Mourner’s Kaddish for Bondi Beach victims recited in Australian Parliament as tougher hate crime laws pass

JTA – A Jewish member of Australian Parliament recited the Mourner’s Kaddish in an address on Monday, 19 January, to honour the victims of the Chanukah massacre on Bondi Beach. 

The address, delivered by Jewish parliamentarian and former attorney general Mark Dreyfus, came more than a month after two gunmen motivated by what authorities said was “Islamic State ideology” opened fire on a celebration in Sydney, killing 15 and injuring dozens more. Most of the victims were Jewish, and Dreyfus read all of their names aloud. 

Dreyfus, who wore a kippah for the presentation, then commended the “acts of extraordinary courage” by bystanders and emergency workers during the attack, naming Ahmed al-Ahmed, the Muslim man who received widespread support from the Jewish community after he was shot while disarming one of the attackers. He also told the Australian House of Representatives that the country’s “response cannot be confined to grief”, exhorting his fellow legislators to take action around “upholding our laws against hate”. 

Then he invited everyone present to rise for the Mourner’s Kaddish, recited in Jewish communities in memory of the dead. 

“You don’t have to be Jewish to feel this in your chest, an attack like this hurts all of us,” Dreyfus said, describing the prayer as “a prayer about life, dignity, and hope for peace at times of profound loss”. 

The public recitation was redolent of the decision of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette to publish the Hebrew text of the prayer on its front page following the murder of 11 Jews in its synagogue there in 2018. 

Late on Tuesday, Australia’s Parliament passed anti-hate speech and gun reform Bills initiated in the wake of the attack. The gun reform Bill included new checks on firearm-licence applications and a national gun buy-back programme, while the anti-hate speech Bill banned hate groups and imposed penalties for preachers who promote hate. 

The hate speech component won support from liberal legislators who said they had free-speech concerns after it was weakened from its initial version. 

“The terrorists at Bondi Beach had hatred in their hearts and guns in their hands,” wrote Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in a post on X. “Today, we passed new laws that deal with both. Combatting antisemitism and cracking down on guns.” 

The new laws come as Australia grapples with another searing antisemitic incident. Late in the day on Monday, five Jewish teenagers in Melbourne were chased for several minutes by a car whose occupants chanted “Heil Hitler” and performed Nazi salutes at them. 

The boys, aged 15 and 16 and easily identifiable as Orthodox Jews, were walking home from Adass High School when the incident occurred in the proximity of Adass Israel Synagogue, which was firebombed in December 2024. No arrests were immediately made. 

“The antisemitic hate incident last night in St Kilda targeting young Jewish boys has no place in our country,” Albanese said, according to The Australian. “At a time when Australians are joining with the Jewish community in sorrow and solidarity, it’s beyond disgusting to see these cowards shouting Nazi slogans at young people.”