(New York Jewish Week) — Rivkah Rothschild was on her way to a public menorah lighting in New York City on Sunday evening when she decided to recite a specific Jewish prayer to herself.

“I actually said Shema Yisrael, which is the prayer that we say before passing away, just in the taxi coming over, just in case there were any terrorists here,” said Rothschild just after the event.

An attorney in Midtown East, Rothschild was planning to skip the menorah lighting at Carl Schurz Park until Rabbi Ben Tzion Krasnianski, the executive director of the Chabad Lubavitch of the Upper East Side, asked her and her fellow community members to come out following the deadly shooting at a Chabad Hanukkah party in Sydney, Australia.

“I think we all are very shaken. We’re devastated by the news of what happened today in Sydney, Australia. All our hearts are all broken for the people that are suffering what they’ve experienced there,” said Rothschild. “I was fearful when I made the decision that I’m coming.”

The menorah lighting just outside of Gracie Mansion, which was hosted by the UJA-Federation of New York, Chabad of the Upper East Side and Kehilath Jeshurun, was one of dozens that took place across New York city to mark the first night of Hanukkah.

Hundreds of people crowded together on the ice-covered promenade of the park, enjoying sufganiyot and latkes, as sorrow and determination hung in the air.

“It was a very unified spirit and a strong energy, a resolute energy, an energy of conviction, determination,” said Rothschild following the event. “In my study of history, when Jews are in danger, we usually do three things. None of them work. We appease, we flee and we ignore. We’re not doing any of that now.”

Despite the attack, which killed 15 people and injured dozens more, Chabad officials and Jewish leaders across the country urged for planned Hanukkah celebrations to move ahead with added security measures.

“Out of an abundance of caution, the NYPD has significantly increased security around Hanukkah celebrations, menorah lightings, and Jewish houses of worship across all five boroughs,” wrote NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch in a post on X. “New Yorkers will see an enhanced uniformed presence, specialized patrols, counterterrorism resources, and additional protective measures deployed where appropriate.”

Indeed, over a dozen New York police officers and members of Chevra Hatzalah, the New York-based Jewish ambulance service, could be seen on the outskirts of the crowd as Hanukkah songs blared over the speakers.

Prior to the lighting of the menorah, which sat raised above the crowd, several rabbis, Jewish leaders and city officials gave speeches where they urged the crowd to counter the attack in Sydney by being proudly Jewish.

The incoming comptroller of New York, Mark Levine, who urged Jewish New Yorkers to attend menorah lightings earlier in the day, told the crowd that none of the public Hanukkah events throughout the city had been cancelled and that “turnout has been off the charts.”

“We are aspiring now to be modern-day Maccabees, this is who we are in New York City,” said Levine. “To those who hate us, know that we are not going anywhere. We will not let you intimidate us, not here in this park, not in front of Park East Synagogue, not in our schools, not in our subways, nowhere.”

Julie Menin, a Jewish politician who declared victory last month in the race for City Council speaker, told the children in the audience that “this too shall pass and things will be brighter.”

“This is an incredibly difficult day for the Jewish community, and it is really only by coming together and celebrating the fact that we are Jewish, that we are lighting the menorah tonight, that we are lighting the candles in the darkness, that we are going to heal, and it is only through education that we are going to fight antisemitism,” said Menin.

Throughout the speeches, many leaders also took aim at the increase in antisemitic rhetoric that has proliferated around the globe over the course of the war in Gaza.

Some also specifically decried the use of the phrase “globalize the intifada,” a common pro-Palestinian slogan that Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani declined to condemn during his campaign. He later said he would discourage its use.

“We are shocked and heartbroken about what happened, but we’re not surprised,” said Hindy Poupko, the senior vice president of community organizing and external relations at UJA-Federation of New York. “After two years of people shouting on our streets ‘Globalize the intifada’ from New York to Sydney, words have consequences. The violent rhetoric must end, and we call on all of our leaders and our elected officials to condemn that rhetoric.”

