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Bondi Beach attack transforms global Hanukkah celebrations into acts of defiance — with added security
(JTA) — Within hours of a devastating shooting on a Chabad Hanukkah party in Australia, other outposts of the Hasidic movement began outlining their plans to go forward with their own celebrations, despite their grief and the possible risk.
“Chanukah teaches that we do not respond to darkness by retreating,” said Rabbi Mendel Silberstein of Chabad Lubavitch of Larchmont and Mamaroneck, in suburban New York City, in one statement among many issued by Chabad emissaries.
“We respond by adding light,” he continued. “Today is not a time to stay home or stay silent. It is a time to come out, stand tall, and show support for our brothers and sisters in Australia and for Jews everywhere.”
Rabbi Avi Winner, a spokesman for Chabad World Headquarters and the leader of Chabad Young Professionals in Manhattan, said public menorah lightings across the globe hosted by Chabad were seeing a surge in attendance, with some lightings “doubling in size” because of the Bondi Beach shooting.
“The only response is to not cower, but to double down and stand up for who we are and let the menorah shine bright,” Winner said.
The attack on the event organized by Chabad of Bondi is renewing attention to the public menorah-lightings that are a trademark of Chabad’s presence around the world, as urged by the movement’s last leader, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson. Menorahs have been erected by the movement in about 15,000 different locations annually in recent years, with many of them hosting daily gatherings to add a new candle.
The menorahs make Chabad one of the the most visible purveyors of Judaism during Hanukkah. Their presence in public spaces also make gatherings convened around them vulnerable targets for those seeking to carry out antisemitic attacks.
The Bondi Beach celebration was staffed with both city and private security officers, according to local accounts, but it took place in an exposed public location that would be difficult to protect from all attacks. The attackers shot with powerful weapons from some distance away.
Rabbi Mendy Kotlarsky, the executive director of Merkos 302 at Chabad World Headquarters, a division that supports the movement’s expansion, said in an interview that Chabad’s security office had sent out a “high-alert email with recommendations and guidelines” following the attack on Bondi Beach.
He said that while some Chabads had altered their plans following the attack, the predominating sentiment was that it was important to press ahead with the festivities.
“There are certain changes that have been made to different events, some of them going indoors, some of them just rearranging to more secure places,” Kotlarsky said. “But by and large the consensus and the approach is that we cannot allow these people to win. They’re trying to put out the Jewish flame.”
The attack at Bondi Beach comes as Jewish institutions around the world have shored up their security practices amid surging antisemitism across much of the world following Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel and the subsequent Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
Many have pulled back from publicly announcing the locations of their public events, making the details available only to registrants or people affiliated with Jewish organizations.
After a deadly shooting at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C., in May and an attack on Israeli hostage solidarity demonstrators in Boulder, Colorado, in June, Jewish security agencies urged institutions to pay more attention to securing the perimeter of their events, ensuring that a determined attacker could not wage an assault from afar.
Several U.S. Jewish groups — the Jewish Federations of North America, the Anti-Defamation League, Secure Community Network, Community Security Service and Community Security Initiative of New York — reiterated that recommendation among others in a list issued on Sunday. They also urged increased coordination with local law enforcement, opening events only to identifiable individuals and providing details about events only to those who have registered in advance.
Expressing concern about copycat attacks, Israel’s National Security Council issued guidelines for Israelis abroad to steer clear of public events entirely in the wake of the Bondi Beach attack.
“It is strongly recommended to avoid unsecured public events, including events at synagogues, Chabad houses, Hanukkah parties, etc,” the guidance read.
The warning added to others issued recently about risks during the Hanukkah season. On Friday, the Security Community Network issued a threat assessment that warned that large public gatherings were at risk of being targeted by lone offenders, citing attacks on Christmas markets in Europe as well as the recent antisemitic attacks on public gatherings.
Michael Masters, the group’s national director and CEO, said in an interview that his organization was “encouraging” Jewish groups to go forward with Hanukkah events “with prudent security measures in place.”
“There’s absolutely a way to have a safe, secure outdoor event,” he said. “But you need to make sure that you’ve identified a perimeter, that you have proper security that has been identified with the security professional and law enforcement around that perimeter, and that you then think through containing or controlling access to the event that the best that you can.”
Moment of silence at the start of the annual lighting ceremony of the National Menorah on The Ellipse outside the White House by Rabbi @shemtovdc.
“The darkness that came over .. across the greater Jewish community.. will be answered with strength, light .. and with resilience.” pic.twitter.com/QbRzUI01sR
— Jacob N. Kornbluh (@jacobkornbluh) December 14, 2025
Despite reports of increased turnouts at Hanukkah events from Chabad officials, Masters said the larger crowds “did not necessitate new security concerns” — only careful attention to ongoing ones. He said he himself was planning to attend a public Chabad event Sunday evening in Chicago.
Rabbis from other denominations also urged their congregants and followers to rededicate themselves to lighting Hanukkah candles as a response to the Sydney attack, in keeping with the holiday’s commandment to “publicize the miracle,” historically understood as requiring Hanukkah candles to be made visible from beyond one’s home.
