Last night, we were celebrating the occasion of our second son’s bar mitzvah at an event hall on Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia, with Israeli music, hora dancing, a blue-and-white flag and 12-year-old children proud of their Jewish identity. I am an Israeli emissary for Keren Kayemeth-Jewish National Fund (KKL-JNF) Australia, proud to promote and strengthen the connection between Diaspora Jewry and the State of Israel and proud to work for a Zionist organization in a foreign country. The celebration was meant to be an evening of joy and connection to Judaism, even on the other side of the world. 

And then we heard the gunshots.

Loretta Godfrey

Sarah Vanunu, KKL-JNF Australia shlicha (Israeli emissary), with her son the bar mitzvah boy in December 2025.

Fifty meters. That was the distance between us and the shooting. At first, people thought it was fireworks, but very quickly we saw people running and screaming, terrified. Their faces said it all. Some of the children at the party fled with the crowd; others stayed inside, following our instructions. We locked ourselves in the event hall for nearly two and a half hours. Crying children, panicked parents and absolute chaos met us in a room full of 12-year-olds experiencing, for the first time in their lives, what real existential fear feels like.

And amid all of this, there is one image I will never forget. The people who fled the beach — complete strangers, families, including Muslim men and women wearing hijabs — came into our bar mitzvah hall seeking shelter from the horrors outside. Some of them didn’t know what a bar mitzvah was, but they did recognize the falafel and hummus we had at the venue. So we invited them to sit and eat with us. For a brief moment, humanity prevailed over everything else.

The fear did not subside even after the incident was over, and we left the building under police escort. In the moments afterward, I saw security personnel with blood on their uniforms and sat next to a woman who had lost her husband. The community here is small — there are 120,000 Jews in all of Australia — and everyone knows someone who was at the candle-lighting on the beach. As in Israel, there is no real sense of distance here; we all know someone who was hurt or injured.

But this pain is added to a complex daily reality that existed even before the shooting. Throughout the entire period of the war in Israel, Australia — a democratic, liberal, Western country — has become a space where criticism of Israel is sharp, one-sided and, at times, blind. Palestinian flags were waved at demonstrations, chants reduced a complex reality to slogans, and an atmosphere prevailed in which Jews are repeatedly required to explain themselves, or apologize for their existence. Many times, we were also expected to remain silent in order to prevent the situation from getting worse.

I know people who removed mezuzahs from their front doors. Parents who were afraid their children would walk around with a Jewish school backpack with Hebrew writing on it. In Sydney, in 2025. It’s not something I ever thought I would experience outside history books. But I refuse to hide. I am proud to be a Zionist, proud to be Israeli and proud to be Jewish. Even when it is uncomfortable, even when it sparks arguments and even when it is frightening, I am proud.

About three years ago, our eldest son celebrated his bar mitzvah, and that same night there was a terror attack in Tel Aviv, half a world away from Australia. The irony that at the bar mitzvah of my second son — an event that symbolizes maturity, entry into his Torah journey and into the community — another attack took place, this time right outside our door, is unfathomable.

The attack on Bondi Beach will not cause us to stop living or to stop celebrating. “We won’t stop dancing,” as they say in Israel. Today, I know this is not an empty slogan. It is a daily choice to continue sustaining a community, to gather in synagogues even when there is fear, to support one another and to live as Jews in the world.

Our son celebrated his bar mitzvah in the shadow of gunfire, but also surrounded by the values of solidarity, courage and humanity. Perhaps this is the most painful lesson, but also the most meaningful one, that he received on the evening he became a Jewish man.

Sarah Vanunu is a shlicha (Israeli emissary) for Keren Kayemeth-Jewish National Fund (KKL-JNF) Australia.