Bondi memorial hears community chose pride over fear
More than 200 members of Sydney’s Jewish community, together with victims’ families, survivors, first responders and supporters, gathered in the rain at Bondi Beach on Sunday night to mark six months since the December 14 terrorist attack that claimed 15 lives.
The memorial service was held at Archer Park, the site of the Chanukah by the Sea massacre, in front of a temporary memorial in the form of a Chanukiah designed by local sculptor Joel Adler.
The service pauses for a minute’s silence in memory of the victims
Archer Park was where gunmen opened fire on the public Jewish celebration. The service included prayers, music, a minute’s silence, the reading of victims’ names and a candle-lighting ceremony.
Opening the service, organiser Rabbi Yossi Friedman said the wet and windy weather echoed earlier memorial gatherings since the attack.
“Regardless of the weather, the wind, the rain, we are here,” he said. “We’re here to remember; we’re here to reflect. We’re here to daven, to pray.”
Rabbi Yehoram Ulman of Chabad Bondi, who helped organise Bondi’s public Chanukah lighting for decades and lost his son-in-law, Eli Schlanger in the shooting, delivered the keynote address.
“At this place we lost 15 precious souls,” he said. “Many of the families are here. This loss is something that one cannot fill or heal. It remains within a person.”
View this post on Instagram
Rabbi Ulman said the purpose of the gathering was not only to mourn but also to honour the victims by reflecting on the response of the past six months.
He said that in the immediate aftermath of the attack, as funerals followed one after another and survivors remained in hospital, the natural response could have been for the Jewish community to keep a lower profile and become less visible.
“Something completely opposite happened,” he said. “The expression of Jewish pride, the expression of Jewish observance, the amount of men who started to wear kippot, or members of our community openly wearing Magen Davids, each one in their own way expressing and showing pride in who they are.”
Rabbi Ulman said many people had started attending synagogue and community activities more often, while close to 30,000 people returned to Bondi Beach a week after the attack to light the eighth Chanukah candle.
“If they want to come and try to stifle us, try to defeat us, to destroy us, the only way that we can continue the golden chain of the proud history of the Jewish people, the only way that we can show true honour to those who we lost, is by being more Jewish,” he said.
He said the response had also extended beyond the Jewish community, with many non-Jewish friends offering support and standing publicly with the community.
Musician Ilan Kidron sang “Eli Eli” before Rabbi Friedman led the crowd in reciting the Shema and observing a minute’s silence. Rabbi Friedman then read the names of those murdered: Boris Gurman, Sofia Gurman, Boris Tetleroyd, Reuven Morrison, Edith Brutman, Marika Pogany, Rabbi Eli Schlanger, Tania Tretiak, Dan Elkayam, Matilda, Peter Meagher, Rabbi Yaakov Levitan, Alex Kleytman, Tibor Weitzen and Adam Smyth.
Following the recitation of Tehillim, Tania Tretiak’s son read a translation of Psalm 23, including the words “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.”
Rabbi Friedman presents Matilda’s parents and sister, Summer, with a painting painted by a “Christian woman” in Queensland.
One of the most emotional moments came when Kidron performed a special version of “Waltzing Matilda” in tribute to the youngest victim, 10-year-old Matilda Britvan. Her parents, Michael Britvan and Valentyna Poltavchenko, embraced as the song was sung.
Among those attending were survivors including 14-year-old Chaya Dadon, who was shot after shielding younger children, and Arsen Ostrovsky, who survived a bullet graze to his head.
Also present were a number of emergency workers who had been among the first on the scene on December 14. Standing together at the back of the gathering in bright orange uniforms, they were acknowledged during the ceremony when two representatives were called forward to light a memorial candle, a gesture recognising the courage and service of those who confronted the aftermath of the attack.
The service came as the NSW government announced an $8.3 million recovery and resilience package for the Jewish and Bondi communities. The package includes $2 million for Waverley Council to support a permanent memorial at Bondi Beach, $2 million for long-term wellbeing and recovery, and funding for community safety, education and antisemitism response programs.