Rabbi Chaim Steinmetz, the leader of the Orthodox Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun on the Upper East Side, also directed his commentary to the use of the phrase.

“I need to make this very clear, because some don’t understand it. Globalizing the intifada is not an unfortunate phrase, it’s not something to be discouraged, globalizing the intifada is a call to murder,” said Steinmetz. “It’s time for us to tell the truth that this anti-Zionism has led to the death of Jews in Boulder, in Washington D.C., in Leeds and in Sydney. It’s time to say that anti-Zionism kills Jews.”

The alleged attackers in Sydney may have pledged allegiance to the Islamic State terrorist group, according to news reports out of Australia. No reports have suggested that they made any specific comments during the attack.

In an extensive post on X Sunday, Mamdani condemned the attack and reiterated his commitment to “work every day to keep Jewish New Yorkers safe.”

“This attack is merely the latest, most horrifying iteration in a growing pattern of violence targeted at Jewish people across the world,” wrote Mamdani. “Too many no longer feel safe to be themselves, to express their faith publicly, to worship in their synagogues without armed security stationed outside.”

Also on the stage at Carl Schurz Park Sunday night was Rabbi Menachem Creditor, a scholar in residence and rabbi for the UJA-Federation of New York whose brother-in-law, Arsen Ostrovsky, was shot during the attack in Sydney.

“I asked him just an hour ago, what should I say to your sisters and brothers in New York as your brother? He said, darkness will never triumph. We will prevail,” said Creditor. “We have a long history of doing better than surviving, friends. We have come back from so much darkness.”

Ben Axelrod, a 30-year-old Jewish resident of the Upper East Side who was in the crowd Sunday night, said he had cried that morning when he learned the news of the attack, but did not feel deterred from coming to the menorah lighting.

“Because at the end of the day, this is not new, it is scary, but we have to keep moving for all those who passed, and we can honor their memory by continuing to be proud Jews,” said Axelrod.

Rena Tobey, a 66-year-old Jewish resident of the Upper East Side, said that she had not planned to come but decided to attend the menorah lighting after learning of the attack.

“This is about light increasing every night, and we have to know that candles are temporary, but we have to carry that light with us no matter what the darkness is in the world,” said Tobey.

Another Jewish attendee of the menorah lighting, who identified himself by his first name, Steven, said that he was not afraid to come to the event despite the attack.

“We’re a strong, vibrant community, and we’re proud of who we are, and it shows how strong and proud we are given the weather conditions that we all came out,” said Steven. “Once we start to feel fear, you’re giving in, and we don’t give in.”

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(JTA) — Australian authorities have identified the two gunmen who unleashed a deadly shooting attack on a Jewish event at Sydney’s Bondi Beach as a father and son who are Pakistani nationals.

Sajid Akram, 50, was killed on the scene. His son Naveed Akram, 24, was shot and is hospitalized in critical condition.

ABC News of Australia reported that the country’s intelligence service had investigated Naveed Akram several years ago because of his ties to an Islamic State cell in Sydney. The news agency reported that investigators now believe both men had pledged allegiance to the terrorist group and that police had found an Islamic State flag in their car along with explosive devices.

The father and son had told family members that they were going on a fishing trip. Naveed Akram’s mother, Verena, told the Sydney Morning Herald that she had a hard time believing that her son was involved in Australia’s deadliest terrorist attack in decades.

“He doesn’t have a firearm. He doesn’t even go out. He doesn’t mix around with friends. He doesn’t drink, he doesn’t smoke, he doesn’t go to bad places,” she told the newspaper. “He goes to work, he comes home, he goes to exercise, and that’s it.”

Sajid Akram had a gun license and owned firearms legally, the local police commissioner in New South Wales, Mal Lanyon, said at a press conference on Monday. He owned six firearms, including long guns used in hunting, that were found at the scene and at a home searched as part of the investigation.

Australia tightened gun access after a 1996 mass shooting in Tasmania killed 35 people, but it did not outright ban private gun ownership. The changes enacted at the time had been credited with the country’s total lack of mass shootings since. Now, officials say they are ready to tighten access again.

