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The Unheralded Jewish Hero of Bondi Beach: When Strength Means Standing for Others
Boris and Sofia Gurman. Photo: GoFundMe.
Something important happened at Bondi Beach — not only because of the horror inflicted there, but because of how a few ordinary people responded when violence arrived.
The brutality of the Sydney massacre was shocking. But so were the choices made in those first moments.
Boris Gurman, a 69-year-old Jewish man, recognized the danger and moved toward it.
Boris attempted to disarm one of the attackers before the massacre fully unfolded. His wife followed him. Both were killed. They were days away from celebrating their 35th wedding anniversary.
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It matters that Boris acted first — before the attack fully erupted, before others even grasped what was coming. This was not reactive heroism but anticipatory courage: the willingness to absorb risk in order to spare others from it.
In a media environment quick to universalize violence and hesitant to dwell on Jewish agency, that distinction should not be lost. Boris Gurman did not merely die in a terror attack; he tried to stop one. Jews know this pattern well — not because we seek heroism, but because history has repeatedly demanded it.
Later, Ahmed al-Ahmed, a Syrian-Australian bystander, confronted another attacker and physically disarmed him, saving countless lives. He survived, but was badly injured.
In the days that followed, Jews around the world donated generously to support his recovery, not out of sentimentality or symbolism, but recognition. They understood what he had done.
Neither man acted for attention. Neither was performing ideology. They did not pause to calculate outcomes or identities. They acted because innocent people were in danger. What they embodied is something our culture struggles to name but desperately needs: sacred masculinity.
For more than a decade, masculinity has been discussed almost exclusively as a problem to be managed. The language of toxicity has flattened male strength into caricature — aggression without restraint, power without purpose. Some of that critique is warranted. But the deeper failure of our moment has been to treat masculinity itself as suspect, something to be wiped out rather than formed.
The result has not been a more peaceful society. It has been a more confused one.
The opposite of toxic masculinity is not passivity or withdrawal. It is strength bound to responsibility — physical courage governed by moral restraint, a willingness to act not for dominance or glory, but for protection and care. Judaism has always understood this distinction. Its tradition does not celebrate brute force but gevurah: disciplined strength, directed outward, tethered to obligation. Its heroes are not conquerors intoxicated by power, but men who stand when others cannot — Abraham arguing for justice, Moses confronting tyranny, the Maccabees defending religious life against annihilation.
Boris Gurman stood squarely in that lineage. What defined his final act was not fearlessness but readiness — readiness to step forward when retreat would have been easier, readiness to bear cost for the sake of others. That is what sacred masculinity looks like when stripped of abstraction.
Ahmed al-Ahmed’s courage underscores another truth our culture often forgets: sacred masculinity is not tribal. It is moral. When he confronted the attacker, he did not act as a representative of a group. He acted as a man who understood that strength exists for defense.
Both men acted according to the same moral grammar, though at different moments and with different costs: when evil appears, strength is not optional. It has a purpose.
History offers a clear lesson. Communities endure not because they suppress masculine strength, but because they bind it to love, obligation, and moral limits. When men understand that their lives are bound up with others — with families, neighbors, and communities — they rise. When they are taught only suspicion or indulgence, they fracture.
We have seen this repeatedly since October 7. In Israel, men have acted not out of rage, but out of covenant — fathers shielding children, civilians confronting terrorists, ordinary people making unbearable choices to save others. One father famously threw himself on a grenade to protect his sons. His act was not impulsive. It was sacrificial. Love, quite literally, carved in fire.
Bondi Beach belongs in that same moral universe.
We should resist the temptation to romanticize death or mythologize heroism. Boris Gurman did not seek martyrdom. Ahmed al-Ahmed did not aspire to sainthood. But neither should we reduce their actions to fleeting news items or moral curiosities. What they demonstrated is something our culture urgently needs to recover: the idea that strength is for service, that courage is moral before it is physical, and that masculinity, rightly ordered, is not a liability but a civilizational asset.
In a healthier society, we would know how to speak about this without embarrassment or apology. We would teach our sons that masculinity is not about domination but guardianship, not about volume but resolve, not about asserting the self but standing for others. Sacred masculinity is not nostalgic. It is necessary.
Boris Gurman and Ahmed al-Ahmed did not defeat evil. But they confronted it. And in doing so, they reminded us of something we are in danger of forgetting: that civilization depends, in no small part, on people willing to use their strength in the service of others.
The world is not short on power. It is short on men prepared to stand when standing is costly.
At Bondi Beach, we saw what that looks like.
