Herzog to Australian Jewish leaders after Sydney attack: ‘Israel stands alongside you’

Nava Freiberg is The Times of Israel's deputy diplomatic correspondent.

Health workers put a patient into an ambulance after a deadly terror shooting at Bondi Beach in Sydney on December 14, 2025. (Saeed KHAN / AFP)
Health workers put a patient into an ambulance after a deadly terror shooting at Bondi Beach in Sydney on December 14, 2025. (Saeed KHAN / AFP)

Following the terror attack at a Hanukkah event in Sydney, President Isaac Herzog spoke with David Ossip, president of the New South Wales Jewish Board of Deputies, and Rabbi Levi Wolff, the rabbi of the Central Synagogue in Sydney, his office says in a statement.

“Please know that Israel stands alongside you,” Herzog tells Ossip, who then briefed the president on the attack, which resulted in at least 11 casualties, as well as “the immediate steps taken to place the community in lockdown amid ongoing security concerns,” according to the readout.

In his call with Wolff, Herzog states that “the Jewish people never give up. We are an eternal people, and the candles will be lit again as of tomorrow, again and again, all over the world.”

Wolff responds: “We have shown over the years that no one can hold us down, and we will move on stronger.”

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