‘A day when evil truly walked this Earth’: Sydney’s Jewish community grieves Hamas attack, one year on

An early morning vigil has been held at Bondi Beach on the anniversary of October 7 Hamas Terror attack in Israel. Members of the Jewish community, dignitaries, MPs and survivors were in attendance.

Vigils are being held in Sydney for the victims of the October 7 Hamas terror attack that saw 1200 Israelis killed and more than 250 taken hostage in the largest loss of Jewish life in a single day since the Holocaust.

Memorials began on Monday with sunrise prayers at Biddigal Reserve in North Bondi, the grassroots gathering organised by the local Israeli Jewish community and attended by NSW Senator Dave Sharma.

“My message to Israeli communities in Australia and, indeed, around the world is that Australia stands with you,” he told Channel 7’s Sunrise.

“We stand alongside you as you mourn your victims. We pray very much for the recovery of those 101 hostages still being held by Hamas in Gaza.”

On Sunday evening, dignitaries, MPs and terrorism survivors, together perched on white chairs overlooking Sydney Harbour, grieved the anniversary of Hamas’ terror attack in one of the world’s first vigils – fewer than 10 kilometres but worlds away from the day’s pro-Palestine rally.

At a sunset memorial in Rose Bay, 1 year since the attack on the Nova Festival in Israel, Sydney’s Jewish community mourns. Picture: Thomas Lisson

In a solemn, emotional and private ceremony at Rose Bay, members of the Sydney Jewish community and Israeli embassy in Australia paid tribute to those killed, injured and taken hostage in the attack.

Jewish Board of Deputies president David Ossip said October 7, “was a day when evil truly walked this Earth”.

“We are still processing this modern-day pogrom.”

Survivor Michal Ohana lit a three-metre tall sand-sculpted candle “to bring the light, and bring hope” as the sun set over the city.

In the long hours of October 7 2023, the 27-year-old Israeli woman barely survived Hamas’ murderous attack on the Nova music festival, shot in the leg by the terrorists as she hid beneath an IDF tank.

Members of Sydney’s Jewish community gathered in Rose Bay for the private vigil. Picture: Thomas Lisson

“I was just there, bleeding. I called my mum, I said ‘mum, I love you, but I think I’m going to die’,” she said.

Ms Ohana lost ten friends that day. Two others were taken hostage, and remain in Gaza.

Sydney woman Melissa McCurdie also lost members of her family, her cousin’s husband’s family killed in their beds in kibbutz Be-Eri. Seven were taken hostage. One remains captive.

The response in Australia – and in Sydney – “scares” her – as a Jewish migrant, she “never believed that we would feel anxious” to wear the Star of David.

“It is unbearable that this could happen in our lifetime, when we so fervently hoped and believed that the Holocaust was not going to happen again,” she said.

“The level of anti-Semitism (in Australia) since then is shocking – my late mother came from pre-war Poland … and in a strange way, I’m grateful my mother isn’t around to see what happened.”

Michal Ohana lights the candle at the Sunset Memorial for 1 year since the attack on the Nova Festival. Picture: Thomas Lisson

Former senator Nova Peris, who gave a welcome to country, took aim at anti-Israel protesters who co-opt the language of Indigenous oppression to suit their own cause in a manner that is “hugely” personal to the Aboriginal Olympian.

“To deny Israel and Jewish people’s connectedness to that land is a huge mistruth, and it must stop,” she said.

Originally published as ‘A day when evil truly walked this Earth’: Sydney’s Jewish community grieves Hamas attack, one year on