Australian Jewish philanthropy leaders are scrambling in the wake of Sunday’s deadly terror attack at Sydney’s Bondi Beach, trying to provide for the victims and the wider community’s immediate needs, planning for future ones and coordinating with government officials to understand what will be provided by the state and what philanthropy will need to cover. And they are doing it as they are themselves grappling with the deadliest attack that their country has ever faced and the deadliest attack on a Diaspora Jewish community in more than 30 years.

Even the issue of paying for the funerals of the victims is proving to be a struggle, Alain Hasson, CEO of the Jewish Communal Appeal of Sydney, told eJewishPhilanthropy. 

The JCA, which serves as the central fundraiser for the Jewish community, similar to a local Jewish federation, has relatively quietly launched a Bondi Relief Fund, alongside Australian Jewish Funders, which is led by Tracie Olcha and serves as a sister organization of the Jewish Funders Network, and the Australia-based Dor Foundation, which focuses on combating antisemitism and hate. Olcha noted that JFN is handling donations from the United States, passing along 100% of the funds raised to Australia.

through which it plans to respond to both those immediate issues and eventually to the long-term recovery needs that the survivors and the victims’ families are sure to have. 

Indeed, at every turn, new issues arise that make the relief effort more complicated. For instance, many of those in attendance at the Chabad candlelighting are from the Russian-speaking community and may not speak English well, if at all. In Australia, this is also the start of summer holidays, so local Jewish children will not necessarily be in an educational framework where they could more easily receive psychological help if needed. Similarly, many staff members of local Jewish organizations, whose services will be needed even more, were planning to go on summer vacation. Some of the families of victims have also raised concerns that larger communal efforts to raise relief funds will interfere with their own fundraising efforts.

To better understand the needs of the Australian Jewish community today and how the philanthropic world can help, eJewishPhilanthropy spoke with Hasson and Olcha on Thursday.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity. 

Judah Ari Gross: A lot of the responses to the terror attack that have come out of Australia have focused on the political side of things, addressing the antisemitism in the country, and on the spiritual side of things, with the calls to continue spreading light during Hanukkah despite the tragedy. I was hoping to hear from both of you about the practical needs of the survivors and the victims’ families. I’ve been seeing more and more GoFundMe pages for victims, for instance. So what are the needs for the community right now? I’m sure you know that there is a huge desire to help, but people don’t always know what is the best, most effective way to do that.

Alain Hasson: So what are the needs in community? The big challenge we have is that there are obvious immediate needs — and I’ll get to what they are — but we are waiting on the government to actually inform us of some of the things that they are and aren’t paying for. And I probably spent about two, three hours of my time this afternoon trying to navigate between federal and state bureaucracy. And this is the stupidity of how governments operate because last night I was told by one government agency, one minister, who called me and said, “Can I facilitate… funds to help with all the burial costs for the families?” And I said, “100%.” And they told me a figure that would be applied to every single family, for every victim. And then this morning, [they said] that has changed, and they’re now operating it very differently. And then an announcement in the newspaper said they are doing it another way.

So I’m trying to give information to people who are contacting me, asking, “Is JCA going to support all the victims and the families?” And I’m obviously saying, “Yes,” because in my mind and in my heart, no matter what, we are taking care of these families. But in trying to actually say what the sources of funds are, there is just so much confusion. And not so much confusion within [the Jewish] community, at this point in time, I have to say.

For me, the question around what the government is and isn’t going to do is a missing piece in the puzzle around everything. Almost certainly, they will do large elements of security funding. They’ve been doing that for the last two years. They’ve offered every resource in terms of policing. But then they make an announcement, again, in a newspaper that they’re giving AUS 2 million ($1.3 million) to mental health. Now what does that mean? I don’t have an idea yet. 

So the needs of the community are unfolding, is the short answer. We know the immediate priorities are supporting the families. But trying to figure out what that means is a broader question. I’m already starting to talk to people about how we create a victim of terrorist fund, which I think will be a component of this international Bondi Relief Fund that is being communicated worldwide. Once we’ve collected that, it will then be broken down into components. My hope is that there would be at least AUS 1 million ($665,000) for each of the victim families. But then we haven’t even got into the needs of the wounded.

I was just in Bondi today at the pavilion for the first time with my team. And I started talking to people, and it was bashert, there were some of the survivors there. One of the mothers, whose son had shrapnel across his arm, asked me — understandably and in the most polite way — ”What is JCA going to do? What commitments can you get?”

I’ve had people who are supporting the families concerned that JCA is fundraising against their families. And I’ve had to explain to them that we are not fundraising against you. You’ve got to appreciate that there are certain governance issues that certain donors, especially those overseas, want. And JCA is a well-established and well-trusted vehicle. And one of our first priorities will be to ensure that these families are well taken care of. 

