SYDNEY — The sound of gentle singing filled the air onBondi Beach, the site ofAustralia's deadliest shooting in almost three decades.
Alon Meltzer, 37, an associate rabbi at the nearby Mizrachi Synagogue, was among those who on Monday sang Hebrew prayers about fellowship, compassion and mercy near the where two attackers targeted aHanukkah celebrationa day earlier. Officials have designated the incident "antisemitic terrorism."
"The whole world feels narrow, dark and turbulent, but have no fear," Meltzer said, describing one of the prayers.
Meltzer and his wife, 41-year-old social worker Simonne Turner, who were at Bondi Beach with their three children, lost friends in the Sunday attack, whichkilled at least 15 peopleand injured dozens more.
A 10-year-old girl, a former police officer, a Holocaust survivor and two rabbis were among thosekilled in the attack, which officials said targeted Jewish people at an event celebrating the first night of Hanukkah.
Police identified the two suspects as a father and son, ages 50 and 24. Officers fatally shot the 50-year-old at the scene, while the 24-year-old "suffered critical injuries" and remains hospitalized.
For Australians, the overwhelming feeling is shock. After a 1996 shooting in the Tasmanian town of Port Arthur that killed 35 people, the country overhauled its gun laws precisely to prevent such an attack from ever happening again. According to police, who seized three firearms and two improvised explosive devices from the scene at Bondi Beach, the 50-year-old suspect was a licensed firearms holder who owned six firearms.
There is also anger. Australia has struggled to address asurge in antisemitismfueled in part byIsrael's war in Gaza, and local Jewish groups have criticized what they see as a lack of support from authorities.
Australian Prime MinisterAnthony Albaneseand his cabinet have vowed to stamp out the "evil scourge" of antisemitism and consider further tightening gun control measures. But for many who witnessed the attack or knew the victims, those promises come too late.
Levi Silva arrived just after the shooting, racing over on his motorcycle when he heard sirens all over the area.
"It looked like a war zone, honestly," he said. "There was, like, blood everywhere."
Among those killed was Silva's rabbi, Eli Schlanger, a 41-year-old father of five and an assistant rabbi at Chabad Bondi, a global Hasidic Jewish group that organized the event on Sunday.
"He used to teach me in school," said Silva, 18, who described Schlanger as "kind to everyone."
Though Schlanger was still alive when he arrived, Silva was powerless to help.
"There's not much you can do when someone's bleeding like that," said Silva, who knew other victims as well.
Many mourners cited a quote by Schlanger, who according to Chabad had recently said that in the face of darkness, the way forward is to "be more Jewish, act more Jewish and appear more Jewish."
For Mark Rotenstein, that meant laying tefillin, placing one black leather box containing Hebrew parchment scrolls on his arm and another on his head and wrapping the attached strap around his arm as a way to channel his prayers to God.
"I don't do it very often, but today I really feel the need," he said.
Rotenstein said what affected him most about the shooting was the death of Alexander Kleytman, a Holocaust survivor and Ukrainian immigrant who Chabad said died while shielding his wife, Larisa Kleytman, also a Holocaust survivor.
"It feels like what Hitler didn't achieve with that gentleman, now an Australian has," Rotenstein said. One of the suspects, Naveed Akram, was born in Australia.
The Executive Council of Australian Jewrysaid this monththat there were 1,654 anti-Jewish incidents across Australia between Oct. 1, 2024 and Sept. 30, 2025 — almost five times the average annual number before the Israel-Hamas war began on Oct. 7, 2023.
Australia, a country of 28 million people, is home to about 117,000 Jews, most of whom live in Sydney and Melbourne.
Lawmakers and experts say there has also been a rise in Islamophobic incidents in Australia since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, which has deeply divided the country.
In addition to combating antisemitism, leaders at the cabinet meeting "agreed that strong, decisive and focused action was needed on gun law reform as an immediate action," Albanese's officesaid in a statement.
The government is mulling limiting the number of firearms held by one individual, allowing firearm licenses to be granted only to Australian citizens and limiting the types of guns that can be considered legal, the statement said.
Kimberly Reimer, who was at Bondi Beach with her children at the time of the attack, said "there needs to be a lot done."
"We are a gun-free country. We're not the United States, we're not the rest of the world," she said, citing the massive gun buyback program that was introduced after the Port Arthur shooting.
"We need to really, really come down on any sort of weapon of assault, that's for sure," she said.
Sara James reported from Sydney, and Jennifer Jett and Mithil Aggarwal reported from Hong Kong.
