US Jewry chief brings solidarity mission to Sydney

The head of the Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA), Eric Fingerhut, has visited Sydney with a delegation to express solidarity with the local Jewish community following the December 14 Bondi Beach terrorist attack and to forge new pathways of cooperation.

Fingerhut, who leads an organisation that distributes two billion US dollars annually across North America’s 154 Jewish federations, said the attack touched “every Jew in the world”.

“We felt it, and we wanted to come and express our solidarity with the Jewish community here in Sydney, and frankly, to bring our love and caring from all of our Jewish communities across North America,” he said.

But the visit also served a second purpose: sharing strategies on combating the surge in antisemitism and violence against Jewish communities.

Fingerhut detailed a litany of attacks on American Jews in the past year, including the murder of two visitors to the Capitol Jewish Museum in Washington, a firebombing in Boulder, Colorado that killed one person, the arson of a synagogue in Jackson, Mississippi, and a terrorist attack on a Detroit synagogue in March that came within “inches” of catastrophe.