Police officers gather at the scene of a shooting incident at Bondi Beach, Sydney, Australia, December 14, 2025. REUTERS/Izhar Khan

Major cities including Berlin, London and New York stepped up security around Hanukkah events on Sunday following the attack on a Jewish holiday celebration at Sydney’s Bondi Beach.

Berlin police said they were ramping up measures around the German capital’s Brandenburg Gate, where a large electric menorah is being lit to mark the first night of Hanukkah.

“We have long planned comprehensive security for tonight’s Hanukkah event at the Brandenburg Gate – in light of the events in Sydney, we will further intensify our measures and maintain a strong police presence there,” a spokesperson said on X.

Meanwhile, New York Mayor Eric Adams said on X that extra protection was being deployed for Hanukkah celebrations and synagogues in New York City.

“We will continue to ensure the Jewish community can celebrate the holiday in safety — including at public Menorah lightings across the city. Let us pray for the injured and stand together against hatred,” Adams said.

In Warsaw’s main synagogue, armed security was doubled for its Sunday evening event.

Polish police also said they had decided to ramp up security.

“Due to the geopolitical situation and the attack in Sydney, we are strengthening preventive measures around diplomatic missions and places of worship,” a press officer for Poland’s National Police Headquarters told Reuters in a text message.

The officer specified this meant “intensified preventive measures in the area of ​​diplomatic and consular missions, religious sites and other institutions related to Israel and Palestine.”

The event at Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate will also include a prayer for the victims of Sydney’s Bondi Beach shooting, which left at least 11 people dead in what Australian officials described as a targeted antisemitic attack.

Germany has long followed a policy of special responsibility for Jews and for Israel, known as the Staatsraeson, due to the legacy of the Nazi Holocaust.

Security measures at synagogues and other Jewish institutions are the norm in Berlin, but a police spokesperson said these would be ramped up for the Hanukkah period.

London’s Metropolitan Police said it had also increased security, but did not want to give details.

“While there is no information to suggest any link between the attack in Sydney and the threat level in London, this morning we are stepping up our police presence, carrying out additional community patrols and engaging with the Jewish community to understand what more we can do in the coming hours and days,” it said in a statement.

France’s Interior Minister Laurent Nunez asked local authorities to reinforce security around Jewish places of worship during the December 14 to 22 period, a spokesperson for the minister said.

Nunez called for increased deployment of security forces, with particular vigilance around religious services and gatherings that draw large crowds, especially when they take place in public spaces, the spokesperson added.

Police officers stand guard following the attack on a Jewish holiday celebration at Sydney’s Bondi Beach, in Sydney, Australia, December 15, 2025. REUTERS/Flavio Brancaleone

Australian police said on Monday that the alleged offenders behind the attack at Sydney’s Bondi beach were a father and son duo, and that they were not looking for a third offender.

Police said during a media briefing that investigations showed only two offenders were responsible for the attack at a Jewish holiday celebration that killed 16 people and injured 40.

The massacre in Sydney has left Jews around the world shaken and grieving. This act is far more than a heinous crime: It is a regression to darker times, when Jewish visibility itself carried mortal risk.

The commandment of Hanukkah is not simply to light candles, but to light them publicly – pirsumei nisa, the publicizing of the miracle. The point is not private consolation, but shared visibility. Jewish survival, the tradition teaches, is not meant to occur behind closed doors, but in full view.

Historically, however, it rarely did. In exile, Jews learned caution. The Talmud records how, in times of danger, the candles are to be moved indoors – lit discreetly, shielded from hostile eyes. This was not a theological revision but a concession to reality: When the public sphere is unsafe, Jewish life retreats into the private domain. For most of our history, this was our reality.

Modern democracies promised something different. Jews would no longer have to choose between safety and visibility. We could light openly again – on windowsills, in public squares, in front of city halls – because the surrounding society would protect us not merely by law, but by norm. Antisemitism would not just be illegal, it would be unthinkable.

The Sydney massacre, alongside countless incidents in societies Jews have long trusted, forces us to ask whether that promise is still being kept.

Jewish safety in the diaspora does not rest primarily on police presence or intelligence services – necessary though they are. It rests on something more fragile and more fundamental: a public culture in which Jews are not merely tolerated but embraced; in which antisemitism is not merely condemned after the fact but rejected instinctively and unequivocally as a violation of the moral order.

When Jews are attacked for being Jews, and the response is muted, conditional, or delayed, the message is unmistakable. Jews may still live here, but only quietly.

That is why the response to Sydney must not be withdrawal, but the exact opposite. We cannot and will not retreat into hiding our light. The call of this moment is simple and urgent: Light candles everywhere.

Jewish communities and organizations must orchestrate public Hanukkah candle lightings in the central squares of democratic cities across Europe, across the English-speaking world, wherever Jews live under the protection of free societies. Not hidden ceremonies. Not fenced-off gatherings on the margins. But civic events, hosted openly and proudly, with the participation of local and national leaders – and of fellow non-Jewish citizens.

This is not unprecedented. Every year, a Hanukkah menorah is lit at the White House. The symbolism is powerful precisely because it is mundane: Jewish light belongs at the heart of the civic space, not as an exception, not as an act of charity, but as a matter of course. That model should now be replicated widely.

Israeli diplomatic missions, together with local Jewish organizations, should work actively with municipalities and governments to make these public lightings happen – not merely as acts of Jewish resilience, but as declarations of democratic commitment. Because this is not only a Jewish question.

A society in which Jews feel compelled to hide their symbols is a society already retreating from its own values. Antisemitism is never a stand-alone phenomenon; it is the canary in the democratic coal mine. Where Jews are unsafe, pluralism is already fraying.

Lighting candles in public squares will not undo the horror of Sydney. But it will answer it – not with fear, and not with silence, but with a refusal to normalize xenophobia, antisemitism, and Jewish invisibility.

The ancient question of Hanukkah – where we light – has returned as a modern moral test of democratic societies and leaders worldwide. Where Jewish light is extinguished, democracy itself is cast into shadow. If it can still be lit openly, with the full backing of the societies Jews call home, then the promise of democratic life remains alive.

Our light must not hide. Not now. Never again.

The post The call of this Hanukkah moment remains simple and urgent: Light candles everywhere. Even when we’re under attack. appeared first on The Forward.