As I write this, 16 people are dead on a beach in Sydney, Australia, that once stood for ease, sunlight, and ordinary life. Bondi Beach was never meant to be a killing ground. It was meant to be a place where families gathered, where children ran barefoot, where faith could be practiced openly without fear. On Sunday, that ended.
The victims were gathered to mark the first night of Hanukkah. It was a celebration of light. Of endurance. Of continuity. Families came with children. Elderly people came to pray. A rabbi came to lead the blessings and light the Hanukkah menorah. They stood in the open, trusting that Australia was still a country where Jews could live freely.
They were wrong.
Among the dead is a devoted rabbi, a man described by his community as gentle and selfless. Also killed was a Holocaust survivor, a man who had once escaped Europe’s extermination machine and who, in his final moments, shielded his wife and saved her life. He survived history’s worst hatred only to be murdered by its modern heirs, on a beach in the country he thought was safe.
