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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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Iran and US Views on Sanctions Relief Differ, Iranian Official Tells Reuters
Iranian women walk past an anti-US billboard in Tehran, Iran, February 19, 2026. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
Iran and the United States have differing views over sanctions relief in talks to curb Tehran’s nuclear ambitions, a senior Iranian official told Reuters on Sunday, adding that new talks were planned in early March as fears of a military confrontation grow.
Iran and the US renewed negotiations earlier this month to tackle their decades-long dispute over Tehran’s nuclear program as the US builds up its military capability in the Middle East, fueling fears of a wider war.
Iran has threatened to strike US bases in the Middle East if it is attacked by US forces.
“The last round of talks showed that US ideas regarding the scope and mechanism of sanctions relief differ from Iran’s demands. Both sides need to reach a logical timetable for lifting sanctions,” the official said.
“This roadmap must be reasonable and based on mutual interests.”
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said on Friday that he expected to have a draft counterproposal ready within days, while US President Donald Trump said he was considering limited military strikes.
READINESS TO COMPROMISE
While rejecting a US demand for “zero enrichment” – a major sticking point in past negotiations – Tehran has signaled its readiness to compromise on its nuclear work.
Washington views enrichment inside Iran as a potential pathway to nuclear weapons. Iran denies seeking nuclear weapons and wants its right to enrich uranium to be recognized.
Washington has also demanded that Iran relinquish its stockpile of highly enriched uranium (HEU). The UN nuclear agency last year estimated that stockpile at more than 440 kg of uranium enriched to up to 60% fissile purity, a small step away from the 90% that is considered weapons grade.
The Iranian official said Tehran could seriously consider a combination of exporting part of its HEU stockpile, diluting the purity of its most highly enriched uranium and the establishment of a regional enrichment consortium in exchange for the recognition of Iran’s right to “peaceful nuclear enrichment.”
“The negotiations continue and the possibility of reaching an interim agreement exists,” he said.
BENEFITS FOR BOTH SIDES
Iranian authorities have said that a diplomatic solution delivers economic benefits for both Tehran and Washington.
“Within the economic package under negotiation, the United States has also been offered opportunities for serious investment and tangible economic interests in Iran’s oil industry,” the official said.
However, he said Tehran will not hand over control of its oil and mineral resources.
“Ultimately, the US can be an economic partner for Iran, nothing more. American companies can always participate as contractors in Iran’s oil and gas fields.”
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Mike Huckabee’s Comments to Tucker Carlson on Israel and Middle East Land Draw Condemnation in Region
Tucker Carlson speaks on first day of AmericaFest 2025 at the Phoenix Convention Center in Phoenix, Arizona, Dec. 18, 2025. Photo: Charles-McClintock Wilson/ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect
Comments by US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee suggesting that Israel had a biblical right to much of the Middle East drew condemnation over the weekend from countries across the region, who called his remarks “dangerous and inflammatory.”
Huckabee, an evangelical Christian, has been a staunch supporter of Israel throughout his political career and a longtime defender of Jewish settlements in the West Bank – land which the Palestinians seek for a state.
In an interview with Tucker Carlson that was conducted on Wednesday in Israel and aired on Friday, the populist US talk show host asked Huckabee about Israel’s right to exist and about Jewish roots in the ancient land.
Citing the book of Genesis, Carlson asked whether the modern state of Israel had a right to the lands promised in the Bible by God to Abraham, stretching from the Euphrates River to the Nile, covering much of the Middle East. In response, Huckabee said:
“It would be fine if they took it all. But I don’t think that’s what we’re talking about here today.”
Huckabee added: “We’re talking about this land that the state of Israel now lives in and wants to have peace in, they’re not trying to take over Jordan, they’re not trying to take over Syria, they’re not trying to take over Iraq or anywhere else. They want to protect their people.”
In response, a joint statement condemning Huckabee’s comments was issued by the Palestinians and countries in the Middle East and beyond, including Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, Indonesia and Pakistan.
They said his comments were: “Dangerous and inflammatory remarks, which constitute a flagrant violation of the principles of international law and the Charter of the United Nations, and pose a grave threat to the security and stability of the region.”
A US Embassy spokesperson said Huckabee’s comments did not reflect any change in US policy and that his full remarks made clear that Israel has no desire to change its current boundaries.
Israeli officials did not immediately comment on the interview or the reaction from countries that signed the joint statement.
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Jack Hughes Makes History as 1st Jewish Male Athlete with Olympic ‘Golden Goal’
Milano Cortina 2026 Olympics – Ice Hockey – Men’s Gold Medal Game – Canada vs United States – Milano Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena, Milan, Italy – February 22, 2026. Jack Hughes of United States scores their second goal in overtime to win gold. Photo: REUTERS/David W Cerny
i24 News – Jack Hughes made history on Sunday as the first hockey player widely recognized for both having a bar mitzvah and scoring an Olympic game-winning goal, leading the United States to its first men’s hockey gold medal since 1980.
The 24-year-old New Jersey Devils star from Orlando, Florida, scored early in sudden-death overtime to secure a 2-1 victory over Canada at the Milan Cortina Olympics. Hughes finished a cross-ice pass from teammate Zach Werenski, who had wrestled the puck from Canada’s Nathan MacKinnon.
“This is all about our country right now,” Hughes said. “I love the USA. I love my teammates. It’s unbelievable. The USA Hockey brotherhood is so strong.” Hughes also endured a high stick during the game, losing a couple of teeth but continuing to play.
The victory marked the first US win over Canada in a top-level men’s competition since the 1996 World Cup of Hockey. The win completed a US sweep of Olympic hockey gold, following the women’s 2-1 overtime victory against Canada on Thursday.
Hughes ended the tournament with three goals and three assists, contributing offensively even from a lower line. His older brother, Quinn Hughes, a Minnesota Wild defenseman, scored the US overtime winner against Sweden in the quarterfinals. Their parents, Jim and Ellen Hughes, were present for the celebrations.
Team USA also paid tribute to the late Johnny Gaudreau, who was killed in 2024 with his brother. Gaudreau’s jersey hung in the locker room throughout the tournament, and players carried it onto the ice after the medal ceremony. Two of Gaudreau’s children joined the team for commemorative photos.
Sunday’s match marked the third men’s Olympic gold medal game between the US and Canada, with Canada having won in 2002 and 2010. Hughes’ golden goal solidifies him as a historic figure in hockey, blending his Jewish heritage with Olympic triumph.