The UK’s Chief Rabbi, Sir Ephraim Mirvis, has said his cousin and his cousin’s wife “spent a terrifying fifteen minutes hiding under a donut stand” as gunmen opened fire during the attack on Bondi Beach.
Fifteen people have been killed, including a 10-year-old girl, in an attack by two gunmen on a Jewish Hanukkah celebration on Sydney beach.
Speaking on the BBC Radio Four Today programme, Rabbi Mirvis said one of the key messages of Hanukkah is that Jews around the world are declaring “we belong and we will not hide who we are”, but “that declaration was met with murderous hatred” in Sunday’s mass shooting.
The causes of “toxic anti-Semitism” need to be addressed, he said.
Rabbi Mirvis called on people to unite “against the normalized rhetoric that demonizes Jews and the only Jewish State.”
At the Hanukkah event in Bondi Beach, Jews were “targeted for the simple act of gathering, visibly and peacefully, as Jews,” he said.
The right of Jewish communities to assemble publicly and safely is a “test of the moral health of any society.”
“Jews have lived with security concerns for as long as I can remember, but the fact that today every Jewish public gathering must be weighed against risk is a sign that something is deeply wrong.”
A society in which a minority group has to “calculate whether it is safe for them to be seen together in public” is a society that “is failing all of its citizens.”
The shooting began around 18:47 local time (07:47 GMT) on Sunday, when around a thousand people were said to be attending a public event organized by the Jewish center Chabad of Bondi.
Verified videos showed hundreds of people fleeing the beach, screaming and running as a burst of gunshots could be heard.
The victims range in age from 10 to 87, and include two rabbis and a Holocaust survivor.
The two gunmen have been identified in local media as Sajid Akram, 50, who died at the scene, and his son Naveed Akram, 24, who is in hospital in critical condition.
The chief rabbi told the Today show that the Hanukkah festival commemorates the defiance of a small group of Jews about 2,150 years ago who were attacked by Emperor Antiochus Epiphanes. He denied them the right to openly practice their faith, demanding conversion under penalty of death.
The festival’s message is about “their refusal to be bullied or erased.”
“Judaism should never be relegated to the shadows,” said Rabbi Mirvis.
