Six months on, our strength endures

It’s almost hard to believe that six months have passed since the Bondi Beach massacre.

For many of us, the pain is still so raw. For families of the victims, the void left by their loved ones still so hollow. Many of us are still in disbelief. Others – perhaps whether they realise it or not – still have not properly processed their emotions.

Australia’s Jewish community has been left all the poorer by the absence of those cruelly felled.

A Holocaust survivor who found freedom on these shores and built a life and a family. An innocent child who brought light and joy. Husbands, fathers and grandfathers taken. Wives, mothers and grandmothers. Contributing members of the community.

People who brought light, taken while celebrating light.

It was cruel. It was unfair. They didn’t deserve it. We, as a community, didn’t deserve it.

But what we have seen over the last six months is far from a community and a people who have been defeated. We have risen higher.

The solidarity and unity we have shown each other has been inspiring. We have lifted each other up, we have looked after our bereaved and our injured, we have honoured our departed.

Many of us have embraced our Judaism more tightly. We have defiantly declared that the answer to anti-Jewish hate is to be more Jewish. To be more proud and open about our faith and peoplehood and what it means to us.

To bring more light in response to darkness. To declare that we are going nowhere.

There are tough times yet ahead. We continue to grieve. Antisemitism continues to fester. We remain hopeful the Royal Commission will deliver some degree of change but we know that that process itself will continue to be challenging as our pain is rehashed, recalled and broadcast.

As we approach the one-year mark later this year, we will reckon again with the overwhelming emotions and sense of loss.

But in those very difficult moments, we need only look back at these past six months to remind ourselves how far we have already come, and how much strength we have found in one another. That same strength will carry us forward.