‘You are family. You are not alone’: Herzog joined by Albanese at Chabad of Bondi

Israeli President Isaac Herzog and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese joined members of the Jewish community on Tuesday evening for a moving memorial at Chabad of Bondi, marking one of several significant events of remembrance during Herzog’s visit in the wake of the December 14 Bondi terror attack.

The service at Chabad Bondi, hosted by Alex Ryvchin, co-CEO of the ECAJ, brought together bereaved families, survivors, community leaders and shul members in a setting defined by prayer and reflection. The synagogue, central to life in Sydney’s Russian Jewish community, was filled with quiet grief as prayers were recited for those killed during the Chanukah by the Sea gathering.

 

Alex Ryvchin told the gathering the building itself carried the story of the community’s past and present.

“This is no ordinary synagogue,” he said. “It was built to make a community, a family of families. What began as a refuge for bewildered migrants became a place of pride, tradition and responsibility for one another.”

He said the attack had transformed the meaning of the space forever.

“Until December 14, this was a house of prayer. Now it is also a hall of martyrs,” Ryvchin said. “Marked apart by loss, and by the people who lived, prayed and served here.”

Ryvchin named members of the congregation who were killed, recalling where they sat and how they contributed to the life of the synagogue.

“This is where Rabbi Eli Schlanger stood greeting us at the door. This is where Reuven Morrison sat after prayer. This is where Boris Tetleroyd sat with his son Yaakov, who by the grace of God survived and is here to mourn his beloved father. These were not anonymous victims. These were our family.”

He rejected criticism of the presence of the Israeli president, saying it reflected a failure to understand Jewish identity.

“They do not grasp that Israel is inseparable from being Jewish,” he said. “Israel is not a distant country. It is the idea of Jewish freedom and Jewish self-reliance. We will not be asked to abandon that connection as the price of belonging. That price we will never pay.”

“Fifteen innocent lives, Jewish and non-Jewish, were gunned down by cruelty, hate and extremism,” he said. “The physical and emotional scars of December 14 will forever be part of our two nations.”

President Herzog directed his words to the community, speaking of the shock felt in Israel as news of the attack emerged.

“Jewish hearts around the world missed a beat,” Herzog said. “Darkness claimed lives in Sydney just as families were lighting the first candles of Chanukah in Jerusalem.”

Herzog said he and his wife had come to Australia because words alone were not enough.

“We have come not only to tell you that we are with you but to show you that we are with you,” he said. “We have come to look you in the eye and say: you are family. You are not alone.”

“The terrorists sought to instill fear in the Jewish people; we will respond with renewed Jewish pride. They sought to divide people with religious hate; we will respond with solidarity between all people of moral conscience, of all faiths.”

He warned that the ideology behind the Bondi attack was part of a wider pattern.

“The hatred that triggered this shooting is the same age-old antisemitism that long predates October 7 and even the State of Israel,” Herzog said. “Silence and indifference only empower it.”

Chabad of Bondi’s Rabbi Yehoram Ulman, whose son-in-law Rabbi Eli Schlanger was murdered in Bondi, thanked the President for his visit. He told the gathering that the support shown in the days after the attack had carried the community through its darkest moments.

“The grief was overwhelming,” he said. “But so too was the outpouring of care from across Australia and from around the world.”

He recalled a phone call from Herzog shortly after the attack.

“You reached out not as a distant head of state, but as family,” Rabbi Ulman said. “That call reminded us that Israel is not defined by geography. When one Jewish community is wounded, our people feel it together.”

Prior to the gathering, Prime Minister Albanese and President Herzog met privately with the grieving families.

The evening also featured deeply moving speeches from other members of Herzog’s delegation. Doron Almog, chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel and a retired IDF major general, spoke with raw emotion about the unbreakable bond between Israel and the Jewish diaspora. He described the Bondi victims as part of the broader story of Jewish endurance and paid tribute to the courage of the community in the face of terror.

Yaakov Hagoel, chairman of the World Zionist Organisation, also addressed the gathering, delivering an emotional reflection on Jewish self-determination and the spiritual strength drawn from Israel’s existence. He emphasised that the attack on Bondi was an assault on the entire Jewish people and called for renewed commitment to Jewish pride, education, and mutual responsibility across borders.

In a heartbreaking moment, President Herzog led the Kaddish prayer, accompanied by Rabbi Eli Schlanger’s 13-year-old son, Nossen.

To close the service, President Herzog was called on to light the Chanukiah candles while the Prime Minister read the names of those who were killed in the Bondi attack. As each name was called, the family members of each victim stood, providing a clear reminder of the devastation that the Bondi attack had wrought on this tight-knit community.

The event was managed by Benny Amzalak on behalf of Bondi Chabad.