'It'll never be the same': Bondi Beach attack shatters life for Australia's Jewish residents

SYDNEY - The sense of anger is palpable among members of the Jewish community in and around Bondi Beach as it reels from the attack on a Hanukkah celebration that killed 15 people. Mourners attend a memorial on Dec. 21 held for the victims of a shooting at Bondi Beach in Sydney.David Gray / AFP - Getty Images Thousands gather for a candlelight vigil on Dec. 21.Audrey Richardson / Getty Images Alex Ryvchin, co-CEO of the Executive Council of Australia Jewry, stands outside the Bondi Pavilion on Dec. 15.David Gray / AFP - Getty Images Much of their fury is directed at the government, which has been accused of failing to heed warnings about antisemitic threats ahead of the Dec. 14 attack. But there has also been sadness and soul-searching about the place the community has in a neighborhood well known for its Jewish roots, and in Australia’s wider society. Linda Royal said her parents fled Poland after the invasion by Nazi Germany in 1939, arriving first in Lithuania. They landed in Sydney two years later, aided by illegal transit visas issued by a Japanese diplomat. “Like many migrants, they came to Bondi because it was working-class and inexpensive,” she told NBC News last week close to the site of the shooting, on a hill where thousands of flowers had been laid in tribute to the victims. In the years since her parents’ arrival, Royal said, the Jewish community has swelled in the neighborhood and its surrounding suburbs, first with Holocaust survivors and later with refugees known as refuseniks from countries in the former Soviet Union, some of whom had been denied permission to emigrate to Israel. “There was a huge sense of community,” Royal said. “The Jewish community sticks together. We’re constantly unfortunately on the run from persecution.” Australia’s worst mass shooting in decades has “completely ripped us apart,” she said. “It’ll never be the same again.” Authorities have identified the two suspects as 24-year-old Naveed Akram and his 50-year-old father, Sajid Akram. The elder Akram was shot dead at the scene, while his son was charged last week with 59 offenses, including terrorism and 15 counts of murder, after waking up from a coma. Investigators have said the pair were inspired by the ideology of the Islamic State terrorist group. Two homemade ISIS flags were found in the younger suspect’s car , police have said. ISIS has praised but not officially claimed the attack, referring to it in an official publication as “Sydney’s pride.” As well as sadness about the attack, “there’s a great deal of anger, a great deal of rage,” Alex Ryvchin, the co-chief executive officer of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, said via phone on Tuesday. “There’s a sense that not only was the writing on the wall, but the community explicitly and repetitively told the government what was going to happen,” said Ryvchin, who was born in Ukraine before he moved to Australia as a child. The shooting was “a clear escalation from...

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