Philissa Cramer
At least 15 people were killed in a shooting attack on Sunday during a Chanukah celebration at a beach playground in Sydney, Australia. Attendees were gathered to mark the first night of the Jewish holiday.
The event was being held by Chabad of Bondi and the dead included Rabbi Eli Schlanger, an emissary of the movement who has worked there for 18 years, as well as a Holocaust survivor, an immigrant from France and at least one child.
The Bondi Beach attack was “an act of evil antisemitism, terrorism, that has struck the heart of our nation,” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said in a video address.
Dozens of people were injured, some critically, in the attack, which took place at about 6:30 p.m. local time on Sunday. Early Monday morning, authorities said the death toll had risen to 15 after previously saying 11 people had been killed.
A gunman was also killed and another arrested during the shooting near Bondi Beach, one of Australia’s most iconic sites, popular with families and surfers. Police said they found an explosive device in a car belonging to the gunman who was killed.
An unarmed civilian tackled and disarmed one of the gunmen while coming under fire from another, according to footage from the scene.
The incident immediately became one of the deadliest attacks on a Jewish target outside Israel in decades. It comes amid a surge of antisemitic incidents and anti-Israel sentiment experienced by Australian Jews during the Israel–Hamas war in Gaza, including protests that police said featured antisemitic rhetoric and arson attacks that authorities have accused Iran of directing.
The event at Bondi Beach was advertised as being sponsored by Chabad for Israelis, a synagogue and community organization serving Israelis in the area, and the Waverley Council, the local government body that manages events at the beach.
Video footage posted online showed two men opening fire from a footbridge above the event, which police said had drawn more than 1,000 people. It was advertised as featuring live entertainment, food for purchase and games for children, culminating in a “grand menorah lighting.”
Chabad is known for its public menorahs, which the movement said were erected in roughly 15,000 locations around the world last year. While some public menorahs have been vandalized in the past, this was the first deadly attack on a public menorah lighting.
Schlanger had recently held an event to memorialize Chabad emissaries murdered elsewhere, including in a 2008 attack on Chabad of Mumbai in India, according to Chabad sources. He also shared on Facebook two months ago that he and his wife had welcomed a baby boy.