Now everyone will have a different expectation of what that looks like. No one’s quantified what every family’s needs look like because they’re all going to be different. 

I was given the telephone number this afternoon of [one victim’s family], and the request that I got from someone who was at the house was, “It looks like a state of disarray. Can we get a cleaner in there?” So we’re going from the minuscule of maintaining day-to-day life to the urgency of now starting to have to think about “How am I going to support this family?” 

JAG: It’s so striking to me how similar this is to what we saw here in Israel in the wake of the Oct. 7 attack. How cleaning homes and cooking meals became such a simple but critical way that people helped the families of hostages. 

AH: Talking about meals, one day, the office is swamped with food, and we’ve got wastage, and then today, I got a phone call saying, “Can we get food to the chevra kadisha because they’ve had to do three funerals in a row and no one’s organized food for them?”

Tracie Olcha: It’s so hard to know what’s been taken care of.

JAG: This attack happened at a Chabad event, is the Bondi Chabad able to help coordinate some of these things or is it focused on dealing with its own losses right now? 

AH: They’ve got their own community network [to take care of one another]. And another thing I’m finding out today, that just landed for me today, I hadn’t even thought about it, is that the Bondi Chabad is mainly a Russian-speaking, former Soviet Union community. 

And someone was saying to me today, “Has anyone considered that a lot of these families don’t speak good English? That their approach to mental health is going to be completely different from the norm.” And I said, “I have no idea, but that is the most valid question that I’ve heard today.”

JAG: We have even written about the mental health aspect and how teams from Israel have been assisting, but that element has not really been raised. 

TO: Israeli organizations s and the Jewish Agency have just been incredible bringing teams out, the ZAKA team [which helps remove human remains in accordance with halacha] is out. There’s enormous support coming from Israel in particular, which is quite remarkable considering our distance.

JAG: Australia has socialized medicine so things like hospital bills are not going to be a huge focus for philanthropy, but what are some of the other immediate areas that you are focusing on? 

AH: While hospital bills aren’t an issue, you’re raising an interesting question that I haven’t even got into yet with the government and how it’s going to be tracking and supporting these [injured] individuals because Australia’s never dealt with this situation. This is the most significant terrorist attack to ever happen in Australia. And I’m seeing that in the conversations that I’m having with the government agencies. They are treating it like other emergencies that we are used to dealing with, such as bushfires and floods. 

Some of the wounded are going to require rehabilitation, and they may want to go through the private system, so there will be gaps in their fees, and it’s a valid question as to who is that gonna cover that. 

I don’t even know what that looks like because it hasn’t yet been brought to our attention. 

And, like Tracie, I think it’s amazing how many people have come out from Israel. But the challenge is that, eventually, the people from Israel are going to go back. 

TO: Next week they’re going back! 

AH: Next week some are going back, and as JewishCare has already said to me, “It’s great that we’ve got this triage of support. But some of these individuals are going to need a lifetime of support. And how are we doing that? What is going to be their mental health plan?

JAG: And that’s just the rehabilitation aspect. Some people, I imagine, will have permanent disabilities that will prevent them from full-time employment, like the person you mentioned who was hit by shrapnel in the arm. 

TO: That just reminds me of our manager of philanthropy in Sydney, Natalie. She and her husband just happened to literally put their towel down on [Bondi] beach to go for a swim, and the shots started. They ran and took cover behind a truck alongside this wounded member of our community, who nearly had his shoulder blown off. With a little bit of help from [the Community Security Group], a little bit of help from Community Health Support, they triaged him and pretty much saved his life behind this truck, for like 20 minutes, half an hour until the ambulance could come and take him. 

And he only found out yesterday that his father was killed [in the attack] because they didn’t want to tell him until he was stable. So his father was killed, and he’s got a serious injury to his shoulder. He had surgery again today. Who knows? I mean, the dust hasn’t settled at all, and we’re having to start making decisions on what, how and where. 

As Al said, the focus is very much on the immediate [needs], knowing that we are going to need to have some sort of victims of terror fund that’s going to be a long-term sustainable model to support these families. And it’s not just the ones that have serious injuries. 

There are a lot of people who ran away from there [when the shooting started], and then there are a lot of people who ran towards it, who are the first responders for both CHS and CSG, and most of them are in their 20s. What us the impact of that going to be and how do we help them, who are the backbone of our community. So there are just multiple layers of complexity to each of the challenges that we’re facing right now.

JAG: Do you have any sense of how that kind of fund will be structured? Or is it still way too early for that? 

TO: It’s way too early, Judah.

AH: Look, it’s way too early, but the seeds have already been planted. The Bondi Relief Fund will be the primary funding pool. And once we’ve raised those funds and once we understand from the government exactly what they are fulfilling, that is when we can start to plan on how we’re going to break down the funds raised through the general appeal.