Rabbi Menachem Creditor, a scholar in residence and rabbi for the UJA-Federation of New York whose brother-in-law was shot in the Sydney attack, called for Jews to light the menorah in a post on Facebook, calling that act a “Sacred Protest in the Shadow of Bondi Beach.”
“Tonight, as we stand trembling and furious and heartbroken, the temptation to retreat inward is real. But that is not the Jewish way. The Chanukah lights were never meant to be hidden,” Creditor wrote. “We awaken to light, again and again, knowing that every illumination is an act of spiritual resistance. We choose joy not as denial, but as defiance. We affirm life not because it is easy, but because it is commanded.”
Police departments in major cities emphasized that they would be deploying forces to support Hanukkah festivities.
“While there is currently no specific or credible threat to Hanukkah celebrations here, the NYPD will be out in full force at events and synagogues so that our communities can gather safely,” New York City’s police department said in a statement.
Chabad was promoting 25 public Hanukkah celebrations in Manhattan alone, some at public sites such as skating rinks.
Back in the suburbs of New York, Silberstein said in an interview that his Chabad had planned a “Hanukkah walk,” where local residents would visit different businesses in downtown Larchmont and meet for a large public menorah lighting.
In light of the attack in Sydney, Silberstein said he had called local police to ensure that they would have a “strong presence” at the event.
“There’ll be two changes. One, there’ll be very much beefed-up security, but on the other hand, I expect hundreds of more people to come out in solidarity of our brothers and sisters,” he said. “When one part of the Jewish nation gets hit, it hits everyone deep.”
The post Bondi Beach attack transforms global Hanukkah celebrations into acts of defiance — with added security appeared first on The Forward.
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German Antisemitism Commissioner Targeted With Death Threat Letter After Arson Attack on Home
Andreas Büttner (Die Linke), photographed during the state parliament session. The politician was nominated for the position of Brandenburg’s anti-Semitism commissioner. Photo: Soeren Stache/dpa via Reuters Connect
Andreas Büttner, the commissioner for antisemitism in the state of Brandenburg in northeastern Germany, has been targeted the second attack in under a week after receiving a death threat, sparking outrage and prompting local authorities to launch a full investigation.
According to the German newspaper Potsdamer Neueste Nachrichten (PNN), the Brandenburg state parliament received a letter on Monday threatening Büttner’s life, with the words “We will kill you” and an inverted red triangle, the symbol of support for the Islamist terrorist group Hamas.
State security police have examined the anonymous letter under strict safety measures, determining that a gray substance inside was harmless. Authorities are now probing the incident as part of an ongoing investigation into threats against the German official.
Ulrike Liedtke, president of the Brandenburg state parliament, condemned the latest attack on Büttner, describing the death threats and harassment as “completely unacceptable.”
“Threats and violence are not a form of political discourse, but crimes against humanity,” Liedtke said. “Andreas Büttner has our complete support and solidarity.”
A former police officer and member of the Left Party, Büttner took office as commissioner for antisemitism in 2024 and has faced repeated attacks since.
On Sunday night, Büttner’s private property in Templin — a town located approximately 43 miles north of Berlin — was targeted in an arson attack, and a red Hamas triangle was spray-painted on his house.
The home of Germany’s antisemitism commissioner, Andreas Büttner, was set on fire overnight in a targeted attack.
His family was inside the house at the time.
This is the second attack against Büttner in the past 16 months. His car was previously vandalized with swastikas. This… pic.twitter.com/cAbFnMIwQ7
— Combat Antisemitism Movement (@CombatASemitism) January 5, 2026
According to Büttner, his family was inside the house at the time of the attack, marking the latest assault against him in the past 16 months.
“The symbol sends a clear message. The red Hamas triangle is widely recognized as a sign of jihadist violence and antisemitic incitement,” Büttner said in a statement after the incident.
“Anyone who uses such a thing wants to intimidate and glorify terror. This is not a protest, it is a threat,” he continued.
Hamas uses inverted red triangles in its propaganda videos to indicate Israeli targets about to be attacked. The symbol, a common staple at pro-Hamas rallies, has come to represent the Palestinian terrorist group and glorify its use of violence.
In August 2024, swastikas and other symbols and threats were also spray-painted on Büttner’s personal car.
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Harvard President Blasts Scholar Activism, Calls for ‘Restoring Balance’ in Higher Ed
Harvard University President Alan Garber speaks during the 374th Commencement exercises at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US, May 29, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Brian Snyder
Harvard University president Alan Garber, fresh off a resounding endorsement in which the Harvard Corporation elected to keep him on the job “indefinitely,” criticized progressive faculty in a recent podcast interview for turning the university classroom into a pulpit for the airing of their personal views on contentious political issues.
Garber made the comments last week on the “Identity/Crisis Podcast,” a production of the Shalom Hartman Institute, a Jewish think tank which specializes in education research.
“I think that’s where we went wrong,” Garber said, speaking to Yehuda Kurtzer. “Because think about it, if a professor in a classroom says, ‘This is what I believe about this issue,’ how many students — some of you probably would be prepared to deal with this, but most people wouldn’t — how many students would actually be willing to go toe to toe against a professor who’s expressed a firm view about a controversial issue?”
