Part One: First Light
My first visit to Australia was in 1984. The Australia I encountered then was a nation of confident optimism-a land that seemed to have solved the ancient riddles of tribalism that had plagued the Old World. Migrants from every corner of the earth had somehow found a way to share the same beaches, the same pubs, the same dreams.
That was the year Paul Hogan appeared in the Australian Tourism Commission advertisements, telling Americans he would "slip an extra shrimp on the barbie" for them. The irony, of course, was that Australians don't call them shrimp-you call them prawns. The word was changed for American audiences, a small accommodation that captured something essential about Australia's confident outward face. Two years later, Hogan would star in Crocodile Dundee, grossing over three hundred twenty-eight million dollars worldwide and cementing Australia's image as a land of laid-back adventure. Steve Irwin would follow in the 1990s with The Crocodile Hunter, building on that same rugged optimism until his tragic death in 2006 at the age of forty-four.
But my Australia was not the Outback. My Australia was Bondi Beach.
I stood on the sand and watched Australians on wave skis and surf skis cutting through the break. I had never seen anything like it. The grace of it. The power. A few months later, a Hayden surf ski arrived at the Port of Los Angeles. That ski was life-changing.
Over the next four decades, I paddled in countless races and crossed the Catalina and Molokai Channels solo multiple times-the last time on my seventieth birthday. The ocean taught me things that no classroom ever could: patience, humility, the understanding that nature does not negotiate.
Bondi changed my life forty years ago. It is changing my life once again.
Part Two: The Watermen
Bondi has always been a place of watermen. The name itself comes from the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation-"Bondi" means "water breaking over rocks." For thousands of years before European settlement, this coast held cultural and spiritual significance for the Indigenous peoples who called it home.
In 1855, Edward Smith Hall and Francis O'Brien purchased the land and allowed public access. By the early 1900s, as more people flocked to Bondi Beach, its strong riptides and dangerous conditions led to several drownings. Something had to be done.
On February 21, 1907, twenty-three men gathered at the Royal Hotel in Bondi Junction. They formed the Bondi Surf Bathers' Life Saving Club-the world's first surf lifesaving club. Their central aim was simple and profound: "the rescue of the distressed."
Among the founding members were John Bond, Percy Flynn, and Lyster Charles Irwin Ormsby. These three men had already been saving distressed swimmers since 1906. They played pivotal roles in inventing the surf line and belt-later known as the reel and line-an apparatus that would save countless lives across the world.
Ormsby constructed the first model from hairpins and a cotton reel. He took this prototype to Olding and Parker, the Paddington coachbuilders, who built the surf reel that was first displayed and used on Bondi Beach on December 23, 1906. The apparatus allowed a lifesaver, wearing a cork jacket, to swim out to a person in difficulty while connected by line to a wooden reel held steady on the beach by other lifesavers. Both could then be pulled back to safety.
In March 1907, the club held an "exhibition on the beach of handling the life-lines and restoring the apparently drowned" in front of hundreds of spectators. The movement spread rapidly. Within two years, surf lifesaving clubs had formed in Tweed Heads and Coolangatta in Queensland, then Western Australia in 1909, Victoria in 1913, Tasmania in 1921, and South Australia thereafter.
On February 6, 1938, Bondi witnessed what would become known as Black Sunday-the largest mass surf rescue in Australia's history. Three giant waves washed hundreds of swimmers out to sea. Bondi lifesavers sprang into action, rescuing approximately two hundred fifty individuals, pulling sixty from the water unconscious. Five lives were lost that day-but hundreds were saved because volunteers were ready.
Adrian Curlewis was among the giants of this movement. He survived three years as a Japanese prisoner of war in Burma during World War II, then returned to lead the surf lifesaving movement for forty years, from 1935 to 1975. Keith 'Spaz' Hurst, Jack 'Bluey' Mayes, Kevin 'The Head' Brennan-these iconic watermen set the standards for generations to come.
Today, there are three hundred fourteen surf lifesaving clubs across Australia with over one hundred ninety thousand members. The Bondi Surf Bathers' Life Saving Club remains in operation, rescuing over twelve thousand swimmers and surfers every year. Notable at Bondi and throughout Australia is that surf lifesavers are volunteers, dedicating their weekends to patrolling beaches and keeping strangers safe.
That is the tradition of the watermen. They stand watch. They run toward danger. They do not ask who needs saving before they dive in.
Part Three: Little Jerusalem
Bondi's Jewish community became part of this story after World War II. The Eastern Suburbs of Sydney became home to Jewish migrants from Poland, Russia, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Germany-many of them Holocaust survivors who had lost everything. They came to Australia seeking safety, seeking a place to rebuild.
For Jewish Australians of that generation, Bondi Beach was never just a beach. It was a meeting place and a social anchor. From the 1960s through the 1980s, the central steps in front of the Bondi Pavilion were known as "Little Jerusalem." The stretch of sand below became a gathering point for Jewish immigrants and, later, their children-a playful name that reflected both presence and belonging.
Behind the Pavilion-exactly where the massacre of December 14, 2025 would occur-elderly Jewish Holocaust survivors would sit for hours playing chess and checkers. Many people remember the familiar refrain: "Meet you later at the Jerusalem Steps." It was more than a location. It symbolized safety, continuity, and community.
Danny Hakim knows this history intimately. His first Christmas Day was on Bondi Beach-in 1959, at ten months old. A Sydney Morning Herald photographer captured the scene and ran it on page three of the Christmas edition. His older brother Jeff, born in Cairo, was eating a vegemite sandwich while Danny sat in his playpen on the sand, watching. He looked like a typical Aussie baby. Few could have known he was among the first generation of Egyptian Jewish refugees born into the safety and promise of "the lucky country."
In the early 1980s, Danny opened the Bondi Beach Karate Club. It still operates today, having produced world champions. Twenty-five years after that first Christmas on the beach, he found himself representing Australia at the inaugural Shotokan World Karate Games in Tokyo in 1984. Wearing the green and gold, he felt deep gratitude for a country that had given him freedom, opportunity, and belonging.
In 1975, Danny was among around twenty Jewish students attacked by approximately one hundred fifty men on the Macquarie University library lawn. They were holding placards at a rally where a Palestinian Holocaust denier was speaking. The attackers came armed with sticks, iron bars, and knives. It was the first time in his life he had to physically defend himself to survive.
In 1982, a bomb exploded at Sydney's Jewish Hakoah Sports Club-the building that housed his Bondi Beach Karate Club. Initial police investigations led to an arrest, but charges were later withdrawn by the NSW Attorney General.
These events shaped a generation that understood that distance offers no immunity.
Part Four: The Migration
Australia in the later twentieth century became a refuge for many fleeing conflict and persecution. From the 1970s onward, under the leadership of Prime Ministers Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser, Australia embraced multiculturalism. The White Australia Policy, which had restricted immigration to those of European descent since 1901, was finally dismantled.
Muslims arrived from Lebanon, Bosnia, Iraq, Iran, Sudan, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. The numbers tell a story of transformation.
Muslim Population of Australia (Census Data):
1981: 76,792 people (0.53% of total population)
1986: 109,523 people (0.70% of total population)
1991: 147,487 people (0.88% of total population)
1996: 200,885 people (1.12% of total population)
2001: 281,578 people (1.50% of total population)
2006: 340,392 people (1.71% of total population)
2011: 476,291 people (2.25% of total population)
2016: 604,200 people (2.60% of total population)
2021: 813,392 people (3.20% of total population)
2024 estimate: Over 1,000,000 people
The population has grown roughly tenfold over forty years-from about seventy-seven thousand in 1981 to over eight hundred thirteen thousand in 2021. Islam is now the second-largest religion in Australia after Christianity. The increase can largely be attributed to migration, with almost one hundred twenty-six thousand people who arrived between 2016 and 2021 affiliating with Islam. Their main countries of birth were Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, and Bangladesh.
The Jewish population tells a different story-one of steady presence rather than explosive growth.
Jewish Population of Australia (Census Data):
1981: 62,126 enumerated (estimated ~68,000)
1986: ~65,000 enumerated (estimated ~72,000)
1991: 68,946 enumerated (estimated ~76,000)
1996: 74,167 enumerated (estimated ~82,000)
2001: 79,805 enumerated (estimated ~88,000)
2006: 83,993 enumerated (estimated ~93,000)
2011: 97,336 enumerated (estimated ~115,630)
2016: 91,020 enumerated (estimated ~117,900)
2021: 99,956 enumerated (estimated ~116,967)
The enumerated figures are lower than reality because being Jewish is not only about religion-it is also an ethnicity and a culture. The census question is optional, and many secular Jews, as well as religiously observant Holocaust survivors who remember what happened when governments kept lists, prefer not to disclose their religion. Demographer David Graham estimates the true population at around one hundred seventeen thousand-roughly 0.46% of Australia's total population.
The community has essentially plateaued. Graham noted that strong growth occurred in the 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s, driven by immigration from the former Soviet Union and South Africa. "That growth has dramatically slowed. Around 2016 we hit a peak." The total fertility rate for Jewish Australian women is 1.7-well below the 2.1 replacement level.
About ninety percent of Australian Jews live in Sydney and Melbourne. The median age is forty-four years-six years above the national median-signaling future challenges in community sustainability.
The Muslim population surpassed the Jewish population sometime in the late 1990s and is now roughly seven times larger.
Syrian migration accelerated dramatically after the civil war began in 2011.
Syrian-Born Population of Australia:
2011: 8,713 people
2016: 15,321 people (82.6% increase from 2011)
2023: 34,590 people (over 3x the 2011 number)
In 2015, the Australian government announced it would accept twelve thousand Syrian refugees annually, prioritizing the most vulnerable-women, children, and families with the least prospect of ever returning safely. This also included religious minorities such as Christians, Yazidis, and Druze.
Many fled Assad's brutal crackdown-the barrel bombs, the chemical weapons, the imprisonment and torture. The United Nations estimates that the Syria conflict crisis remains one of the largest humanitarian crises facing the world today. In 2025, 16.7 million people in Syria require humanitarian assistance. There are 6.2 million Syrian refugees primarily hosted in neighboring countries.
They came to Australia seeking what Ahmed al-Ahmed's parents had sought: safety, dignity, a place where their children could grow without fear.
Part Five: The World in Numbers
I am a mathematician. Numbers tell stories that words sometimes cannot.
As of 2025, the world's core Jewish population is estimated at 15.8 million-approximately 0.2% of the eight billion people on Earth. Two-tenths of one percent.
Global Religious Populations (2025):
Christians: 2.4 billion (31% of world population)
Muslims: 2.0 billion (25% of world population)
Jews: 15.8 million (0.2% of world population)
The Ratios:
Christians to Jews: 153 to 1
Muslims to Jews: 127 to 1
Combined (Christians + Muslims) to Jews: 280 to 1
The Arab world specifically comprises approximately four hundred fifty million people across twenty-two countries. Iran alone has eighty-nine million people-nearly six times the entire global Jewish population.
In 1939, the core Jewish population reached its historical peak of 16.6 million. Due to the murder of nearly six million Jews during the Holocaust, this number was reduced to eleven million by 1945.
Eighty-six years later, we have barely recovered to where we were before the Holocaust. The six million murdered are not just the lives taken-they are also the ten million or more who were never born, three generations of absence.
We Jewish people are not alone in disappearing cultures. Native Americans, Aboriginal Australians, the Yazidis, the Uyghurs-when a culture vanishes, humanity loses something irreplaceable.
I am one hundred percent Ashkenazi-unbroken biological strands of honesty and principles, as I like to think of it. My ancestors fled the Middle East to Europe, fled Eastern Europe to the West, fled Europe to America. Every generation has had to find a new home, escape predators. Not all of us made it.
People have said to me, "You don't behave like a typical Jew." Oddly, I always use the adjective "Jewish" to describe myself-except for G-d, three and four letter words usually spell trouble. What, I wonder, does a "typical Jew" behave like? The tropes persist because hatred persists.
Part Six: Over the Years
Over the years, Australia changed-just as the rest of the world changed. The confident multiculturalism of the 1980s gave way to something more fragile. The old hatreds that migrants had fled began to follow them across oceans. The poison of antisemitism, which my parents' generation had hoped to leave behind in Europe, seeped into new soil.
In Australia, attacks on synagogues have occurred from as early as 1920.
Chronology of Synagogue Attacks in Australia:
1920: Beth Yisrael Synagogue, Toowoomba, QLD - Arson (burned for 3 days)
1968: Carlton Synagogue, Melbourne - Vandalism and desecration
1989: Three synagogues in Melbourne - Vandalized with antisemitic slogans
1990: Melbourne synagogue - Petrol bombs
1991: Bankstown Synagogue, Sydney - DESTROYED by arson
1991: Southern Sydney Synagogue, Allawah - Firebombed
1991: Newcastle Synagogue - Bricks thrown
1991: Brisbane Synagogue - Bloodied pig's head placed at entrance
1993: Newtown Synagogue, Sydney - Arson (on anniversary of Kristallnacht)
1995: Adass Israel Synagogue, Melbourne - Arson
1995: West Terrace Cemetery, Adelaide - Over 60 Jewish graves desecrated
2024: Adass Israel Synagogue, Melbourne - FIREBOMBED (Iran-directed)
2024: Sydney kosher restaurant near Bondi - Arson (Iran-directed)
2025: Multiple synagogues - Vandalized with swastikas
2025: Bondi Beach - 15 murdered at Chanukah celebration
The Executive Council of Australian Jewry has tracked antisemitic incidents since 1989. The data shows a dramatic escalation.
Antisemitic Incidents in Australia:
Pre-October 2023 (decade average): ~342 incidents per year
October 2022 - September 2023: 495 incidents
October 2023 - September 2024: 2,062 incidents (316% increase)
October 2024 - September 2025: 1,654 incidents
Antisemitic incidents in Australia remain at almost five times the average annual number before October 7, 2023-the largest spike of any J7 country between 2021 and 2024.
Two days after the Hamas terror attack on Israel that killed more than 1,200 people, about one thousand anti-Israel demonstrators marched through downtown Sydney. Reportedly chanting antisemitic slogans, including "F*** the Jews" and, according to some reports, "Gas the Jews," the demonstrators made their way toward Sydney's iconic Opera House, which was illuminated in blue and white to show solidarity with Israelis.
Historical antisemitism in Australia is not new. In the 1880s through 1900s, anti-Jewish sentiment appeared in newspapers like The Bulletin and Truth. In the 1930s and 1940s, there were restrictions on Jewish immigration, including a twenty-five percent cap on Jewish passengers aboard ships. After World War II, even as Holocaust survivors arrived from displaced persons camps, the Returned Services League and other groups published cartoons encouraging the government to stem the flow of Jewish immigrants.
Meanwhile, documented attacks on Muslims within Australia have been far fewer in number, though hatred touches all communities. The 2005 Cronulla riots saw violence erupt as a crowd attacked people of Middle Eastern appearance-twenty-six people were injured, one hundred four arrested, but no deaths occurred. The deadliest attack on Muslims by an Australian was the 2019 Christchurch mosque shootings in New Zealand, where Australian Brenton Tarrant murdered fifty-one people.
I searched extensively for documented cases of Jewish individuals killing people in Australia through terrorism or hate crimes targeting Muslims or any other group. I found zero.
Part Seven: The Funding of Hatred
I asked who funds the rise of antisemitism. The answer is layered and disturbing.
The Islamic Republic of Iran is the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism, antisemitism, and Holocaust denial. Anti-Jewish hate and incitement have been a core pillar of the Iranian regime, promoted through state media, educational systems, religious sermons, and international propaganda-including Holocaust cartoon contests and annual Quds Day rallies.
Iran funds a massive multilingual propaganda machine to the tune of one billion dollars annually. The New York-based Alavi Foundation is arguably the most prolific actor spreading Iranian regime influence in the United States. With its multimillion-dollar budget, it either directly owns or funds through grants a broad array of mosques and entities nationwide that disseminate Tehran's viewpoint.
The recent Australian attacks demonstrate this directly.
On December 6, 2024, at approximately 4:10 a.m., an arson terrorist attack took place at the Adass Israel Synagogue of Melbourne in Ripponlea. Two men were studying Torah in the synagogue when they heard loud banging. CCTV footage later revealed three masked individuals breaking into the synagogue and spreading accelerant. The resulting fire injured one member and caused significant damage to the building.
On August 26, 2025, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced that ASIO-Australia's intelligence agency-had determined Iran was allegedly involved in planning the attack. Australia's intelligence agency traced money behind the arson attack to Iran's Revolutionary Guards, though the young men accused of carrying it out may not have known who was directing them. A series of "cut outs" were used to conceal Iran's involvement.
As a result, Iranian ambassador Ahmad Sadeghi was expelled from the country and Australia suspended operations of its embassy in Tehran. The IRGC is to be listed as a terrorist organization.
On October 20, 2024, the front door of a kosher deli near Bondi Beach was torched. In August 2025, Australian authorities announced they had determined the Iranian government was behind that attack as well.
Domestically, various foundations serve as fiscal sponsors for campus organizations, allowing groups without tax-exempt status to receive anonymous donations. WESPAC Foundation serves as fiscal sponsor for some NGOs active on campuses, including Students for Justice in Palestine and Within Our Lifetime. WESPAC's sources of income are mostly unknown.
Frequent donors to anti-Israel organizations prior to October 7 include the Sparkplug Foundation, Kiblawi Foundation, Firedoll Foundation, Maximum Difference Foundation, and Tides Foundation. Some donors direct money through donor-advised funds, in some cases anonymously.
The Emergent Fund claimed it "showed up for Palestinian, Muslim, and Jewish organizers demanding #CeasefireNow with over $330,000 to mobilize thousands of protesters." By April 2024, that number had risen to $500,000.
Research presented to the U.S. Department of Justice detailed extensive funding by foreign governments, foundations, and corporations, all of which adhere to and promote authoritarian and antisemitic ideologies. The Communist Party of China funds Confucius Institutes throughout higher education.
Part Eight: The Profiteers of Hate
Consider the antisemitic provocateurs who plaster images with Stars of David to mark Jewish individuals as orchestrators of some grand conspiracy. In the lead-up to Australia's elections, a report by CyberWell documented tweets and images promoting blatant antisemitic conspiracy theories-falsely claiming that Jews were solely responsible for abolishing the White Australia Policy and imposing multiculturalism. The images highlighted Jewish individuals with Stars of David, portraying them as orchestrators of demographic and political change-a long-standing antisemitic trope.
This narrative is rooted in the white supremacist "Great Replacement" theory, which falsely claims there is a deliberate effort-allegedly led by Jews-to replace white populations through mass migration. A related variation, the so-called "Kalergi Plan," asserts that Jewish elites are orchestrating demographic changes to weaken or ultimately eliminate the white race.
Consider the figures like Nick Fuentes-a twenty-seven-year-old white supremacist, Holocaust denier who has compared Judaism to a "transnational gang," called for Jews to have "no place in Western civilization," and repeatedly called for another Holocaust. He attended the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where torch-bearing demonstrators chanted "Jews will not replace us." His "Groyper" followers spread conspiracy theories, deny the Holocaust, and promote antisemitic tropes.
In October 2025, Tucker Carlson gave Fuentes a two-hour platform on his show. Fuentes used it to promote a wide range of antisemitic conspiracy theories and tropes. The interview sparked condemnation from mainstream conservatives including House Speaker Mike Johnson, Senator Rick Scott, and Senator Ted Cruz. Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts initially defended the interview, then later apologized. Several members of Heritage's antisemitism task force resigned in response.
These are not ideologues. They are entrepreneurs of hatred. Their antisemitism has no principles, no genuine conviction-only a business model. Every click, every share, every donation feeds the machine. They are enormously stupid, profoundly deranged, or paid handsomely by those who benefit from chaos-perhaps all three.
And then there is Peter Deane of Gosford, Australia.
On December 30, 2025-just sixteen days after fifteen Jews were massacred at Bondi Beach-Deane was promoting his Change.org petition: "Hold a Royal Commission into the rise of Zionism in Australia." The petition had gathered 3,783 signatures.
The petition text states: "The Jewish only account for 0.44% of the Australian population [2021 census], and yet generate a disproportionate level of noise." It claims "the increasing influence of Zionism" is steering Australia away from "fairness, equality, and multiculturalism."
The imagery accompanying the petition shows the Israeli flag alongside a modified Australian flag with Stars of David replacing the Southern Cross-a classic antisemitic visual trope suggesting Jewish "control" of Australia.
While Jewish families were calling for a Royal Commission into the antisemitism that enabled the murder of their loved ones, Peter Deane was celebrating that his petition to investigate Jews themselves was "the fastest growing change.org petition I've created."
So courageous. Why doesn't he list the names of his "fastest growing support group"? Let them stand proudly in the light, if they believe so deeply in their cause.
But they won't. Because cowards hide. Because hate is always ashamed of itself when the sun rises.
The petition employs every classic antisemitic trope: "disproportionate influence," Jews as a threat to society, the dual loyalty canard, calling for an official government inquiry into Jewish political identity-the same "Jewish Question" that has echoed through centuries of persecution.
And what does the data actually show about Jewish "disproportionate influence" in Australian politics?
Parliamentary Representation (2025):
Muslim Federal MPs/Senators: ~4 (Ed Husic, Anne Aly, Mehreen Faruqi, Fatima Payman)
Jewish Federal MPs/Senators: ~4 (Mark Dreyfus, Josh Burns, Mike Freelander, Julian Leeser)
Total Parliamentary seats: 226
Muslim representation: 1.8% of Parliament (population: 3.2%)
Jewish representation: 1.8% of Parliament (population: 0.46%)
Both communities have exactly four members in federal parliament. Both represent 1.8% of the 226 total seats. Muslims are actually underrepresented relative to their population share. Jews are overrepresented by about four times their population share-but four MPs out of two hundred twenty-six is hardly "controlling" anything.
Fifteen Jews were massacred despite having four MPs. Hardly evidence of "power."
The petition's framing of Jewish political participation as sinister is classic antisemitism-the same civic engagement that would be celebrated in any other minority community is portrayed as threatening when Jews do it.
Part Nine: December 14, 2025
My daughter is now an Australian citizen. When I visited her in August 2024-my first visit was 1984, forty years earlier-she shared with me what it means to be Jewish in Australia today.
On December 14, 2025-the first night of Chanukah-she was on her way to Bondi Beach for the "Chanukah by the Sea" celebration.
She chose to stay home.
That choice may have saved her life.
What started as a joyful holiday celebration attended by families and tourists transformed in moments into a scene of chaos and bloodshed. Two gunmen opened fire on crowds gathered at Bondi Beach, leaving fifteen people dead and over forty wounded. The attack lasted approximately six minutes. More than one hundred shots were fired.
Ages of the victims ranged from ten to eighty-seven.
Among those murdered was Rabbi Eli Schlanger. French citizen Dan Elkayam, twenty-seven, who loved traveling, nature, football, and involving himself in Jewish communal life wherever he went, was also killed. He had represented France in football at the 2022 Maccabiah Games in Israel and arrived in Sydney about a year ago to start work as an engineer. His club, Rockdale Ilinden FC, described him as "an extremely talented and popular figure amongst teammates."
The perpetrators were allegedly Sajid Akram, fifty, who was killed by police, and his son Naveed Akram, twenty-four, who is now in custody. Investigators found the attack was ISIS-inspired. They examined a trip the suspects made to the Philippines a month before the attack-traveling to Manila on November 1, then heading to Davao City on the island of Mindanao, where an ISIS insurgency is ongoing.
Naveed had been known to intelligence officials since 2019 but was deemed "not an immediate threat." As a teenager, he had followed radical Islamic preacher William Haddad and regularly worshipped at Haddad's Bankstown prayer space, the Al Madina Dawah Centre.
The Australian Federal Police commissioner confirmed the pair "acted alone" and "no evidence has been found that the pair were part of a broader terrorist cell." There was no indication that the men "received training or underwent logistical preparation for their alleged attack" during their Philippines trip.
This was Australia's deadliest antisemitic attack and worst mass shooting in nearly thirty years.
Part Ten: Two Heroes
Boris Gurman was sixty-nine years old. He recognized the danger before the massacre fully unfolded. He did not run away. He moved toward it.
He attempted to disarm one of the attackers. His wife followed him.
Both were killed. They were days away from celebrating their thirty-fifth wedding anniversary.
This was not reactive heroism-the kind that happens when you stumble into danger and must fight your way out. This was anticipatory courage: the willingness to absorb risk to spare others from it. Boris Gurman saw the danger, calculated the cost, and chose to pay it anyway.
Ahmed al-Ahmed was forty-three years old. He had come to Bondi that evening for a cup of coffee with a friend. Nothing more.
Ahmed was born in the village of al-Nayrab near Idlib, in northwest Syria-a region marked by decades of conflict and displacement. He left Syria in 2006 after finishing his studies at the University of Aleppo, before the civil war began, before Assad's brutal crackdown, before the world he knew was destroyed. In Syria, he had completed compulsory military service and worked for the interior ministry-training that would prove consequential on a beach half a world away.
He fled tyranny for safety. He opened a fruit shop in Sydney's Sutherland Shire, greeting customers by name. He became a father to two daughters, ages three and six. He became an Australian citizen in 2022.
His parents had only arrived from Syria months earlier, reunited with their son after years of separation. They had survived the Assad regime, survived the civil war, survived displacement. They came to Australia believing it was safe.
When the gunfire erupted, Ahmed did not run away. He crouched behind a parked car, waiting. When one of the shooters ran out of ammunition, Ahmed launched himself at the gunman, wrestled the rifle away, and placed it out of reach.
He was shot multiple times-four or five bullets lodged in his shoulder. They remain there still.
New South Wales Premier Chris Minns visited the injured Ahmed at a hospital in Sydney. "It was an honor to pass on the thanks of people across NSW," Minns said. "There is no doubt that more lives would have been lost if not for Al-Ahmed's selfless courage."
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese also visited. President Donald Trump, speaking at the White House, commended Ahmed's decisive action: "It's been a very, very brave person... who went and attacked frontally one of the shooters and saved a lot of lives."
A GoFundMe campaign for Ahmed raised over $1.5 million from more than forty thousand donors.
Ahmed's father spoke to reporters: "When he did what he did, he wasn't thinking about the background of the people he's saving. He doesn't discriminate between one nationality and another. Here in Australia, there's no difference between one citizen and another."
His uncle in Syria: "He made all Syrians and Muslims proud."
For many observers, the images of Ahmed intervening challenged simplistic narratives about identity and violence. Here was a Muslim of Middle Eastern heritage, acting not out of ideology, but out of a sense of moral obligation and human solidarity, intervening to protect people-many of them Jewish-at a festival of light.
Ahmed al-Ahmed is a modern-day exemplar of what the Talmud teaches: "Whoever saves a single life is considered to have saved the whole world."
Boris Gurman and Ahmed al-Ahmed-one Jewish, one Muslim-both ran toward the same danger. One gave his life. One nearly did. Neither asked who was worth saving.
Part Eleven: The Message
I somehow feel that the message given to Ahmed by his parents is the same message given to me by mine.
My parents were born in 1911. They experienced two world wars and two depressions. They were extremely honest and principled-and quiet. It has taken me eighty years to understand why.
They knew, starting with their parents' flight from Russia, that I would forever be a target of antisemitism. They chose protective silence about their heritage-a pattern I have decided to break in my later years.
I have been envious of friends who actually received guidance from their parents, no less a heart-to-heart conversation. My parents passed away thirty or so years ago, and yet they knew about today. They remained silent and hopeful that my days would be free of antisemitism.
My parents' message was silence. Keep your head down. Don't make waves. That was the survival strategy of their generation.
My message is different: Silence is complicity. Silence is death.
Ahmed's parents taught him to protect the innocent. My parents taught me the same-even if they never said it aloud.
My daughter was on her way to Bondi that night. She chose to stay home. She joins me now with MY message, not my parents' message.
I would hope to be as heroic as Ahmed al-Ahmed given the circumstances. Save innocent lives. Do not ask first what religion they practice or where their grandparents were born.
Is the entire Muslim community guilty as charged? Hardly.
Is the entire Jewish community guilty as charged? Hardly.
Then who is?
The extremists. Most of whom use ordinary people as proxies to foment fright and division-in order to make enormous sums of money. They laugh at and ridicule kindness, for there is no profit in kindness.
Part Twelve: Standing Up
The population of Australians who fled tyranny-whether from Syria, Lebanon, Bosnia, Poland, Hungary, or Germany-did not come to this country to see hatred follow them. They came for the promise that Australia would be different. That their children could grow up without fear. That the old poisons would not seep into new soil.
Australians must stand up-not only to aid Jewish people in this moment of crisis, but to honor Australia's own heritage. The nation was built by watermen who ran toward danger to save strangers. By volunteers who asked no questions before diving into the surf. By migrants who rebuilt their lives on the principle that here, at last, all citizens would be treated equally.
Ahmed al-Ahmed understood this. A Syrian Muslim who fled one form of brutality, he did not hesitate to protect Jewish strangers from another. He did not calculate whether they were "worth" saving. He acted because that is what Australians do.
The Australian government has begun to respond. In July 2024, Jillian Segal was appointed as the country's first Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism. In December 2024, $32.5 million AUD was allocated for Jewish community security. A special counter-terrorism task force, Operation Avalite, was launched. In August 2025, the Iranian ambassador was expelled and the IRGC was listed as a terrorist organization. Stricter hate crime and anti-protest laws were passed in NSW.
But laws alone cannot change hearts.
The watermen of Bondi never hid. They stood on the beach, in the open, ready to run toward danger. They did not ask who was drowning before they dove in.
Part Thirteen: The Light
Seven days after the massacre, twenty thousand people returned to that same blood-soaked sand. They stood in strength and solidarity. They did not mourn in hiding.
Rabbi Yehoram Ulman-father-in-law of the slain Rabbi Eli Schlanger-told the crowd: "In this world, we only have questions. In the next world, we have answers."
And then, with defiant hope: "They started, but we got the last word on Bondi Beach."
Dawn Fraser-Olympic legend, national treasure-stood at the Bondi Pavilion calling for a Royal Commission into antisemitism. More than sixty Australian sports stars signed an open letter demanding action.
Olympic gold medalist Noemie Fox, whose Jewish community lifted up her family when she was growing up in western Sydney, posted a raw and heartfelt video: "My heart is just completely ripped apart for the Jewish community today... and the wider Bondi community, and everyone as a whole. It's really been the Eastern Suburbs community that have lifted up my family, and really taken us in, to keep that part of our culture alive, and I'm deeply grateful to them, and so my heart really breaks for everyone affected by this."
Sydney FC captain Rhyan Grant noted how the Jewish and broader Eastern Suburbs community "all play a big role in our club," and stood in solidarity with those who were injured and lost loved ones.
The Sydney Swans AFL team laid wreaths in front of the Bondi Pavilion. Cricket's Big Bash League announced that all matches in the first round would include a tribute and one minute's silence. The Australian cricket team wore black armbands during the third Ashes Test in Adelaide, and Australian flags were lowered to half-mast.
In Germany, Werder Bremen fans at a Bundesliga match held up a banner: "Globalising the intifada means killing Jews-solidarity with Sydney."
In Israel, Beitar Jerusalem players wore black armbands during their match in solidarity with Sydney's Jewish community.
A sign appeared on the Tel Aviv boardwalk: "From Tel Aviv Beach to Bondi Beach." A painful reminder of how small the world is-and how close the Jewish people are.
I have a great-grandchild. Given the trajectory of the moment, what can I expect for her?
The ADL recorded 9,354 antisemitic incidents in the United States in 2024-the highest level ever recorded in their forty-six-year history. This represents a 344% increase over five years and an 893% increase over ten years. Globally, the Combat Antisemitism Movement documented a 107.7% increase from 2023.
For the first time, thirteen percent of American Jews said they have considered leaving the United States due to antisemitism. Fifty-six percent report changing their behavior out of fear.
The honest truth? I cannot promise her safety. But I can promise her this: we will not be silent. We will not hide. We will stand in the light.
Boris Gurman stood in the light. Ahmed al-Ahmed stood in the light. The twenty thousand who returned to Bondi Beach stood in the light.
Bondi changed my life forty years ago with a surf ski. It is changing my life again with a different kind of lesson-one about who we choose to be when the waves crash down.
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Don't lament. Engage.
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Brian Demsey is the founder and CEO of Hallucinations.cloud LLC, an AI safety company focused on detecting misinformation and AI-generated content. He is also the founder of TASHZA (Defense Against Hallucinations), a nonprofit focused on combating AI-generated antisemitism and misinformation. He is 83 years old, a great-grandfather, and has paddled across the Catalina and Molokai Channels multiple times, most recently on his 70th birthday. His parents were refugees who fled Russia. He is 100% Ashkenazi.