I was at Bondi Beach last week. Our concerns were ignored

By Marina Rosenberg

The J7 Task Force came to Australia to sound the alarm in the halls of power that antisemitic rhetoric and incitement plaguing the country would likely lead to antisemitic violence. Then 15 Jews were killed in a mass shooting at Bondi Beach during a Chanukah celebration. Only a few days ago, I was at Bondi Beach in Sydney. I walked along the shore, watching people jog and surf in the early Australian summer. It felt peaceful, free. It felt like the Australia I had always imagined, a place where people believe they can live safely, openly and without fear.

J7 Task Force leaders in front of the Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne on Dec. 6, 2024, one year after the Iranian regime-affiliated firebombing attack. From left: Gerard Unger, vice president of the Representative Council of French Jewish Institutions; Mauro Bernstein, President of the Delegación de Asociaciones Israelitas Argentinas; Peter Wertheim, co-CEO of Executive Council of Australian Jewry; Betsy Korn, chair of Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations; Daniel Aghion, president of Executive Council of Australian Jewry; Richard Marceau, senior vice president of strategic initiatives and corporate council of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs; Marina Rosenberg, senior vice president of international affairs, Anti-Defamation League; Michael Wegier, president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews; and Daniel Bottman, CEO of the Central Council of Jews in Germany.

To wake up this morning and see that same beach in the news marked by police tape, blood and the bodies of Jews murdered while celebrating Hanukkah is a heartbreak I cannot fully describe. I was in Australia last week not as a tourist, but as the senior vice president for international affairs at the Anti-Defamation League. I was part of a delegation of the J7 Task Force, a coalition representing the seven largest Jewish Diaspora communities. We came to Australia because we saw the red lights flashing — because the Australian Jewish community has been under siege since Oct. 7, 2023, facing a nearly fivefold increase in antisemitic incidents since Hamas’ deadly attack on Israel.

We came to sound the alarm. In meetings with high-level government officials and members of Parliament, our message was explicit and urgent: What begins with words can end with violence. We warned that the normalization of calls to “Globalize the Intifada” and the unchecked incitement on the streets could almost inevitably lead to bloodshed. We visited the Adass Israel synagogue in Melbourne, which had been firebombed just a year prior by Iranian regime-linked attackers — devastating firsthand proof of what hate looks like when it moves from rhetoric to action.

We demanded that the government implement the action plan to combat antisemitism prepared by their own special envoy almost six months ago. We demanded they treat this hatred as the national security threat it is. Tragically, those warnings were not acted upon fast enough. And now, at least 15 innocent people, including a 12-year-old girl, a rabbi and a Holocaust survivor, are dead. This was not random violence. This was the predictable result of ongoing festering hate.

But amidst the horror, there is another story, one I witnessed firsthand just days before the attack. During our visit, we spent time with the very same Chabad community that was targeted; some of us even spent Shabbat together there. We prayed together, ate together and sang together. We looked into the eyes of a community that is battered but unbroken. That is the spirit we need now more than ever.

The terrorists wanted to turn Hanukkah, a festival of light, into a time of darkness. They wanted to turn a celebration of Jewish survival into a scene of Jewish death. They want us to be afraid; to hide our menorahs, to lock our doors, to remove our Stars of David. We will not give them that victory.

Hanukkah is the story of the few prevailing over the many, of light pushing back the darkness. It teaches us that even a single flame can defy the darkness that threatens us. In the aftermath of this tragedy, Jewish communities around the world will not retreat into the shadows. We will light our candles. We will gather in our synagogues and outside of them. We will wear our identity proudly.

But resilience is not a strategy for safety. The Jewish community cannot fight this battle alone. The Australian government and governments worldwide must move beyond condolences. As a minority community that is forced to surround our places of worship with walls and place security guards at every entrance, we have learned that protecting ourselves isn’t enough. Fighting antisemitism is the only way to overcome this tsunami of anti-Jewish hate. Condemnations without concrete action are meaningless to the families burying their loved ones. We need proactive intelligence to dismantle violent networks. We need zero tolerance for incitement. We need leaders who will stop accommodating hate in the name of political expediency.

Bondi Beach should continue to be a symbol of life, freedom and coexistence, not terror. We cannot accept this as the new normal. For the memory of those we lost and for the future of those who remain, we must turn our grief into action. We will continue to sound the alarm until it is heard. For our brothers and sisters in Sydney, we shine our light.

Marina Rosenberg is the senior vice president of international affairs at Anti-Defamation