On the final night of Hanukkah, the candles began glowing, one by one, as the sun faded from the shores of Bondi Beach, one of Australia’s most cherished landmarks.
Thousands of Australians gathered Sunday evening to mourn the victims of a mass shooting a week earlier that targeted Jewish families celebrating the first night of Hanukkah, killing 15 people and rattling the nation.
The crowd at the memorial stood in hushed silence marking 6:47 p.m., the minute when the shots began to ring out. They cheered loudly for Chaya Dadon, a teenage survivor who was wounded while shielding younger children. They sang along to the words of “Waltzing Matilda,” the unofficial Australian national anthem, which lent its name to the youngest victim of the massacre, her life cut short at just 10 years old.
“Bondi is beautiful tonight,” Chris Minns, the premier of the state of New South Wales, told the crowd. “You have returned to these sands just seven days after a shocking crime, and have said to the terrorists, ‘We are going nowhere.’”
The somber public ceremony capped what Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has called “the darkest week in Australia’s recent history.”
Mr. Albanese attended the ceremony but didn’t speak. Some booed at the announcement of his presence in a sign of anger at his government. Some Australians have accused it of doing too little to address antisemitism before the attack on Dec. 14, where two gunmen opened fire on hundreds of people. The authorities said the attackers were motivated by the terrorist group Islamic State’s ideology.
In the week since, the country has convulsed with disbelief and outrage while it also witnessed an outpouring of support for its small Jewish community, and a resolve to not let the atrocity change Australia’s way of life.
“We’re getting stronger as a nation, and we’re growing,” said an unflinching Chaya, 14, who walked onstage on crutches after she was shot in the leg last Sunday. “Sometimes growing hurts, but we’re growing.”
Chaya, whose youth showed in her braces but not in the confidence and poise with which she addressed the large crowd, urged fellow Australians to move forward with the teaching in Judaism to be a light in the darkness. She said that tenet had given her the strength to leave a position of safety last Sunday and run to protect the other children.
She said she did not feel scared in the moment but knew, “This is it. This is your mission. This is your purpose.”
Though Australians were broadly united in grief, political tensions over the root causes of the attack appeared to be creeping in. The suspects in the attack are a man who immigrated from India and who was shot and killed by police, and his son, an Australian-born citizen, according to the authorities.
A few hundred protesters at a separate gathering blamed what they said were the government’s lax immigration policies for the attack. Those protesters gathered earlier on Sunday at a park across town from Bondi Beach for an anti-immigration rally billed “Put Australia First.” They called for Mr. Albanese’s resignation.
The protest on Sunday was far smaller than recent anti-immigration marches, which drew as many as 15,000 people. It went ahead despite pleas from Mr. Minns, the state premier.
“This is the last thing we need right now,” he said ahead of rally.
The emerging political debate has begun to take shape around what led up to the attack.
Like other countries such as Britain and Canada, Australia saw a surge in immigration following the end of pandemic restrictions, leading to a backlash from people who blamed the new arrivals for a rise in the cost of living.
Australian police say the suspects had been radicalized by antisemitic ideology.
Barnaby Joyce, a former deputy prime minister and current member of Parliament with the anti-immigration One Nation party, told the protesters at Sunday’s rally that, in his opinion, Mr. Albanese’s government had plenty of notice that an attack like this could happen.
One woman in the back of the crowd on Sunday carried a handmade sign that read: “Immigration is killing our culture and our Jews.”
In the morning on Bondi Beach another vigil led by Jewish women wearing white had focused on how Australia had accepted Jews fleeing hatred even before the Holocaust.
Sam Mostyn, Australia’s governor general — the de facto head of state and a role meant to be above politics — asked the hundreds gathered to let the memory of 10-year-old Matilda, the youngest victim of the attack, inspire them to unite in the healing process.
“Her life now calls us all to stand together,” she said. “To have the result that we will not let fear and hate divide us, that we will protect our children and build a nation where every family can live safely.”
Lisa Pillemer, one of the women at the morning vigil, described being deeply frustrated before the attack with Australia’s lack of attention to threats against Jews, referring to more than a year of arson attacks and antisemitic graffiti that have hit synagogues and Jewish businesses.
The Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 and Israel’s subsequent war in Gaza unleashed an increase in antisemitic rhetoric and vandalism in the country.
But in the diverse faces of people coming to pay their respects at the site of the shooting, she could see a chance for improvement in the country’s support for the Jewish community, Ms. Pillemer said.
“We want to continue to see the waves of every group of different Australians coming through to support the community,” she said, pointing to a group of burly men in rugby uniforms laying flowers at the memorial.
At the end of the evening memorial, Matilda’s father walked onto the stage to light the eighth and final candle on a large menorah. A soft rain had begun to fall on the crowd.
Victoria Kim is the Australia correspondent for The New York Times, based in Sydney, covering Australia, New Zealand and the broader Pacific region.
The post Australia Mourns Bondi Beach Shooting Victims appeared first on New York Times.
