Australian Jews recount harrowing stories at Bondi massacre inquiry’s 1st public hearing

SYDNEY, Australia — An Australian inquiry opened public hearings Monday into an antisemitic Islamic State-inspired terrorist attack in which a father and son killed 15 people at a Jewish Hanukkah event on Sydney’s Bondi Beach last year.

The federal royal commission — the highest level of government inquiry — was called to probe factors leading to the massacre by the two terrorists on Jewish families at Australia’s most famous beach in December.

Public hearings began with members of Sydney’s Jewish community talking about their experience of antisemitism.

“The sharp spike of antisemitism that we have witnessed in Australia has been mirrored in other Western countries and seems clearly linked to events in the Middle East,” inquiry chief Virginia Bell said in opening remarks.

“It’s important that people understand how quickly those events can prompt ugly displays of hostility towards Jewish Australians simply because they are Jews.”

‘Oldest hatreds’

The inquiry has received thousands of submissions about the impact of “one of society’s oldest hatreds,” said the counsel assisting the inquiry, Zelie Hegen.

Sheina Gutnick, whose father Reuven Morrison was killed in the Bondi attack, told the inquiry there had been a shift in antisemitism since 2023, when the Gaza war began with the Hamas terror group’s October 7 mass onslaught.

“Antisemitism was allowed to come into the open,” she said.

Her refugee parents had met at Bondi Beach, a scene of many happy childhood memories for her.

“Now Bondi holds a really, really heavy weight in our community’s heart,” she said.

The inquiry heard from witnesses, granted pseudonyms because of their fear of reprisals, about the impact on the Jewish community of antisemitic chants during a protest against the war in Gaza outside Sydney’s Opera House in October 2023, shortly after the Hamas massacre in Israel.

Jewish community groups recorded 2,062 antisemitic incidents the following year.

‘An un-Australian thing’

A “summer of terror” saw a string of arson and graffiti attacks against synagogues and Jewish businesses in Sydney and Melbourne, the inquiry was told.

A woman who works with a Jewish security group recounted having to escort people to safety from a Melbourne synagogue in November 2023 on the anniversary of the Nazi Kristallnacht pogrom, as a “mob” of around 30 people dressed in black, their faces masked, appeared.

A Jewish woman whose grandparents were Holocaust survivors, and grew up in Bondi, told the inquiry she was “shocked to see flags being burnt at the Opera House — it was such an un-Australian thing.”

She was “incredibly disappointed that police hadn’t stepped in before things got as bad as they did,” she said.

In her experience, many Australians she worked with had never previously met a Jewish person, and she asked the community to listen when Jewish people “feel like history is repeating itself.”

Sajid Akram and son Naveed are accused of opening fire as Jewish families thronged Bondi Beach for a Hanukkah celebration in December, carrying out Australia’s deadliest mass shooting for 30 years.

Alleged gunman Sajid Akram, 50, was shot and killed by police during the assault.

His 24-year-old son Naveed, an Australian-born citizen who remains in prison, has been charged with terrorism and 15 murders.