Samuel J. Abrams is a professor of politics at Sarah Lawrence College and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
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Mamdani touts ‘Babies not Bombs’ messaging after flexing political muscle in the New York primaries
(New York Jewish Week) — New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani celebrated the victories of the progressive candidates he endorsed in New York’s Democratic primaries describing their success as a “shift in the balance of power.”
Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, the morning after the primaries, Mamdani touted the triumphs as a shift in the balance of power between “working people” and “special interests.”
Mamdani-endorsed candidates Brad Lander, Darializa Avila Chevalier and Claire Valdez won Democratic nominations for Congress. During the press conference, the mayor repeatedly highlighted their calls to restrict U.S. military aid to Israel and redirect federal funding to domestic priorities.
Following Mamdani’s election night sweep in New York, President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social that “America the Beautiful will NEVER be a Communist Country!!!”
The victories offered an early demonstration of Mamdani’s political influence beyond City Hall, as several Democratic Socialist candidates he backed, including Chevalier, defeated established Democratic incumbents in their districts.
“The working person is struggling in our city to afford basic needs,” Mamdani said, adding that Avila Chevalier’s oft-repeated slogan of investing in “Babies not Bombs,” is “the kind of conscience, the kind of clarity, the kind of conviction that has been missing in our politics for far too long.”
Mamdani responded to the president’s post on Wednesday, telling a reporter who asked whether his goal is to make America a “socialist” country that his “goal is to make America a place that every American can afford.”
When asked about federal policies that could be affected by Mamdani’s endorsed candidates, the mayor cited Valdez’s support for “foreign policy that understands human rights for all” and Lander’s commitment to co-sponsoring the Block the Bombs Act, which prohibits the sale of certain U.S.-made offensive weapons to Israel.
Mamdani also dismissed a question about whether he was concerned about how the victories would play out in November as Democrats try to win back the House.
“Every time the fight for working people takes a step forward, you will hear Republicans say that this is actually going to jeopardize the existence of that very fight,” he said.
When asked whether the election of Chevalier, who has faced scrutiny for past social media posts attacking Democrats and her appearance at an Oct. 8, 2023, pro-Palestinian rally in Times Square, could “complicate campaigns for Democrats as a whole,” Mamdani replied “No.”
“[Chevalier] often speaks about a politics of life. She speaks about ‘Babies not bombs,’” Mamdani continued. “What could be a better example of what the people of the district want to see versus what the people of the district have been forced to experience, which is tens of billions of dollars being spent at a national level to bomb children overseas, while children in our own districts are struggling.”
The post Mamdani touts ‘Babies not Bombs’ messaging after flexing political muscle in the New York primaries appeared first on The Forward.
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Jewish anti-Zionist David Orkin defeats incumbent in NY Assembly primary
(New York Jewish Week) — David Orkin, a Jewish anti-Zionist attorney and democratic socialist, defeated incumbent New York State Assemblymember Jenifer Rajkumar in Tuesday’s Democratic primary. Orkin won State Assembly District 38, which includes parts of Queens.
Orkin, an immigrant workers’ rights attorney and union organizer, received 58.8% of the vote, while Rajkumar, who has represented the district since 2021 and is the first South Asian woman ever elected to office in the state, received 40.9%. The district covers a swath of Queens, including parts of Ridgewood, Glendale, Ozone Park, Woodhaven and Richmond Hill.
“Pro-Palestine candidates are sweeping in NYC tonight,” Jewish Voice for Peace Action wrote in a post on Instagram celebrating Orkin’s win Tuesday. “Palestine was on the ballot — and won. David will be a champion for Palestinian freedom in Albany.”
The post from JVP Action echoed a message Orkin had highlighted throughout his campaign.
“It’s so incredibly meaningful to me to be running this race as an anti-Zionist Jew, to be one of the few anti-Zionist Jewish voices that is in an elected seat in the state government,” Orkin said in an Instagram reel posted by Jewish Voice for Peace Action earlier this month.
He added that, if elected, he would be able to go in front of the state legislature and assert that “criticizing Israel for genocide, demanding an end to the occupation, demanding an end to funding war abroad is not antisemitic.”
Orkin’s victory came amid a strong night for democratic socialist candidates across New York City, including left-wing congressional candidates Brad Lander, Darializa Avila Chevalier and Claire Valdez, who also defeated establishment-backed opponents in their primaries.
While Orkin was not endorsed by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, whose winning endorsements of Lander, Chevalier and Valdez signaled a pro-Palestinian lurch for the party in the city with the world’s largest Jewish population outside of Israel. Nonetheless, his victory elevated a self-described anti-Zionist to the ranks of New York’s elected officials at a time when debates over Israel have become increasingly prominent within Democratic politics.
While Israel-related issues were not listed on Orkin’s platform, which centered on affordability and immigration, he repeatedly expressed his support for a “free Palestine” and attacked Rajkumar’s record of support for the Jewish state during his campaign.
