Two services, twelve hours, one community

In the span of twelve hours last Shabbat, I attended two different services – both poignant, and while themselves different, still linked.

The first was the packed Friday night Kabbalat Shabbat shule service at Chabad of Bondi, billed as a special tribute celebrating Rabbi Eli Schlanger’s birthday.

Eli would have been 42. As we know, he was one of the 15 people murdered in the Bondi Beach massacre that took place on December 14 last year during the Chanukah by the Sea event that he organised.

Most of the victims that fateful day were associated with Chabad of Bondi. For that shattered community, the grief is still raw. And yet, the only overt emotion that was palpable in the shule on Friday night, just four months removed from the tragedy, was sheer joy.

Joy at being alive. Joy at being Jewish.

At one point in the service, “L’cha Dodi” spontaneously segued into the whole shule singing along to “Am Yisrael Chai”, as davveners left their seats and danced together in a circle around the bimah. It was a moment of magic. It was a moment of life, of community, and of family.

At the conclusion of the service I was welcomed to a special kiddush in Eli’s honour with food, drink and conversation. It didn’t matter that I am not a regular attendee at their shule. They embraced me as one of their own.

It was a beautiful and uplifting evening that affirmed the strength of the Jewish community – a community that has refused to be cowed by the terror that had targeted this very congregation.

The second service was the Anzac Day dawn service outside North Bondi RSL, held just a few hundred metres from where those 15 souls were taken.

North Bondi RSL was a huge supporter of our community immediately after the massacre and has remained steadfast in the months since. As we covered in these pages, in April they unveiled a plaque on their premises to memorialise the massacre victims.

In light of their solidarity, I felt it important to repay that unwavering support and stand with them on Anzac Day in their mission to honour and remember Australia’s troops. After all, part of being Australian is to have each other’s back.

So there I stood, a Jewish Australian fiercely proud of his two complementary identities, as the sun rose over those golden sands.

And again, I felt as though I was with family, albeit in a different way. Thousands of Australians stood alongside me in remembrance, as they did all over the country that morning in recognition of the sacrifices our servicemen and women have made in order for Australians to enjoy our freedom.

Governor-General Sam Mostyn spoke movingly about what happened on December 14 and about how Anzac Cove and Bondi Beach, two iconic places in Australia’s history, capture the past and the present of what it means to serve this country.

She made mention of Jewish Australians who have served alongside their fellow countrymen and women in defence of our shared nation, while relatives of Private Greg Sher, killed in Afghanistan in 2009, were invited to lay a wreath in his memory.

It reinforced that Jews have always been part of Australia’s story since the First Fleet arrived in 1788. In that moment I stood proudly as my dual identities truly aligned. Jewish Australians are an inseparable part of this nation. We helped to build it, we help to defend it and we are invested in its future.

That future faces a watershed moment.

There are those who do not see us as a part of Australia. There are yet others that want us to change who we are and what we believe in order to gain their acceptance. Some people will never be satisfied with who we are.

And as we saw on December 14, we may be the target of those with hate in their hearts but we are not the only victims. Non-Jewish lives were also taken.

But the rot that has set in over the last few years has caused damage to our beloved Australia beyond the lives lost that day. Our society is fraying, and with it, our collective confidence in the country’s strength and its ability to provide safe haven for all – regardless of race, religion, sexuality or other attributes – has been sorely tested.

And so another realisation dawned on me as I stood paying tribute at North Bondi. Just as the Anzacs and all our troops fought for Australia, we must fight for it now. We owe it to those who have protected this country from external threats to confront the internal one head on.

We must fight to determine what kind of nation Australia will be. Not with weapons, but with our voices and our stories.

The Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion is our opportunity to do just that. Commissioner Virginia Bell has made it clear she wants to hear directly from Australians who have experienced antisemitism. Every single one of us must heed that call. This is how we demonstrate scale. This is how we prove urgency.

At the Shabbat service, we celebrated resilience through joy. At the dawn service, we honoured sacrifice through remembrance. Both were acts of defiance against hatred. Both declared that we belong here, that we’ve earned our place, and that we refuse to be driven out.

Lest we forget.

Gareth Narunsky is editor-in-chief of The AJN.