PITTSBURGH — The Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh has issued a statement standing in solidarity with the Australian Jewish community after an attack on Sydney’s Bondi Beach.
According to the Associated Press, two gunmen attacked a Hanukkah celebration, killing at least 16 people and injuring 38 others (including two police officers). Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese called it an attack of antisemitic terrorism.
One of the gunmen was fatally shot by police. The other was arrested, but was last said to be in critical condition.
The Federation says this attack is the deadliest one in the diaspora since the 2018 Tree of Life synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh. It’s also the deadliest shooting in Australia in almost three decades.
“This shooting was a deliberate act of terrorism targeting the Jewish community in Sydney as they celebrated the first night of Chanukah, and it must be loudly and clearly called out as antisemitism,” The Federation’s statement reads in part.
The attack took place as hundreds gathered for Chanukah by the Sea. The Federation explains that Chanukah is one of the “most visible and recognizable celebrations for Jews worldwide.”
“Targeting the Jewish community on this sacred occasion is nothing short of horrific,” the statement continues.
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The Federation also shared a statement from Gefsky Scholar and Australian native Rabbi Danny Schiff. It reads:
How fervently we prayed that Pittsburgh’s mass murder of Jews who were engaged in bringing light to the world would be the last.
It was not to be.
Time and time again, around the world, Jews continue to be targeted.
And now Bondi.
As horrendous scenes of Jewish death and destruction flood in, we must again absorb the unbearable: that another terrible blood-soaked day of fatalities, injuries, grief, and shattered families has been added to the historic pain shared by Jews everywhere.
To my family, colleagues, and friends in the terrorized Sydney Jewish community: we wrap you in our tender embrace at this hour of deepest darkness for us all.
To everyone else:
Know this: there is no society that is freer than Australia. Australia is far less troubled by polarization and extremism than almost anywhere else. If it can happen there, it can happen anywhere. The enemies of the Jewish people have clearly been greatly emboldened, and the struggle against them will not soon be over.
And know this as well:
In Pittsburgh, they came to desecrate the Shabbat with heartless cruelty. In Israel, they came to violate Simchat Torah in the most appalling and gruesome way imaginable. In Manchester, they came with deadly violence to despoil the holiness of Yom Kippur. And in Sydney, they came to defile Chanukah on a vicious evening of slaughter. We have been mercilessly attacked on our most solemn days, pitilessly brutalized in our houses of worship, and unsparingly savaged in our own homeland…
But we shall never stop being Jews committed to our Judaism.
And the Maccabean spirit that ensured that those devoted to the good fight would prevail – that spirit will remain our guiding light.
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