Sydney’s terror stand

HUNDREDS of Australians have gathered to mourn those killed recently in terrorist attacks against Israel.

Last week, the community remembered the five members of the Fogel family, who were massacred in their beds in Itamar, and the British woman killed when a bus exploded in Jerusalem.

At The Great Synagogue, more than 170 people gathered at a commemoration, where Rabbi Jeremy Lawrence compared the Itamar terrorists with Amalek, who attacked the children of Israel as they left Egypt.

“Our response is to combat faithlessness through faith, fear through resolve, mindless hatred through the love of humanity, and capricious happenstance through the exercise of freewill in lives measured in mitzvot,” he said.

NSW Jewish Board of Deputies president Yair Miller, State Zionist Council president Richard Balkin, Executive Council of Australian Jewry president Dr Danny Lamm and Rabbi Moshe Lichtenstein from Yeshivat Har Etzion also addressed the commemoration.

At Bondi’s Jewish Learning Centre (JLC), more than 300 women gathered to commemorate the murders of the Fogel family.

Co-organiser Shternie Althaus said she was touched by the strength of the women. “This was the first function of this nature made by women for women, which included all the major sectors of the Jewish community coming together as one,” Althaus told The AJN.

The event raised more than $1600 through a raffle and donations for the Fogel children left orphaned.

“Through prayers, singing and reading of Psalms we gave each other the strength to be courageous as Jews, even during such difficult circumstances,” she said.

Speakers at the commemoration included JLC’s Rabbi Blackman, student Tami Weiser, and Yeshiva College principal Rebbetzin Pnina Feldman.

“As women, if we are inspired to perform mitzvot, we have the power to inspire our whole family,” Althaus said.

CASSILEE KAHN AND JOSHUA LEVI