22/01/2026
It is deeply meaningful to Jewish Australian women to have all of Australia standing with us today to mourn this national tragedy. That solidarity matters to us, and we are very grateful for it.
When Jewish Australians are targeted, it's Jewish women who see our families' fear first. We carry the emotional load of managing that fear and keeping our families, especially our children, safe. And of course, protecting our children also means caring about the health and safety of Australian society as a whole.
Many of us do not feel safe. Bondi showed us that we are not safe.
One way Jewish people respond to grief and trauma is by doing things, trying to make life better, not just for our own community, but for everyone.
Judaism teaches that a mitzvah is a practical responsibility to help repair the broken world. What in English is called ‘charity’ is tzedakah in Hebrew, a word whose root means justice.
We are doing a variety of mitzvahs right now, like visiting the sick, opening our homes to people who need comfort, helping animals and giving money to people and causes who need help.
These actions help in the present, but we are also thinking about the future.
That means being honest about what led to the attack at Bondi.
While questions like gun access matter, the deeper issue is the spread of extremist ideas — ideas that make violence against children and families seem acceptable.
In Australia, those ideas can come from the extreme Right, the extreme Left, and extreme Islamists. If we want to prevent future attacks, we have to be prepared to say that.
Our job as a society is to do everything we can to stop the spread of hate and of radical ideas to protect not only Jewish, but all Australians.
Other countries have done it and we must too. It takes a generation, but it's possible.
Germany did it after the Second World War. It embarked on a program of denazification, which included punishment for N***s, their expulsion from positions of power in society and the reeducation of its people from primary school upwards.
Saudi Arabia did it after 9/11, when 15 of the 19 terrorist who flew into the twin Towers were Saudi. In the past 20 years there has been a program of deradicalization in Saudi which includes punishment for Islamists, their expulsion from positions of power in society and the reeducation of its people from primary school upwards, too.
Jewish Australians are resilient, but we have also been deeply moved by the kindness shown by neighbours and strangers alike. Australians are, overwhelmingly, good and decent people. The challenge now is to make sure our society is not further damaged by the small number who are driven by hate.
