Moving Forward: The Bondi Chanukkah Attack Collection

To start this article, I wish to provide a short disclaimer. This massacre is defining in Australian history; it deserves a complex and respectful account which cannot be put into proper words. On this point, it is important for readers to understand the severity and irreversible pain this attack has caused. I cannot do it justice as this article’s purpose is to speak on the efforts of the Australian Jewish Historical Society to preserve and immortalised the public’s memorialisation of the events, so the following is a brief description. I encourage readers to engage in further research on this attack and impact as more details come out over the investigation.

On the first night of Chanukkah, 14 December 2025, the Jewish community gathered on Archer Park close to Bondi beach to celebrate the beginning of this significant holiday.  It was during this celebration; a terrorist duo attacked the gathered group resulting in the death of fifteen people and injury of over forty people. It was classified as a terrorist attack the day of the attack, a planned antisemitic terror attack targeting a peaceful public celebration of a Jewish holiday. It’s shaken the Jewish community and all of Australia.

After this attack, members of the public, international organisations and politicians all reached out in support of the victims and the Jewish community by creating a memorial to lay flowers, gifts, candles and notes to memorialise the casualties in the community. These gifts being left in various places across Bondi Beach including the Pavillion, the beach walkway and the beach foot bridge. After a week of these donations being placed multiple Jewish organisations including AJHS, Sydney Jewish Museum, Jewish Communal Appeal, as well as various volunteers and Waverly Council members collected and preserved the donations.

As an employee of AJHS, I felt it was very important to show support during this terrible time that struck the community. I was invited to assist in the collection process, starting at 5 am on the 22 December 2025. There was a variety of materials left; however, the priority of the Australian Jewish Historical Society was to collect paper materials. This included letters, notes, posters and pictures. There were a few issues during collection being the impending rainfall, the mass donations left and hidden or attached notes. Collecting all notes resulted in over 1500 separate pieces of ephemera. These included messages of condolences, prayers, respects and support from the public, politicians such as the Premier Chris Minns and former Prime Minister John Howard, as well as international organisations such as Israeli, Asian and New Zealand organisations.

However, the work did not end with collection at Bondi. As all letters were wet from the rain, the collection was moved into a space rented by SJM on William Street to be spread out and dried to ensure messages were no longer fragile and clear enough to read. After a week of drying, they were collected and moved into the AJHS repository to be cleaned. Due to the rain, location and flowers left around the notes, majority of the notes were dirty. Another group of volunteers partook on the cleaning aspect, dusting and placing these notes into mylar sleeves. Although a tedious job, it was a great privilege to be given the opportunity to look through these letters of support and condolences from various groups of people to the Jewish community.

The heartwarming messages brought light to a difficult task, representing the strength of not only the Jewish community, but Australia as a whole, showing up for one another in such a distressing time.

AJHS recruited a further group of volunteers to digitise these letters. Over a couple of days, multiple people including high school students recruited from St John XXIII Catholic Learning Community, and Emanuel School scanned these documents to our database. They were each labelled, numbered and titled to make them searchable and accessible when transferred into our database then onto our website, where these will be accessible to the public to view.

AJHS has also been collecting notes from other memorials left around Australia such as the Great Synagogue in Sydney and the Penrith community; this collection is not stagnant but will continue to grow and progress as more donations are given to AJHS and digitised for the database.