As Jews celebrate Hanukkah, America’s Jewish community is on edge in wake of antisemitic attack in Australia
By Michelle Watson, Julia Vargas Jones, Aileen Graef, CNN
(CNN) — Members of the Jewish community across the world woke up Sunday to yet another fatal attack — something that has become all too common for those of the faith.
The attack Sunday on Sydney’s Bondi Beach, which has been declared a terrorist incident, has left at least 15 people dead and 40 hospitalized in what police say was an incident targeting Jewish people.
The shooting took place as hundreds gathered to celebrate the first of eights nights of Hanukkah, a holiday which takes place close to the winter solstice during the longest nights of the year. A millennia-old tradition, it celebrates the triumph of light over darkness: the victory of the Maccabees over the Syrians and the rededication of the Second Temple of Jerusalem around 165 BC.
Today, that history is resonating even more with Jewish communities across the world following the latest in a wave of antisemitic attacks in Australian cities.
“Sydney was always the type of place which was a haven for all people,” Rabbi Levi Shemtov, executive vice president of American Friends of Lubavitch, told CNN’s Dana Bash on Sunday.
“But lately, things have taken a turn for the worse in a very major way. People saw this coming. They said it would come. They begged the prime minister to do something about it, and he just was casual or went the other way too many times,” Shemtov said.
In July, a man set the door of a synagogue alight and a group of protesters stormed an Israeli restaurant in Melbourne. The next month, the country expelled the Iranian ambassador to Canberra after the country’s intelligence agency found Iran was behind at least two antisemitic attacks on Australian soil.
President Donald Trump called Sunday’s incident “a terrible attack.”
Authorities in New York, Washington, DC, and New Jersey have said they’re deploying additional resources to Hanukkah celebrations and synagogues.
London’s Metropolitan Police said while there was no information suggesting a link between the attack in Sydney and the threat level in London, the force would step up its police presence, carry out additional patrols and engage with the Jewish community in the wake of the tragedy. And police in Berlin said they would deploy increased forces and intensify their security measures.
The Jewish Federations of North America called on government officials to make the safety of Jews a priority, saying in a statement, “The primary responsibility for the security of every American and Canadian in their homes, in their places of worship and in their communal gatherings, including when we gather in public spaces to celebrate Jewish holidays, belongs to the government.”
Rabbi Noah Farkas, president and CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, told CNN in a phone call Sunday any time attacks like this happen, there’s a “ripple effect across the globe that makes Jews afraid to celebrate … our own religion and exercise our own First Amendment rights, because we’re afraid of being terrorized and assaulted in various ways.”
But in Los Angeles Sunday afternoon, glimmers of hope were seen despite the recent tragedy.
At the Skirball Cultural Center — a facility hosting a Hanukkah festival — Nina Silver, director of the center’s Noah’s Ark and Family Programs, said she was “was greeted with a lot of determined faces.”
“We are the antidote when we celebrate the joys of our people and the tradition and the history, that we are able to come together and be a light in the darkness to everyone,” Silver said.
‘Being Jewish, you feel vulnerable,’ menorah lighting attendee says
Attendees of the National Menorah Lighting in DC Sunday reacted with both sadness and resignation to the attack on Bondi Beach.
Allison Groff, who was attending the ceremony with her husband Matt Lowy, said she learned about the attack from a message from her brother, who happened to be in another part of Sydney. The message from her brother read, “We’re okay.”
Groff said she had reservations about attending the menorah lighting. But Lowy said they chose to come with their children “because you can’t just hide inside.” He added there was a need “to show strength, unity, community.”
“Being Jewish, you feel vulnerable,” Groff said, noting while her family is American and not Israeli, “sometimes the distinction might be lost, and then people feel angry and target our community.”
Nonetheless, she said, they were excited for Hanukkah and planned to enjoy eating latkes and playing dreidel Sunday night.
Rising global antisemitism sparks fear and resilience in Jewish communities during sacred holidays
In 2024, data provided to CNN by the Anti-Defamation League showed threats to Jews in the US tripled in the one-year period since the deadly October 7 terrorist attack on Israel by Hamas.
This year, the threat of attack has appeared to heighten across the nation as a man targeted Jewish people and set them on fire at a community event in Boulder, Colorado; two Israeli embassy workers were killed outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, DC; and an arsonist set the Pennsylvania governor’s mansion on fire after the first night of Passover because of Gov. Josh Shapiro’s views on the war in Gaza.
And in Manchester, United Kingdom, at least two Jewish worshippers were killed and three others seriously injured in a car ramming and stabbing attack outside a synagogue on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in Judaism.
The CEO of the Australian Jewish Association described the shooting at Bondi Beach as an “entirely foreseeable” tragedy, saying Australian Prime Minster Anthony Albanese’s government had been warned many times about rising antisemitism.
Albanese has urged Australians to hold onto the “true character” of Australia, saying the country would never submit to “division, violence or hatred.”
“What I can tell you is, is that harassment, vandalism and violence has all increased dramatically in Australia since October the 7th,” Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, told CNN’s Fredricka Whitfield on Sunday. “It’s up nearly 500%.”
For those in the US, the attacks seem to come all too frequently.
“Antisemitism is not a Jewish problem,” Farkas said Sunday. “It’s an everyone problem. Jews are the victims of antisemitism, but this is a societal problem.”
Despite the fears, attacks and threats, Farkas said families across the nation will still gather to light the lights, sing the songs and celebrate the joy that comes with the Hanukkah holiday, because that’s what the Jewish community has done for thousands of years.
“My encouragement to a family is to celebrate and to light … your menorah and put it in the window so that you don’t let the fear win,” he added.
CNN’s Sarah Moon, Caitlin Danaher and Alejandra Jaramillo contributed to this report.
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