Our say

From memory to responsibility

Yom Hashoah reflection urges community to support Royal Commission submissions after Bondi attack

By AJN STAFF 16 April 2026, 8:46 am

A menorah is pictured after the seventh candle is lit for the Jewish festival of Hanukkah as mourners stand next to floral tributes laid out in memory of the victims of a shooting attack at Bondi Beach, in Sydney, December 20, 2025. (David Gray / AFP)

As we marked Yom Hashoah this week, the memory of Alex Kleytman was fresh in our minds.

Kleytman survived the horrors of the Shoah against the odds and built a new life here in Australia – only to be killed by the same hatred he escaped all those years before.

Tolerant, multicultural Australia should have been a safe haven for him. And for many years it was, until it wasn’t.

We live in a time of sad and dark parallels.

We often speak of how the Holocaust did not begin with the death camps; it began with words. So too, the Bondi Beach terrorist attack did not begin with bullets. It began even before October 7, when antisemitism was already festering in the dark corners of our society. It went mainstream after the Hamas attack. And inaction after each grim milestone, from the October 9 Opera House mob, to the doxxing, to the many graffiti and arson attacks, and more besides, raised the temperature as our broken country hurtled towards Bondi.

But there is a difference between Australia in 2026 and Europe in the 1930s. Back then, the hate was state-sanctioned. And whatever gripes members of our community may have with the Australian government – its inaction until it was too late and its rhetoric on Israel come to mind – it is not against us and it is finally listening.

We fought hard to get the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion. Now we must all do our part to ensure it makes a difference.

We cannot understate the importance of every member of our community who has experienced antisemitism making a submission. That is how we demonstrate the seriousness and urgency of the problem.

There are a plethora of communal resources available to help with submissions. There is no obligation to testify in person. In short, there are no excuses.

The AJN‘s poll this week indicates readers are overwhelmingly sceptical that the Royal Commission will result in action. But rather than doubt the process, let’s do our utmost to aid it.

We owe it to Alex Kleytman and the other 14 victims from Bondi. We owe it to the six million killed in the Holocaust.

This is our moment. Let’s make the most and make a change.