“I think it’s time that we have a change to the law in relation to the firearms legislation in New South Wales, but I’m not ready to announce it today,” New South Wales Premier Chris Minns said on Monday. “You can expect action soon.”

The post Father and son suspects in Bondi Beach Hanukkah attack identified as Sajid and Naveed Akram by law enforcement appeared first on The Forward.

Rob Reiner, who rose from an early career as a sitcom star to direct a run of film classics that included The Princess Bride and When Harry Met Sally…, has died at 78 along with his wife, Michele Singer, in what TMZ reported and Deadline confirmed was an apparent homicide, with wounds consistent with a knife attack.

Robert Reiner was born in the Bronx on March 6, 1947, to comedy writer, actor and director Carl Reiner, and mother actress mother Estelle (née Lebost). In interviews, Rob Reiner said his early upbringing resembled that depicted in The Dick Van Dyke Show, which his father created.

Describing his Jewish upbringing to JTA in 2017, he recalled his Yiddish-speaking grandmother, and his own Yiddish instruction. He described the experience as “home shuling.”

With a notable pedigree, Reiner distinguished himself, first in small TV roles and later as Michael “Meathead” Stivic in All in the Family, the bleeding-heart son-in-law of Archie Bunker. (Reiner, like his late father, was an outspoken progressive.)

In a 1994 interview with 60 Minutes, Reiner estimated he’d been called Meathead 1,241 times in that week alone.

But beginning in the 1980s, Reiner emerged as a director, debuting with an immediate comedy classic in 1984’s This is Spinal Tap, arguably creating the genre of mockumentaries — and starring as director Marty di Bergi.

While made with his friends, it was far from a lark. Reiner was immediately prolific, directing The Sure Thing, a modern update of It Happened One Night, the following year. Then the coming of age classic Stand By Me, based on a Stephen King short story, in 1986 and The Princess Bride in 1987, a streak of well-regarded films that, in their staying power, is virtually unrivaled in Hollywood.

Spanning genre from faux-rock doc to fantasy, Reiner proved his range almost immediately. When Harry Met Sally… hit theaters in 1989, Roger Ebert dubbed Reiner “one of Hollywood’s very best directors of comedy”— a compliment to remember given some of his later notices — and gave him the opportunity to cast his own mother in an instantly iconic punchline; his next film was Misery, another, more conventionally scary Stephen King adaptation. 

Reiner’s career as a filmmaker saw the introduction of screenwriter Aaron Sorkin to the big screen (1992’s A Few Good Men), a famously maligned comedy, North (which Roger Ebert said he “hated, hated, hated”) and more diminishing returns. But even the later works had their impact on the zeitgeist. While not approaching the quotability of Spinal Tap, Princess Bride or When Harry Met Sally… (Estelle Reiner was the one who said “I’ll have what she’s having”), the term The Bucket List entered the lexicon because of his 2007 film.

Begining in the 2000s, Reiner’s work and public life were largely concerned with activism and civics. He cofounded the marriage equality group American Foundation for Equal Rights. He had a close circle of collaborators, directing a documentary about his best friend, Albert Brooks, but followed it up with a documentary, God & Country, about Christian Nationalism.

In a 2004 interview, explaining why, as a Jew, he pursued the project, he mentioned a trip he made with his wife the previous year, to Auschwitz, where his wife’s mother’s family was an inmate, and the rest of the family was murdered.

“You see what nationalism can do. You see the results of it,” Reiner said in an interview with the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty. “And so for us who are Jewish by birth, we know what the dangers are, and hopefully this film can at least be a little bit of a teaching tool to everybody.”

Describing his sense of humor, he told JTA there’s a reason Jews are funny. “You have Cossacks. You have Hitler. You have a lot of things weighing down on you. You have to have a sense of humor or you can’t survive.”

Reiner’s final film, Spinal Tap II: The End Continues, a sequel to his first, came out in October. Reiner’s life, and body of work, are already a blessing.

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