lighting ceremonies and purchase the traditional jelly-filled donuts called sufghaniyot at bakeries across the city.

“I feel like we can celebrate again,” Eldar said.

She has lived in Israel for six years and heard about the attack in Australia from her mother, who called her from London to tell her.

“We are seeing more and more of these kinds of anti-Semitic attacks and this feeling of intense hatred towards the Jewish people,” said Eldar, who is not Jewish but is raising her children in the tradition. “It’s really depressing.”

In many countries, including Australia and the United States, Jews are feeling increasingly vulnerable despite increased security outside their schools and synagogues. In Israel, there have been militant attacks — including the one carried out by Hamas two years ago that sparked the war in Gaza — but many Jews here still say they feel safer in a country where the majority shares their faith, and they do not seem troubled by the absence of armed guards posted at these sites.

That’s why the Bondi Beach attack, in which two police officers were among 40 people injured, can make Australia seem like a scary country to people like 28-year-old Raz Kahlon. As he cycled through Habima Square, Kahlon said he hoped to one day travel to Australia to experience the beach culture.

“It was one of my dreams, to go to Sydney to surf there, meet new people, meet good vibes,” he said, adding that he wasn’t thinking of going there now. Hearing about the shooting is like receiving “a big ‘no’ to the country,” he said.

Just steps from Habima Square, a crowd gathered at Tel Aviv’s Frishman Beach at 10 p.m. for a vigil in memory of the victims of the mass shooting in Australia. They lit memorial candles, placed them in the shape of a Star of David on the promenade and sang a prayer for peace.

At a vigil in Tel Aviv for the victims of the Bondi Beach attack in Australia, candles are arranged in the shape of the Star of David on December 14.

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Among the many English speakers present, some had a Down Under accent.

“I felt it was important that I be there tonight,” said Ben Freeman, who is from Melbourne and spent much of Sunday checking in with his many friends and relatives in Sydney to see if they were OK. He was relieved to learn that they were.

Freeman said he grew up experiencing anti-Semitism in Australia. But rising threats and violence against Jews and Jewish institutions in his country became too much, he said, and led him to decide to move to Israel.

“When October 7 happened, things changed dramatically in Australia. And I hung around for another year and I decided to pick up and come to a country where I wouldn’t have to explain myself and I could be free.”

He agrees with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, who said this week that the Australian government “has done nothing to stop the spread of anti-Semitism in Australia” despite a wave of attacks on Jews, including arson at synagogues, vandalism of Jewish property and anti-Semitic slurs hurled at anti-Israel rallies. Netanyahu also said Australia’s decision to recognize a Palestinian state “fuels the anti-Semitic fire.”

“I think the Australian government’s response to October 7 has been really disappointing,” Freeman said. “To be very honest, the blood is on their hands.”

Eli Parkes, who moved to Israel a decade ago, said Australia’s Jewish community is made up largely of people whose grandparents, like his, were Holocaust survivors. They moved to Australia, he explained, because they wanted to get as far away as possible from “the anti-Semitism of the Old World.”

“And it doesn’t go much further than Australia,” he said. “When we grew up, we thought we were blessed Jews who didn’t have to deal with all that. And unfortunately, the last few years have shown us that that’s not entirely true.”