Rabbi Mendy Litzman arrived at the scene of the Bondi Beach terror attack under live fire. The founder and head of Hatzolah Sydney, he had been at a Chanukah party not far away when his friend and fellow Hatzolah member Yanky Super radioed and told him he had been shot. Rabbi Litzman responded immediately. “In my head, I figured it’s probably a terror attack,” he told The Jewish Press, adding, “But nothing could prepare you for so many patients.”
Still, when he arrived at the scene, his 27 years of training kicked in. “In mass casualties, you have to literally just try to save as many patients as you could in those first few minutes – stop the bleeding, open the airway, and go on to the next,” he explained. Hatzolah saved many lives that day, he said.
The Islamist attack, perpetrated by a father-son duo, killed 15 people and wounded around 40 others at Chabad of Bondi’s “Chanukah by the Sea” event on the first night of Chanukah. Among those killed was Rabbi Eli Schlanger, the assistant rabbi of Chabad of Bondi. “Everyone was shouting, ‘Save Eli, save Rabbi Eli!’” said Rabbi Litzman. He was the one who determined that Rabbi Schlanger could not be saved. The two were good friends. Rabbi Schlanger was an “amazing person, amazing chasid, amazing rabbi, loved by everybody,” said Rabbi Litzman.
The Bondi Beach shooting was the worst terror attack in Australia’s history, and it was also the deadliest terror attack against Jews since October 7. Still, for those who have been studying the sharp rise of antisemitism in Australia over the last two years, the attack wasn’t entirely shocking. “It was only a matter of time,” Gary Herz, who sits on the national editorial board of the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council’s (AIJAC) magazine Australia/Israel Review, told The Jewish Press.
For Herz, the Israel-Hamas war was an “excuse for antisemitism to become overt,” and the Australian government has spent the two years since October 7 not taking it seriously enough. “Jewish leadership has been disappointed from local law enforcement and the government, both state and federal government,” Herz said.
Each year, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) releases a report documenting “anti-Jewish incidents” across Australia. In the two years since October 7, the number of such incidents has exploded. “October 7 emboldened many to act on their hatred of Jews,” Julie Nathan, ECAJ’s research director who has compiled the yearly report since 2013, told The Jewish Press.
On October 9, 2023, two days after the October 7 massacres in Israel, a crowd in front of the Sydney Opera House chanted, “Where’s the Jews?” which sounded to many like “Gas the Jews!” (Some are still adamant that they heard the latter.) To them, the clarification wasn’t a comforting one.
ECAJ’s 2025 report documented 1,654 anti-Jewish incidents across Australia between October 1, 2024 and September 30, 2025. This is down from the 2,062 incidents logged in 2024, but remains significantly higher than pre-October 7, 2023 numbers. For the ten years before October 7, the yearly average was 342 incidents.
The report breaks antisemitic incidents down into six categories: assault, vandalism, abuse, messages, graffiti, and posters. It documents swastika graffiti and phrases like “Kill all Jews,” “F— the Jews,” and “Murder your local Zionist,” as well as similar verbal abuse directed toward Jewish individuals.
However, even before the attack on Bondi Beach, Australia saw notable instances of antisemitism that went beyond graffiti and verbal abuse. ECAJ’s report notes an October 2024 arson attack targeting Lewis’ Continental Kitchen, a kosher catering business in Sydney, that resulted in more than $1 million in damage. Over the next few months, cars were sprayed with antisemitic graffiti and set on fire in Sydney. Most notably, on December 6, 2024, the Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne was firebombed and burnt to the ground.
In August 2025, Australia’s Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) linked the attacks on Lewis’ Continental Kitchen and Adass Israel to agents working on behalf of Iran. As a result of these findings, Australia expelled Iranian ambassador Ahmad Sadeghi, the first time the country has expelled an ambassador since World War II. In November, weeks before the Bondi Beach attack, Australia listed Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a state sponsor of terror.
But Jewish leaders say Australia is not doing enough. “This explosion of anti-Jewish hate and incidents seems to have taken governments, police, and others by surprise, as they seem to be at a loss on how to respond to the outpouring of hate against Jews and Israel that was occurring on the streets in their cities,” said Nathan. “Police appear unable or unwilling to make the necessary arrests, apart from a few.”
