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Chavi Block and her young son were at Bondi Beach on Sunday.
At the small Hanukkah celebration in St Kilda, people ate latkes and doughnuts, children played in a petting zoo and armed security guards stood by.
Local Deborah Leiser-Moore, who stayed home from work on Monday, said although the event was tinged with sadness, nothing should stop her from celebrating. She had planned to bring her grandson to the event, but the family had decided not to come.
Denise Fradkin said she felt incredibly upset and horrified about what had happened in Bondi.
“It’s never going to be the same again,” she said.
Addressing the crowd, Rabbi Block asked why they lit the Hanukkah candles after dark.
“It’s because we understand and recognise there is darkness in the world,” he said.
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“We don’t ignore it, we don’t say it doesn’t exist. We embrace it. We understand we are living in a tough world; that’s precisely the message of Hanukkah. We, each and every one of us, has the mandate to light up the world with kindness to eradicate evil,” he said.
Premier Jacinta Allan attended a Hanukkah event at the nearby Caulfield Schule with members of the Victorian cabinet.
At the Pillars of Light event at Federation Square on Monday, Rabbi Gabi Kaltmann remembered Reuven Morris – who lived between Melbourne and Sydney – as a man who “single-handedly built the Chabad Bondi Synagogue” and who came to Australia in search of a better life.
“He was the most beautiful man. You would see him, and he’d greet you with his Australian-Russian accent, and he’d give you a handshake and hug with this gorgeous smile that would light up the room,” Kaltmann told the ABC. “He’d tell you you’re doing well and everything’s OK.”
Morris is survived by his wife, daughter and grandchildren.
Speaking to the small crowd of dozens of people, who were surrounded by police, Kaltmann described Sunday’s scenes as unimaginable.
“It is unfathomable, unimaginable, something out of our worst nightmares. Something that as Australians, we read about in the press, something that happens in lands and countries far away, not on our beautiful sun-kissed shores,” he said.
After calling for a minute of silence to honour the victims, Kaltmann vowed the Jewish community would not be bullied into submission, or into hiding their “Jewishness” in the wake of the tragedy.
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In Ripponlea, where the Adass Israel synagogue was firebombed in a targeted attack in December 2024, locals seethed about what they saw as a failure of governments and the broader Australian public to respond to, or even recognise, the growing threat of antisemitism.
“I’m always hearing that we’re paranoid and that we somehow exaggerate these threats. But this is the reason we have to have security guards outside schools and synagogues. People just don’t seem to believe us,” one Jewish man, who asked not to be named, said.
“There’s this tragedy in Sydney and suddenly we have police walking up and down the street and this outpouring of concern, but none of this was a surprise. It was expected,” he said.
One woman from Caulfield, who asked to be identified as Lyla, said Melbourne’s Jewish community felt vulnerable and unsupported.
“It feels like we’re back in 1939, and not enough is being done to protect us. We should not have to hide. The people who you expect to have your back just don’t do anything,” she said.
Her friend, Simon, who declined to give his surname, said most people were apathetic about the surge in antisemitic vitriol faced by Jewish people in Melbourne.
“We need to have the support of Australia. We need for people to stand in solidarity with the Jewish community. This is happening, and we need to be believed,” he said.
Local barista Eli Leibler, who wears a kippah and shield of David to work each day, said he was proud to speak on behalf of his community.
“While I’m grateful for the support and love of our wider community, we had the same thing on October 8 [the day after Hamas terrorists attacked Israel in 2023], and again on December 6 when the [Adass Israel] synagogue was torched. I’m over it. And I think Jewish people are over being told what antisemitism is,” he said.
“There’s enough rage and enough pain. But if I had a message, it would be that we are a forgiving people, but not a forgetful people. Countless civilisations have come and gone. We have both suffered and thrived under them, but we are not bitter. We look forward to being embraced and continuing to flourish in Australia,” Leibler said.
He said his cafe had always been a junction for Jewish, non-Jewish, secular and Orthodox communities, and a sanctuary for all.
Jewish Community Council of Victoria chief executive Naomi Levin encouraged her community, with support from police and government, to make sure their children attended school.
Flowers and candles left outside Bondi Pavilion on Monday.Credit: Louise Kennerley
“I find it really challenging to even be considering pulling Jewish kids out of school when every other Australian child can safely go to school without a second thought this morning.”
Only a year ago, Levin was standing in front of the firebombed Adass Israel synagogue and thinking: “It can’t get any worse than this.”
On Sunday night, she said, she was dreading hearing the names of the victims of the Bondi shooting.
“We just want to live peaceful lives as Jewish people.”
Federal Labor member for Macnamara Josh Burns said in a statement that Hanukkah was a festival of “hope, resilience and tradition”.
“But now it has turned into something of unimaginable pain. And our hearts are broken,” Burns said. “Over the next few days, we will all work together to support one another.”
State MP David Southwick, the member for Caulfield, called the shooting “an assault on the very existence of Jews in Australia. Many in the Victorian Jewish community know someone who has been impacted,” Southwick wrote on social media.
“This violence has been escalating over the past two years, and this tragedy represents a devastating peak.”
Former governor of Victoria Linda Dessau, the first Jewish person to hold the position, echoed a similar sentiment on Monday.
“Some of the things we feared most have now come to pass. And I think it’s the time, when we’ve seen from the country’s worst terrorist attack in our history, that the stakes are just too high to delude ourselves about what’s been happening here. Across the last two years, there’s been a permissiveness about antisemitism and hate often dressed up as freedom of speech,” she said on radio station 3AW.
“The Jewish community, at the moment, are in deep mourning. They’re terrified, they’re hurt, they’re heartbroken. But that should make every Australian feel the same way.”
Victorians, meanwhile, have answered the nationwide call for blood donations to support those injured in the shootings.
The response was immediate and overwhelming. By Monday afternoon, blood donation centres in Melbourne’s CBD and Caulfield were almost booked out for the week.
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