Delegation shares their pain
As Herzog visits, delegation members shared stories of loss, with Doron Almog.
While Israeli President Isaac Herzog’s visit to Australia this week has attracted significant attention, lower-profile members of his delegation have brought their own stories of loss and resilience as they came to embrace Australia’s grieving Jewish community.
Jewish Agency chairman Doron Almog, who has himself lost family members to terror and in battle, said the organisation responded immediately after the December 14 attack by sending a seven-person trauma support delegation within 24 hours.
“We are tested by our actions,” Almog said.
“In Special Forces in the IDF, we say one for all, all for one … and at this time of rising antisemitism all over the world and the biggest crisis in the State of Israel in the wake of the October 7 war, we need to be more united, stronger than ever, continue standing tall as proud Jews.”
He acknowledged the pain the Jewish community is in following the Bondi Beach terror attack.
“Each bereaved family continues being painful, the grief and sadness and sorrow may take [them] down, but we need to give ourselves a meaningful life and be inspired by those who were killed or fell,” he said.
“So from the bottom of this painful time after burying 15 and Bondi Beach after this terror attack, we need to continue. We need to continue for those who were killed.
“They didn’t want to die. They wanted to continue. And we need to continue and make a better world. This is a Jewish legacy. This is a Jewish vision.”
National Organisation for Victims of Terror chairman Abie Moses lost his pregnant wife and five-year-old child in a firebomb attack 38 years ago. He founded his organisation after the attack and has volunteered for nearly four decades helping victims of terror worldwide.
“I came here to strengthen them, give them hope. I know what they went through because I was there,” Moses told The AJN at Bondi this week.
“These Jewish people are my brothers and sisters, my family. We are all Jews. It doesn’t matter they’re not Israeli.”
Also in the delegation was Kibbutz Nir Oz October 7 survivor Izhar Lifshitz, whose parents were kidnapped during the attack. His father Oded was murdered in Gaza, while his mother survived captivity.
“Pain talks to pain. Terror is only terror. So we are sharing together everything,” he said.
World Zionist Organisation chairperson Yaakov Hagoel, also part of the delegation, said his aim in visiting Australia was simple: “To hug the families.”