The Chanukah Terror Attack in Australia—and the Antisemitism Behind It

Here in Australia, all other recent news has been overshadowed by the horrific terrorist attack that took place on Sunday 14 December, when two gunmen targeted Jews celebrating Chanukah on Bondi Beach. Fifteen people were killed and at least 24 seriously injured, several of whom are still in critical condition. The victims included a ten-year-old girl, the child of recent Ukrainian immigrants, who gave her the name Matilda because she was their “first Australian” child.
In the wake of this tragedy, I’ve been overwhelmed by feelings—and not just sorrow. I’m moved by the heroism of so many ordinary people who were present that day. Among the heroes were Ahmed Al-Ahmed, the Syrian-born Muslim greengrocer who rushed one of the terrorists like an action hero and is now recovering in hospital; Gefen Bitton, a garage door technician of Israeli origin, who rushed to help Al-Ahmed and is now fighting for his life in hospital; Boris and Sophia Gurman, a Russian-Jewish couple in their sixties, who grappled the terrorists and were killed; Chaya Mushka Dadon, a fourteen-year-old Jewish girl, who shielded younger children with her body, remaining with them until help arrived, even though she had been shot in the leg. Lifeguards ran towards the gunfire to assist the wounded. Adults were injured and killed while shielding children from bullets with their own bodies—this is why, although there were many children there, Matilda was the only child casualty. Many people risked their lives to save others that day. They are the best of humanity and we should honour them.
But alongside mourning and veneration, I also feel rage of an intensity I’ve rarely experienced. This attack was shocking, but, as Jack Pinczewski has pointed out here in Quillette, it also had a sickening inevitability. On 9 October 2023, while the Israelis were still counting the dead from the most savage attack on Jews since the Holocaust, an angry crowd gathered at Sydney Opera House, chanting “Fuck the Jews!,” “Where’s the Jews?” and perhaps even “Gas the Jews!” Over the two years that followed, antisemitic graffiti has defaced the walls of Jewish buildings, cars have been torched, Jews have been harassed and threatened, a synagogue was set alight while people were inside. And meanwhile, people have marched through our cities and across the Harbour Bridge repeating the blood libel that Israel is committing a genocide in Gaza and chanting the genuinely genocidal slogan, “From the River to the Sea,” which calls for the complete destruction of the only democracy in the Middle East and the implicit ethnic cleansing of the one place where Jews can be safe from the antisemitic fever that seems to have gripped the world. There was even an Australian politician who cosplayed in a green headband with Arabic writing, resembling Hamas headgear, while other prominent figures were photographed in front of a placard of the Ayatollah Khomeini.


I am angry at the government for ignoring antisemitic violence and intimidation, at the media for whitewashing it, at the academics who provided it with intellectual legitimacy, and at everyone who marched and chanted and who justified or minimised antisemitism in Australia because of their feelings about a conflict on the other side of the globe. I am angry at every official who failed to do their due diligence: in neglecting to vet immigrants from countries where vicious antisemitism is endemic; in allowing a man whose son was suspected of involvement with ISIS to legally own multiple firearms; in never taking a clear stand against Jew hatred in this country. I am angry at the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, who has blamed the tragedy primarily on firearms and who seems unable to name the cause clearly.
I can name it: the poisonous hatred of Jews. Its roots, as Paul Berman has explained, lie in Islamic doctrine, turbocharged by Nazism, which was enthusiastically adopted by the Arab world in the 1930s and remains influential there. It is aided and abetted by the intersectional hard Left, who fetishise victimhood and view Jews as oppressors because of their relative economic prosperity and outstanding success in many sectors of society. There are other elements too: revolutionary leftists who glamourise violence; old Soviet propaganda, which is endlessly recycled on social media (as Izabella Tabarovsky has detailed); Arab governments friendly to Israel behind closed doors who appease their restive populations with public Jew hate; and, indeed, old-school far-right militants nostalgic for fascism. Added to this are reprehensively naïve people whose compassion for the undoubted suffering of the people of Gaza has been hijacked by propagandists who are experts at emotional manipulation.

I believe that a silent majority of Aussies are heartily sick of the attacks on our harmony, our culture, and our Jews. At a time like this, there are so many people uttering well-meaning but empty platitudes—including many people in our government and media. There’s a hunger among the public for a more honest approach. At Quillette, we stand with Jews in Australia, in Israel, and throughout the world. And we will not be afraid to call things by their names. I know you expect nothing less from us.

RIP
Boris Tetleroyd
Boris Gurman
Sofia Gurman
Reuven Morrison
Edith Brutman
Marika Pogany
Dan Elkayam
Eli Schlanger
Yaakov Levitan
Peter Meagher
Alex Kleytman
Tibor Weitzen
Adam Smyth
Tania Tretiak
And young Matilda
May their memories be a blessing.