Swans players and staff show their solidarity

Sydney Swans CEO Matthew Pavlich described the club’s visit to Chabad of Bondi and the site of the Bondi Beach terror attack as “incredibly moving”.

“Bondi and the Jewish community are such a big part of our neighbourhood and our broader community at the Swans. And so when it happened last December, we wanted to do as much as we could to show our support to the Jewish community, including the Opening Round tribute,” Pavlich told The AJN immediately after visiting Archer Park. 

“As a few people have said, the best of humanity has come through in this period, but also that day in particular, the worst occurred.”

Pavlich said the club had been keen to organise the visit for some time, recalling the response in the immediate aftermath of the attack. 

“The moment that it all happened, it was a real sense of, well, this is our community, how are we going to react? And then the next day, people were there donating blood,” he recalled, discussing the LifeBlood Donation Centre located inside Sydney Swans HQ. “And then obviously when we came down en masse, we just have to show up in these moments.”

The visit saw Swans players and coaching and administrative staff learn about Project Noah, an initiative launched in August 2025 by the late Rabbi Eli Schlanger, assistant rabbi of Chabad of Bondi, to combat antisemitism through education and connection. Schlanger was killed in the December 14 attack. The program has since received $200,000 in funding from Multicultural NSW and joined the NSW government’s COMPACT Program, established in the wake of the attack.

At the synagogue, Rabbi Ulman guided the group through the sanctuary, explaining Jewish customs and the significance of the Torah scrolls. He spoke about the congregation’s annual Chanukah by the Sea celebration and the devastating toll of the attack on his community, including the loss of his son-in-law Schlanger.

“I had the tragic duty to eulogise 10 people from our community who were all very close, including a 10-year-old girl,” Ulman said.

He told the group the community had refused to be deterred and described lighting the Chanukiah alongside 20,000 people at the vigil that took place on the eighth night of Chanukah at Bondi Beach. 

The group then moved to nearby Archer Park, where attack survivor Evan Zlatkis shared his firsthand account, showing the Swans contingent his scars from a bullet wound to his back.

“I saw the best of humanity that day, and I saw the worst of humanity that day,” Zlatkis said. “Anyone with any humanity and compassion came to help us, and they didn’t care what language you speak. They didn’t care what background you’re from.”

Zlatkis told the group that fighting hatred could be simple. “Just have a beer with someone and have a chat,” he said. “If 24 million people could do that, social cohesion would be better.”

But even during the visit, the reality of what the Jewish community faces was on display. Minutes before the Swans arrived at Archer Park, Zlatkis and ECAJ co-CEO Alex Ryvchin were confronted by a woman at the massacre site who demanded to know what “an evil Zionist” was doing there. Despite Zlatkis lifting his shirt to show his bullet scars, the woman continued.

Ryvchin wrote on Instagram that the encounter, which occurred in view of police patrolling the area, was “a fresh reminder of the Jewish experience in Australia in our time and the brazen nature of degenerate antisemitism”.

Zlatkis told the Swans the incident was not unusual. “That’s just something that people experience on a daily basis for no reason,” he said.

“The way to combat antisemitism is for good people like yourselves to speak out and speak up.”

He closed by telling the group, “We know that the Swans have our back, and we have so many people in our community that are in love with your club.”