“In the past several years my opponent AM Rajkumar has walked in the Israel day parade but has said NOTHING against the war in Gaza, occupation of Palestine, or Islamophobic attacks faced by the people of New York,” Orkin wrote in a May post on X.
Rajkumar, who was a close political ally of former New York City Mayor Eric Adams, in her campaign platform vowed to combat antisemitism.
After establishing a Jewish Voice for Peace chapter in Tucson, Arizona, in 2014, Orkin remained involved in pro-Palestinian activism as a member of the anti-Zionist activist group.
“I’ve been involved in the Jewish Palestine Solidarity Movement for 12, 13 years,” Orkin told Democratic Left last month. “I’ve dedicated part [of my] life to making sure that Jewish people are creating religious spaces outside of Zionism, and to making more space for Palestinian organizing to have an impact.”
On the campaign trail, Orkin received a host of endorsements from prominent progressive groups and lawmakers, including Vermont independent Sen. Bernie Sanders, Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, JVP Action and NYC Democratic Socialists for America.
Rajkumar was endorsed by ActJew, the new nonprofit focused on combatting antisemitism, as well as the Queens Jewish Alliance and Assemblymembers Sam Berger, Kalman Yeger and Chuck Lavine.
Orkin received over $290,000 in campaign contributions for the election cycle, including over $156,000 from the office of the state comptroller, while Rajkumar received over $270,000, including $9,000 from health care executive Daniel Lowy.
“I have dedicated my life fighting for immigrants and workers, I am proud to have earned their support in this election, and I look forward to spending the rest of my life winning the beautiful and joyous lives we deserve,” Orkin said in a statement, according to QNS.
The post Jewish anti-Zionist David Orkin defeats incumbent in NY Assembly primary appeared first on The Forward.
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Half of Americans think the U.S. is ‘too supportive’ of Israel
(JTA) — A new survey found that 48% of American voters think the United States is “too supportive” of Israel, the highest since the pollster started asking the question in 2017.
The survey published Wednesday by Quinnipiac University also found that 60% of respondents reported that military intervention in Iran was “not worth it” as opposed to 34% of voters who said it was “worth it.”
The number of respondents who think the U.S. support of Israel is about right is 38%, while just 7% think the U.S. is not supportive enough of Israel, the poll found.
Broken down by party, 66% of Democrats think the U.S. is too supportive of Israel, while 9% think it is not supportive enough and 18% think U.S. support for Israel is about right.
Among Republicans, 20% think the U.S. is too supportive of Israel, 69% think American support for Israel is “about right,” and 6% think the U.S. is not supportive enough.
Among independent voters, 55% think the U.S. is too supportive of Israel, 34% think U.S. support for Israel is about right, and 7% think the U.S. is not supportive enough.
The poll data were released one day after three Democrats critical of Israel swept their House primary races in New York City, and in races around the country even some reliably pro-Israel Democratic candidates distanced themselves from the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC.
A survey last year by Gallup found dwindling support for Israel among Democrats, as well as waning support among Republicans.
Still the party divide was also in sharp evidence in the latest poll. In responses to the question about whether the Iran war was “worth it”, Democrats disfavored military action in Iran at 93% and independents at 66%, while 75% of Republicans surveyed thought it was “worth it.”
Given a list of 10 issues and asked which, if any, they considered priorities in their decision-making process in the election for the U.S. House of Representatives, 41% of voters cited the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, above AI data centers (38%) and Donald Trump (38%). The high cost of living (70%) and health care (59%) topped the list.
The Quinnipiac poll was conducted from June 18 to 22, and includes responses from 1,165 self-identified registered voters.
The margin of error is 3.4 percentage points.
Among those surveyed, 48% said they had an unfavorable view of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Twenty percent said they had a favorable opinion, and 30% “haven’t heard enough” about him.
“Netanyahu gets poor marks from American voters as their appetite for supporting Israel wanes, with the share of voters who think the U.S. is too supportive of Israel hitting a new high,” Quinnipiac polling analyst Tim Malloy wrote in the report.
Voters were also asked about their views on the June 17 memorandum of understanding with Iran, which begins a 60-day negotiation period that does not outline an end to Iran’s nuclear program.
“After months of diplomatic fits and starts, global economic repercussions and a broad loss of life in the region, a majority of voters make their feelings clear: the Iran war was a bad idea,” Malloy wrote.
Voters who are either not confident or “not so confident” that the deal will succeed numbered 59%, and 61% think it is either likely or very likely that Iran will develop nuclear weapons.
The post Half of Americans think the U.S. is ‘too supportive’ of Israel appeared first on The Forward.
