Dawn prayer service to remember Bondi victims

Around 50 members of the community congregated before dawn at Archer Park on Tuesday morning to mark six months in the Hebrew calendar since the Bondi Beach massacre.

The display of unity and solidarity was organised by the Mitzvah House, which was established at the site to spread light and Yiddishkeit in memory of the victims.

Gathered around the menorah that stands as a memorial to the 15 people killed in Australia’s worst terror attack, participants put on tefillin and davvened shacharit together as the first light of the day emerged from beyond the horizon.

Mitzvah House founder Rabbi Noach Koncepolski told those present that the site was hallowed ground, and that the community was still carrying the memory of those murdered and the wounds left behind.

He drew on the week’s Torah portion, in which 12 spies were sent to scour the land of Israel and returned with two very different perspectives. “They all saw the same land, they all saw the same people, and they all witnessed the same reality, but they came back with two completely different perspectives,” he said.