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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.”
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PEN America president, defending Israel’s critics, resigns after report warns of threats to Jewish authors
(JTA) — The president of PEN America resigned over the weekend in protest of a report on boycotts targeting Jewish and Israeli authors, part of yet another round of internal division over Israel at the literary free-speech institution.
Dinaw Mengestu, an Ethiopian-American novelist and Bard College professor, told The Atlantic he was stepping down because he believed the PEN report, “A Silent Moratorium,” failed to defend the free-speech rights of participants in the movement to boycott Israel.
“It’s the First Amendment that allows all of us to engage in boycotts, not PEN America,” Mengestu told the publication. “PEN America as a free expression organization is supposed to defend that right.”
The author did not respond to multiple Jewish Telegraphic Agency requests for comment, but in an Instagram post Monday alluded to an interest in creating a new organization to rival the prominent nonprofit, which defends the free expression rights other writers.
In response to an interview request, PEN sent a statement to JTA saying it was “grateful” for Mengestu’s leadership and would “respect” his decision. The statement also alluded to PEN’s own past turmoil: “We tell hard stories, in politically challenging moments, about writers from a range of perspectives, even when it’s uncomfortable for us given our own recent history.”
In its report, published on its blog, PEN described “Jewish and Israeli writers who feel that the mainstream literary world is increasingly shutting them out because of their identity, nationality, or views.” Interview subjects include several Israel critics, as well as literary agents who assert that they face more difficulties signing Jewish authors after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel and amid the subsequent war in Gaza. The report also repeatedly cited a JTA report about a 2024 viral list of “Zionist” authors to boycott.
Among other details, PEN’s report revealed that Israeli novelist Etgar Keret and public radio host Ira Glass had cancelled a planned live event in Australia over fears of threats and protest.
“This silencing and exclusion of writers is a threat to what PEN America is fundamentally committed to defending: a culture of free expression for all,” according to the report.
In addition to the report, PEN also altered its institutional policy toward cultural boycotts, which the organization has long opposed. Although its report on Jewish authors asserted that boycotts “threaten the free expression rights” of their targets, the revised guidelines say that the group will also defend the right of writers to participate in boycotts.
Mengestu’s resignation comes at a perilous moment for Jews facing cultural boycotts, both within the standard-bearers of PEN and elsewhere. PEN’s Jewish former longtime CEO stepped down in 2024 following months of blowback from rank-and-file authors who felt the organization was insufficiently critical of Israel and caused PEN to cancel a festival for global authors.
Since the leadership change, PEN leadership has published and retracted a condemnation of a boycott effort trained at an Israeli comedian and also published a report cataloguing Israel’s “cultural destruction in Gaza.”
Mengestu had assumed the role of board president in 2025. But PEN’s report about Jewish and Israeli writers on Thursday, he wrote, “makes clear that [change] will not happen.”
The Anti-Defamation League said it was “deeply troubled” by Mengestu’s resignation Monday. “Freedom of expression means opposing efforts to boycott, silence, or exclude writers because of their identity or nationality,” the organization tweeted, saying that the author’s decision to leave PEN over his objections to the report on Jewish authors “sends a chilling message.” Jewish authors also objected.
“Imagine running a free expression org and resigning because it refuses to blacklist authors based on their nationality,” the author David Zweig wrote on X, musing whether Mengestu would object to boycotting authors from his birth country: “Ethiopia doesn’t exactly have a good human rights record.”
In response to The Atlantic’s story that quoted sources from inside PEN who were critical of his resignation, Mengestu wrote a lengthy Instagram post Monday in which he stated, “This piece is about trying to suppress constitutionally protected speech,” criticized past PEN reports critical of the BDS movement, and added, “What PEN America fails to understand is that boycott is a form of dialogue.”
He announced his intention to “help make something better,” receiving affirmative comments from notable authors including Viet Thanh Nguyen, Angela Flournoy, Jewish pro-Palestinian novelist Jess Row and Pulitzer Prize-winner Benjamin Moser, author of a forthcoming history of Jewish anti-Zionism.
Other Jewish authors on the left were among those defending Mengestu’s decision to step down.
“Dinaw is one hundred percent correct that this kind of fake victim propaganda can be used to support anti-Boycott legislation which violates the First Amendment and is everywhere as popular support for Palestinians grows,” author Sarah Schulman wrote on Facebook. Calling PEN’s blog about Jews “one of those fake anti-semitism pieces,” Schulman added, “If PEN wants to survive, they have to get out of the Israel/Zionism business.”