JCA operates as the dollar of last resort. We want to make sure that every single dollar is stretched and is impactful as it can be. But I imagine that there will be a victims of terror fund administered by — most likely — JewishCare, which has relationships with the families and the wounded. Obviously, we’ll learn from United Israel Appeal and Keren Hayesod and others, because why reinvent the wheel if we don’t have to?

TO: We come from a country that doesn’t really have gun violence. This is the first time in over 30 years that we’ve had any real incidents with guns. Our government isn’t set up for this. It wasn’t any part of our lived experience. So they’re gonna have to do some deep soul searching and work out how they’re going to manage this, and then the Jewish community will step in for whatever they don’t, but it’s systems of complexity.

But you’ve also got to remember that it’s Dec. 18, I think. I don’t even know the date anymore. It is Dec. 18, and we hae summer coming in a hot minute. As of Tuesday, most communal organizations close their doors. The school structure is closed.

So kids who would have maybe gone to school and got counselling through the school, and the schools that would be able to step in and support families, that’s off the table because the schools all finished last week. So we can’t lean into the existing frameworks until February. So there’s all of that as well.

AH: I had summer plans, like many other people. But if you’re gonna step up and lead, you’re going to drop those plans, right? I’m already meant to be on holiday. I’m meant to be on a boat without any contact, scuba diving. In order to respond to this crisis and to respond effectively, leadership is going to have to occur. And once we’re through this week, depending on what the identified needs are, we are going to have to reach out to leadership and say, “This is our responsibility to be here for certain people.” And if that means we need teachers from the schools to cancel their leave to respond at this point in time, we have to do that, right?

JAG: How prevalent are summer camps? 

TO: We don’t have a summer camp system like in the United States.

AH: I don’t know what support the community is going to need for those who do end up staying in Sydney [for the summer]. That’s just going to evolve as we see it. I think one of the key objectives… is to have a mass gathering, most likely this Sunday, to mark the end of Hanukkah and to get as many both within the community and external to the community to be there to commemorate the week. 

I learned from [Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh CEO] Jeff Finkelstein, who gave me seven points post-Tree of Life attack. And he said that one of the key objectives is to gather people in mass as quickly as possible. Now we’ve had little elements of that.

TO: Every night, there have been a couple of thousand people at the Hanukkah lighting at Bondi Beach.

AH: Yes, but what happenes after that, how people start to heal, we don’t know. As I say to people, we’re currently in shiva. We’ve just had the first funerals. There are a few more to go. Once all the funerals are done and we have this mass gathering is when people will actually pause to say, “OK, what’s next?”

TO: And another distraction as well is the absolute balagan of the government and how it’s handling this. The gun laws and the deflections, and it’s taking up a lot of headspace as well.

AH: If I can add one thing in terms of how the funds will be used, just to end it off. Because we’re talking about the immediate triage response and dealing with the wounded, the victims and the other aspects. This came out of the funeral yesterday for Rabbi Eli Schlanger. And I hate using positive words, but the response to this terrorist attack should actually be one of resurgence by a community in such strength that anyone who ever thinks to perpetrate this again, we just say, “Well, you’re just making us stronger and stronger and stronger by doing that.” 

That is obviously going to require funding. Is the response of the community going to be that we’re too afraid to send our kids to public school, so we want to go to a Jewish day school? If so, how are we going to fund all of those additional students? I don’t know yet. 

I don’t know what the knock-on consequences are gonna be. Please God, let us have more kids coming into the Jewish day schools that we can educate, and how are we going to support that with a Zionist, strong Jewish education? 

Tracie’s got a major project [Launchpad] in terms of leadership development. And I pray to God that we have more people wanting to become leaders in our community, and how do you support them? There’s so many things that we can do as a community to uplift our community, and funding hasn’t necessarily been easily come by.

So I think one of my hopes — and I know certainly would be Tracie’s hope — is that this inspires philanthropists to truly invest in the community more than they ever have before. 

We’re waiting to see. Some people are already stepping up. Interestingly enough, through our campaign, and this was intentional, some are from the broader community, the non-Jewish community. So we’re hoping we get a large component of that. And then the international Jewish community has been phenomenal in its outreach as well. I’ve had one of the Jewish communal funds make a grant of $18,000, and I hope that’s multiplied by the almost two hundred communities that there are in North America. Then we’re talking about significant funding. 

JAG: So where do things stand today in terms of the Bondi Relief Fund? 

AH: We’ve just ticked over AUS 1 million ($665,000).  And we haven’t really pushed it yet. This has been more soft, just talking to others. We haven’t really gone hard on pushing it because, as I said, the message I was getting two nights ago [from victim families] was “Why are you cutting across our fundraising efforts? We need to raise X amount of money per family.” So we were sensitive to that. We’re sensitive to the fact that we are only in the first four or five days of this. My hope is this will become a very, very significant campaign.