Lighting the Menorah After Bondi Beach
There are moments when history intrudes upon the calendar, when the gentle rhythm of sacred time is pierced by events that leave us shaken and searching for words. The attack at Bondi Beach on the first night of Chanukah is such a moment.
As these words are written, eleven people have been murdered and many more wounded. Women, children, families, targeted for one reason only. They were Jews. Lives taken not by chance and not by confusion, but by hatred directed at a people because of who they are.
Among those murdered was Rabbi Eli Schlanger HYD, a Jewish father who only weeks earlier stood surrounded by family and community, bringing his son into the covenant of Abraham through brit milah. Few images capture the fragility and resilience of Jewish life more powerfully than this. A father affirming continuity, faith, and hope, and then shortly after becoming a victim of an ancient hatred renewed in modern form. Between those two moments lies the long and painful story of Jewish history itself.
What deepens the anguish of this moment is the reluctance of those in positions of authority to name the crime honestly. Too often, leaders and institutions reach for language that obscures rather than illuminates. The Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom and Australia, along with major broadcasters such as the BBC, have avoided saying what must be said plainly. This was a mass murder of Jews because they were Jews. Words matter. To refuse to name evil is not prudence. It is moral failure.
The images from Bondi Beach, of people running through streets as gunmen pursue them, are hauntingly familiar. They echo scenes we prayed never to see again. They recall Nova. They remind us that antisemitism is not a ghost of the past but a presence in the present, capable of erupting wherever Jews live openly as Jews.
And yet, this is Chanukah.
Chanukah was never the festival of those who felt safe. It was the festival of those who refused to surrender their identity when power stood against them. The miracle was not only that the oil burned longer than expected, but that the light was lit at all. In a world of darkness, the Jewish people insisted on kindling hope.
We live, paradoxically, in a time of danger and of miracles. Many attacks are thwarted. Many lives are saved. Were our enemies free to act without restraint, such horrors would not be rare but routine. That they are not is itself a quiet, often unseen miracle.
We are also reminded of the heroes of light. Those who ran toward danger, who intervened, who disarmed attackers, who saved lives. They testify to a truth Judaism has always known. Even in the darkest hours, human courage can still reflect the divine image.
The menorah teaches us that light does not argue with darkness. It simply shines. It does not deny the night, but it refuses to be overcome by it. So it has been with the Jewish people. Across centuries of exile, persecution, and loss, they have carried a fragile flame of faith, memory, and hope, and passed it on.
As we light the candles tonight, our hearts are with the families who mourn, with the wounded, and with Jewish communities in Sydney, across Australia, and around the world. We face threats unprecedented in our lifetime, yet we are sustained by a promise older than any empire.
They may try to destroy us. They have tried before. But the light of the Jewish people has never been extinguished.
This is the enduring message of the menorah.
Am Yisrael Chai.