Garber continued, saying he believes higher education, facing a popular backlash against what critics have described as political indoctrination, is now seeing a “movement to restore balance in teaching and to bring back the idea that you really need to be objective in the classroom.”
He added, “What we need to arm our students with is a set of facts and a set of analytic tools and cultivation of rigor in analyzing these issues.”
Coming during winter recess and the Jewish and Christian holidays, Garber’s interview fell under the radar after it was first aired but has been noticed this week, with some observers pointing to it as evidence that Harvard is leading an effort to restore trust in the university even as it resists conceding to the Trump administration everything it has demanded regarding DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion), viewpoint diversity, and expressive activity such as protests.
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, Garber has spent the past two years fighting factions from within and without the university that have demanded to steer its policies and culture — from organizers of an illegal anti-Israel encampment to US President Donald Trump, who earlier this year canceled $2.26 billion in public money for Harvard after it refused to grant his wishlist of reforms for which the conservative movement has clamored for decades.
Even as Harvard tells Trump “no,” it has enacted several policies as a direct response to criticisms that the institution is too permissive of antisemitism for having allowed anti-Zionist extremism to reach the point of antisemitic harassment and discrimination. In 2025, the school agreed to incorporate into its policies a definition of antisemitism supported by most of the Jewish community, established new rules governing campus protests, and announced new partnerships with Israeli academic institutions. Harvard even shuttered a DEI office and transferred its staff to what will become, according to a previous report by The Harvard Crimson, a “new Office of Culture and Community.” The paper added that Harvard has even “worked to strip all references to DEI from its website.”
Appointed in January 2024 as interim president, Garber — who previously served in roles as Harvard’s provost and chief academic officer — rose to the top position at America’s oldest and, arguably, most prestigious institution at a time when the job was least desirable. At the time, Harvard was being pilloried over some of its students cheering Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel and even forming gangs which mobbed Jewish students wending their way through campus; the university had suffered the embarrassment of its first Black president being outed as a serial plagiarist, a stunning disclosure which called into question its vetting procedures as well as its embrace of affirmative action; and anti-Israel activists on campus were disrupting classes and calling for others to “globalize the intifada.”
Garber has since won over the Harvard Corporation, which has refused to replace him during a moment that has been described as the most challenging in its history.
“Alan’s humble, resilient, and effective leadership has shown itself to be not just a vital source of calm in turbulent times, but also a generative force for sustaining Harvard’s commitment to academic excellence and to free inquiry and expression,” Harvard Corporation senior fellow Penny Pritzker said in a statement issued on behalf of the body, which is the equivalent of a board of trustees. “From restoring a sense of community during a period of intense scrutiny and division to launching vital new programs on viewpoint diversity and civil discourses and instituting new actions to fight antisemitism and anti-Arab bias, Alan has not only stabilized the university but brought us together in support of our shared mission.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Holocaust Survivors Sent Care Packages to Oct. 7 Hostages for Hanukkah
The Menorah for Hanukkah on the Square 2025 in Trafalgar Square, London, United Kingdom, Dec. 14, 2025. Photo: Matthew Chattle/Cover Images via Reuters Connect
Survivors of the Holocaust spread holiday cheer this Hanukkah by delivering care packages to a group of 20 hostages whom the terrorist group Hamas recently released from captivity to fulfill the requirements of a ceasefire which suspended hostilities with Israel.
The gifts, dropped off at the Israeli consulate office in New York City, was made possible by The Blue Card, the only US-based charity organization which provides financial assistance and other services to survivors of the Holocaust. Originally founded in 1934 to assist Jews who had fled Germany to escape Hitler’s persecution of the country’s Jews, it has operated ceaselessly for nearly a century.
Over the past two years, the world has seen a revival of antisemitism unlike any since the period in which The Blue Card was founded, sparked by the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, massacre that claimed the lives over of 1,200 Israelis and stole years and even more lives from 251 more who were kidnapped and held hostage in Gaza.
Some of the hostages who survived captivity have been released in stages since Israel and Hamas agreed on a ceasefire in October, and on Monday, Blue Card executive director Masha Pearl said the organization felt it necessary to reach out to them due to their having experienced a plight that is painfully familiar to what its clients endured in Europe during the Holocaust. Pearl also discussed the Bondi Beach mass shooting, in which a father and son inspired by Islamism opened fire on Jews celebrating the start of Hanukkah, murdering 15 people and injuring 40 others.
“Holocaust survivors and former hostages share a uniquely painful bond shaped by survival and resilience,” Pearl said. “After witnessing a mass shooting at a Chanukah event in Sydney, it felt even more urgent for our survivors to deliver these care packages now, spreading light at a moment that feels dark for the entire Jewish world. The resilience of the Holocaust survivors we assist, the former hostages, and now the survivors of the attack in Australia remind us that even in the face of hatred and violence, the Jewish people remain united.”
In a press release Blue Card said the care packages “carried profound meaning,” being filled to the brim with goods of all sorts, from blankets and water bottles to chap stick and even handwritten notes from the Holocaust survivors who sent them.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.