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Church of England backs study of Palestinian Christian document accusing Israel of genocide
(JTA) — The Church of England’s legislative body voted Monday to encourage churches across England to engage with a document produced by Palestinian Christians that accuses Israel of genocide despite requests from Jewish organizations and Britain’s chief rabbi to reject it.
The document is titled “Moment of Truth: Faith in a Time of Genocide” and is also known as Kairos II, after the Palestinian Christian movement Kairos Palestine that produced it. It describes Israel’s military campaign in Gaza as a genocide, states that Israel is a “colonial enterprise built on racism,” and says decades of “occupation,” “apartheid” and “settler colonialism” are at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The vote on Monday does not adopt the accusations as church doctrine but says the church should hear the documents as “heartfelt expressions of the lived experience of Palestinian Christians,” and to engage with them in order to better understand the conflict.
Ahead of the debate in York, several Jewish organizations expressed concerns, and Chief Rabbi Sir Ephraim Mirvis asked Synod members to reject the amendment. Mirvis called Kairos II “deeply concerning” and that it “risks undermining decades of careful relationship-building” between Christians and Jews.
“It is truly shocking that a document which purports to speak in the name of truth contains so much falsehood,” he said.
Afterwards, the president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, Phil Rosenberg, issued a statement calling the passage of the motion “highly problematic.”
“Kairos Palestine may come from a place of genuine pain, but the falsehoods and distortions of Kairos II, including its erasure of Jewish identity and experience, is a prescription for more division and not the answer to conflict in the Middle East,” he said.
“This document reflects the pain and trauma of the Palestinian people. As a pastor, I hear the cry of our Palestinian Christian sisters and brothers — a cry that rises from the ruins of Gaza, and from the violence and oppression of the West Bank,” she said.
She added, ”I also hear the concerns of the chief rabbi, the co-leads of the Movement for Progressive Judaism, and the Board of Deputies, and I thank them for their honesty.” She said the church remained opposed to antisemitism and committed to safety for Israelis as well as Palestinians.
The Synod debate followed Mullally’s visit to the West Bank in June, where she met Palestinian Christian communities in Birzeit. During the visit she said, “I will use my role as Archbishop to seek the peace you desire and the freedom you deserve.”
The debate marks the ascendance of Israel-related issues in another major church, after the Catholic Church’s Pope Leo XIV angered Jewish groups soon after being elected last year by endorsing an investigation into whether Israel committed genocide in Gaza.
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Mike Pence denounces alleged arson of Israeli flag in his Indiana hometown
(JTA) — Former Vice President Mike Pence has weighed in against antisemitism after officials in his Indiana town say a costly fire may have been caused by arson to an Israeli flag displayed on a local barn.
The alleged arson broke out early Friday morning, damaging a historic home in Zionsville, Indiana, where Pence lives, and causing an estimated $150,000 in damages, according to the Zionsville Police Department.
Zionsville Mayor John Stehr said during a press conference on Friday that officials believed the fire began when an individual set fire to an Israeli flag that had been displayed outside the building alongside an American flag. The town later announced that the FBI had joined the investigation and that officials were examining whether the arson “may have been motivated by bias” but said no determination had been made.
“Absolutely despicable,” Pence tweeted on Sunday. “There can be no tolerance in America for Antisemitism or political acts of violence, and it is heartbreaking to see in our adopted hometown of Zionsville, Indiana. We thank God no one was hurt and urge anyone with information to contact law enforcement.”
Pence has long cast himself as a staunch supporter of Israel, including after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel, and has also repeatedly spoken out against antisemitism in the conservative movement and beyond.
Republican Indiana Sen. Jim Banks also condemned the alleged arson in a post on X Saturday. “Antisemitism will not be tolerated. Not in Zionsville. Not in Indiana. Not anywhere,” Banks wrote. “Thank you to the federal, state, and local officials working to bring the perpetrators of this despicable arson attack to justice.”
On Sunday, the Jewish community in central Indiana hosted a rally condemning the alleged arson attack, chanting, “We will stand up,” according to local outlet Fox 59. While Zionsville does not have a large Jewish community of its own, other suburbs of Indianapolis have significant Jewish populations, and Zionsville is also the longtime home of a Reform movement summer camp, the Goldman Union Camp Institute, which is in session now.
“The founding fathers founded a country where we have the ability to resolve differences among each other; we don’t do it by firebombing homes,” rally organizer David Schiller told Fox 59. “It’s inexcusable and unacceptable.”
The Zionsville Police Department did not respond to an inquiry from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency about the status of the investigation on Monday.
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