An electorate that is increasingly anti-Israel has also played a part in this intransigence, she said, with the far left, the far right, Islamists, and even ordinary Australians participating in anti-Israel activities and targeting Jews. “Many governments are choosing to appease extremist elements within their countries, and globally, rather than stand firm on principle and act against anti-Jewish vilification and threats,” Nathan said.
“We’ve got legislation,” noted Herz. “But we’re not implementing it.” In July 2024, the Australian government appointed Jillian Segal as a Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism. A year later, in July 2025, Segal released the “Special Envoy’s Plan to Combat Antisemitism,” a framework that recommends, among other things, adopting a “uniform national definition of antisemitism,” ensuring legislation to counter hateful conduct is “appropriate” or strengthened where necessary, ensuring universities address antisemitism, addressing the Jewish community’s security needs and monitoring threats against it, and reviewing immigration and citizenship policies to better screen for individuals with extremist views.
The Australian government did not officially adopt Segal’s plan until December 19, days after the terror attack on Bondi Beach. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese denied any delay, stating that the government had earlier implemented certain aspects of Segal’s report. But Herz alleges the plan was put on the “back burner.”
At a gathering held on Bondi Beach one week after the attack, Albanese was booed by the crowd upon arrival.
“The Prime Minister and the federal government still appear to have very little understanding of what antisemitism is, what the Jewish community is facing, and the threats it poses to Australian society,” said Nathan. “Australian Jews feel very let down and abandoned by our federal government.”
For many, that feeling of abandonment emerged before the Bondi Beach attack, and it has led some to consider if they have a future in the country. “The pull factor has always been the reason for a high aliyah rate from Australia,” said Herz, but he added that now, “there will be an increase in aliyah with perhaps the push factor of antisemitism causing this, as opposed to the pull factor.”
Herz and Nathan believe the majority of Australians are supportive of the Jewish community. Still, the government has not done enough to combat the vocal minority. “Jews are seriously considering whether they need to pack up and emigrate. It will take a massive effort by the government and law enforcement, human rights bodies, and other civil leaders to turn the situation around,” said Nathan. “I am not optimistic that they have the will to take protecting the Jewish community from harm seriously and to deal with the anti-Jewish propaganda and animus driving this.”
Debbie, who asked that her real name not be printed, grew up in Sydney as the daughter of two Holocaust survivors. “Antisemitism has always been around, lurking in the background,” she said. She had experienced some antisemitism before October 7. “But now it has raised its ugly head.” Encountering both far-left and far-right protests, which many have criticized police for allowing to take place in CBD zones and for sometimes becoming intimidatory, has made her afraid to be visibly Jewish. So she has decided to move to Israel if she can figure out how to bring her 96-year-old mother there.
“The decision was not difficult to make due to the recent spike in antisemitism in Australia, which is unprecedented,” she said. “It has caused me great anxiety.” After the attack on Bondi Beach, she said she is “certain” she has made the right decision.
A few days after the attack, Avner’s, a Jewish-owned bakery in Sydney, announced that it is closing down after two years of consistent harassment, threats, and vandalism. “Even in the wake of this terrorist incident, threats have continued,” read a note posted on the bakery’s window.
It’s unclear how many Jews will really leave Australia. What Nathan is sure about, though, is that things likely won’t go back to the way they were before. “I think it will be difficult, if not impossible, to bring antisemitism back down to pre-October-7 levels,” she said.
For Jewish Australians, the path ahead is a painful one. “You cry, you’re upset, but we believe in Hashem as Jews, as frum yidden, and we continue,” said Rabbi Litzman. “We need to be here for the people that are still here. We need to be here for the families that are yesomim [orphans], almanos [widows]…We need to be here for our member that was shot.”
For Rabbi Litzman, trust in G-d is the path forward. “We have emunah shleimah and bitachon that we don’t understand these things,” he said. “It says [in Parshas Nitzavim], ‘Hanistaros la’Hashem Elokeinu’ – the hidden things are for Hashem.”