Statement by Rabbi Rick Jacobs on the Antisemitic Attack at Sydney’s Bondi Beach Menorah Lighting

Good morning, everyone.

Just a few hours ago, as members of the Sydney Jewish community and others gathered for a community menorah lighting ceremony on Bondi Beach, two gunman brutally murdered at least 12 people and injured many others. This was a targeted, horrific antisemitic attack. It chills our souls. It was meant not just to cause harm to the Australian Jewish community but to Jews worldwide. And it has caused harm – our global Jewish community is in deep, deep pain. I know you join me in praying for healing of all who were injured and we also grieve those who were slaughtered.

At this moment, many of us are probably thinking of the countless public, community menorah lightings we have attended or even led. We are thinking about security and how to live openly and safely as Jews – asking questions that are newer to us but would have been all too familiar to generations of our ancestors.

Let’s be clear, our Jewish siblings were murdered in Australia for the simple fact of being Jewish. This is antisemitism, plain and simple. Our Jewish community and people of conscience everywhere stand together against the dramatic uptick in anti-Jewish hate.

We need to ask these hard questions. We need to be smart about security and protecting ourselves and our fellow Jews – whether within the synagogue walls, or when we walk down the street wearing a kippah or magen David.

But the spirit of the defiant Maccabees is also part of the Hanukkah story. Our Jewish community will not go into hiding. We are proud Jews and will remain so even as we make the security of our Jewish community a primary obligation. 

In our tradition we are commanded to place the Hanukkah menorah in a window for all to see. But in the Babylonian Talmud we are taught that in a time of danger, we do not do that. We have been living in a time of growing danger for several years now. And for too many Jews, putting a menorah in the window is too dangerous.

It's hard not to think of Billings, Montana. In 1993, after 5 year old Isaac Schnitzer displayed a Hanukkiah in the window of his home, someone threw a brick and shattered not only the window, but a community’s sense of safety. Not just the Jewish community, but the wider Billings community. Who are we, they asked, if this can happen in our town? In response, the Billings Gazette published an image of a menorah and invited community members – Jewish and not Jewish – to put the image in their windows. And they did. They made clear – not in OUR town.

Tonight, in addition to the menorah candles, many Jews will be lighting memorial candles. As we mourn, we yearn to hear the voices of others who will stand with us in this time of tremendous pain and say, not in our town. Not in our state. Not in our country. Not in our world. Not now, not ever.

May the memories of the murdered be for a blessing, and may their loved ones find comfort among the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem.