Melbourne’s Jewish school children face the unfathomable after Bondi bloodshed

• Follow our live coverage of the Bondi Beach shooting.

Melbourne’s Jewish children should be waking to the second day of Hanukkah, and celebrating the end of the school year. Instead, they woke on Monday to the bloodshed of the Bondi massacre, a terrorist attack that left 16 people dead, including a 10-year-old girl.

Extra police resources have been deployed to Melbourne’s Jewish community schools and hubs, particularly the Caulfield and Glen Eira areas, in response to the targeted mass shooting at Bondi Beach.

In Sydney, authorities have locked down all Jewish community infrastructure, including synagogues and schools, in response to the massacre. The directive is yet to be extended to Victoria, but the local community is prepared to act quickly.

While many government schools are scheduled to conclude the school year closer to the end of the week, most independent schools, including Jewish ones, have already closed for the summer break.

However, there are still multiple Jewish schools that are due to finish term 4 on Tuesday.

Jewish Community Council of Victoria chief executive Naomi Levin said nothing was proceeding “as usual”, but arrangements were being made to ensure the safety of students and staff at still-operating Jewish schools.

“The best thing that we know we need to do for children is to help them have some degree of normalcy,” Levin said.

“What we have to do as community leadership – with the support of our law enforcement and government – is to make sure that our kids can continue to go to school.

“I find it really challenging to even be considering pulling Jewish kids out of school when every other Australian child can safely go to school without a second thought this morning.”

The flags at Bialik College in Melbourne’s east were flying half-mast on Monday.

Principal Jeremy Stowe-Lindner assured families the school had “best-in-class” security arrangements, including armed guards on-site and a range of discreet security measures.

He advised families to calmly reassure their children their schools were safe, and to reiterate that Jewish identity was a sign of “strength and not of vulnerability”.

“We should create safety without creating paralysis,” Stowe-Lindner said in a community message.

“Trauma research is clear: children need to see adults managing fear, not being consumed by it.”

Sholem Aleichem College principal Reyzl Zylberman said Sunday’s senseless act of violence shook her community. The college believes in proud Jewish expression in the face of hate and antisemitism, she said.

“Especially during this time, which coincides with our festival Chanukkah, we will continue to inspire our students with their traditions and with stories of the strength and resilience of our people,” Zylberman said.

On Sunday night, the first night of Hanukkah celebrations, organisers abruptly ended events at Caulfield Racecourse and Federation Square in Melbourne.

Victoria Police stressed there was “no threat known locally”. However, it said it understood the fear and concern Jewish people would be feeling.

It was the community’s “deepest wish” that other large festivals planned for this week go ahead, Levin said.

‘I feel physically ill at the thought of hearing who it is, because no doubt there’ll be friends, colleagues, family members, either of myself or people who I know.’

Naomi Levin, Jewish Community Council of Victoria chief executive

Premier Jacinta Allan, speaking outside St Kilda Hebrew Congregation on Monday morning, assured the community they would – with close oversight from Victoria Police. “There are Hanukkah events going on all week,” Allan said.

“It’s the perfect opportunity to show love and support for people of the Jewish faith and the Jewish community by attending a Hanukkah event, or indeed, perhaps lighting your own candle in your own home.”

Only a year ago, Levin was standing in front of the firebombed Adass Israel synagogue in suburban Ripponlea and thinking: “It can’t get any worse than this.”

On Sunday night, she said she was dreading hearing the names of the victims of the Bondi shooting.

“I feel physically ill at the thought of hearing who it is, because no doubt there’ll be friends, colleagues, family members, either of myself or people who I know. So, we’re just waiting with absolute dread,” Levin said.

“We just want to live peaceful lives as Jewish people.”

Former federal treasurer Josh Frydenberg issued a damning statement in response to Sunday’s attack, calling it a “tragedy of unimaginable proportions” and saying Australia would never be the same.

“The massacre we have seen at one of our nation’s most iconic landmarks is the culmination of an unprecedented failure of leadership to heed the warning signs that were so obvious to every Australian who opened their eyes,” Frydenberg said in a statement.

The Victoria Police statement on Sunday spoke of the force’s “shock and distress” at events in Bondi, and said police stood with the Jewish community.

It was increasing resources allocated to its Operation Park, established in October 2023 to monitor and co-ordinate investigating offences associated with the Middle East conflict, which are predominantly targeted at Jewish people.

Victoria Police said the statewide operation would involve an increased police presence around places of worship and locations of significance to the Jewish community, including schools, synagogues and community halls.

Allan met with representatives of Melbourne’s Jewish community on Monday morning and condemned Sunday’s massacre as an evil terrorist act driven by antisemitism.

When asked about a pro-Palestine rally planned for this weekend, the premier said: “Now is most certainly not the time to use moments and opportunities to drive division in our community.”

State lower house MP David Southwick, the member for Caulfield, called the Bondi shooting an assault on Jews in Australia.

“This attack was an assault on the very existence of Jews in Australia. Many in the Victorian Jewish community know someone who has been impacted,” Southwick wrote on social media.

“This violence has been escalating over the past two years, and this tragedy represents a devastating peak.”

Federal Labor MP, the member for Macnamara, Josh Burns said in a statement Hanukkah was a festival of “hope, resilience and tradition”.

“But now it has turned into something of unimaginable pain. And our hearts are broken,” Burns said.

“Over the next few days, we will all work together to support one another.”

Victorian Opposition Leader Jess Wilson said she stood with Australia’s Jewish community.

“This repugnant act of targeted violence will cause enormous distress within Australia’s Jewish and broader communities at an already vulnerable time,” Wilson said in a statement.

Victorians, meanwhile, have joined the rest of the nation in answering the call for blood donations to support those injured in the Bondi shootings after the Red Cross made an urgent call for donations – especially of O-negative type blood.

“We are seeing the absolute best of humanity on display in our donor centres today,” LifeBlood’s national spokesperson Jemma Falkenmire told 3AW Melbourne radio.

“We’ve seen about 20,000 people contact us to make an appointment to donate. We haven’t seen that kind of response since the Black Saturday bushfires.”

Falkenmire said some blood had been sent to Sydney from interstate earlier today, and that LifeBlood hoped the rate of people donating would continue as the Bondi patients would continue to need blood for weeks.

With Roy Ward and Alexander Darling

More coverage on the Bondi terror attack

• Updates: Sydney on high alert for further terrorist acts as multiple people killed
• Watch: Incredible footage shows the moment a hero bystander tackles one of the gunmen
• What we know so far: all the details of the mass shooting
• How the world reacted: Global leaders condemn ‘deeply distressing’ attack

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