I was supposed to attend the Hanukkah party on Bondi Beach with my family. We live right across the road from Bondi Beach.
Last minute change of plan, my wife and I decided to stay home and relax – she was nine months pregnant, and we have a six-year-old.
As I was about to start bedtime with my son, I heard shots start to ring out. I knew straightaway what it was, and where it was coming from.
I gave my wife a look and said, “Lock the house – lock our son in the bedroom.” Then I ran outside.
By the time I made it across the street, there was still an active shooter situation ongoing. I followed directions from residents in the apartment above, who had a clear bird’s-eye view. They guided me through what they believed was a safer passage, trying to keep me out of the line of fire.
I could see where the police were returning fire as well, about 20 metres in front of me, behind a car.
‘He was hunting’
I had a direct line [of sight] to the shooter on the bridge. I could see him – I put this very calmly – targeting the Jewish people at the festival. He was not just shooting [indiscriminately]. He was hunting.
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I could see him clearly – and if he had turned about 45 degrees, I would have been directly in his line of fire.
To be honest, I don’t know what made me run towards the horror. It was one of those things where I didn’t have time to think. Growing up in the Jewish community my whole life, that’s just part of who we are. It was very tough to leave my pregnant wife and my six-year-old alone, but we attend these parties every year and there’s always a lot of kids there and a lot of elderly. Given that I am male, if I was there with my family, I would want someone to help us as well, so there really wasn’t any thought.
‘I went in there to help however I could’
I went in there to help however I could, to try and deescalate the situation. Given there were firearms involved, it was a tricky situation to get to where I needed to be safely; I had to wait until the shooters were taken down. Which was a very, very tough few minutes, I might add.
And I think it took way too long, to be honest.
I sat there, with a good vantage point into what was going on.
I knew that he had his sight set on [the Hanukkah party] – which meant that I was in a unique position where I could safely advance without him seeing.
As soon as I noticed the gunmen had been taken down, which I saw in real time, that’s when I ran across the road and jumped the fence. The people at the party were still prone – they were on the floor all lined up, because they didn’t know the situation had ended.
‘It was carnage.’
I was likely among the first, if not the first, to arrive from outside. It was carnage. I looked at a couple of my friends who were working for security services there; we gave each other a look and then we just got to it, doing whatever we could with whatever we could find.
Trying to identify any open wounds, bullet holes, cutting off clothing just to try and find anywhere where there was an open wound that needed to be plugged; just going from person to person and doing whatever we could until the professional services arrived.
The Jewish security and the Jewish health services, the lifeguards who I know personally [from] living in Bondi for over 40 years, they were fantastic and they assisted before any of the paramedics got there as well.
It was a joint effort…one of the people that I administered first aid to, was actually a paramedic that was working at the party himself – he had gunshot wounds.
‘I couldn’t take my hands off the wound’
My wife meanwhile, was obviously very concerned. My phone was in my pocket, but I had my hands completely full, trying to keep pressure on wounds that I couldn’t take my hands off… it might have been about an hour until I was able to talk to her. Once we’d handed over properly with the paramedics, I called to say I’m safe, I’m not hurt, but I just can’t talk right now. Luckily, one of our neighbours came over quickly to help support her, given she was nine months pregnant and anything could happen.
I don’t have a medical background. I own a couple of companies, one in the sporting [industry] and one in technology. But growing up Jewish, we’ve seen tragedies happen, from when I was younger up until the recent times with [the] October 7 events. For better and for worse, none of that [bloodshed and carnage] shocked me. But it was very hard to see when it was people that I knew personally – one of the people I was treating was a good friend.
‘It’s not the Australia that I grew up in’
As a community, we’re heartbroken. At the same time, now as the dust is starting to settle, there’s a lot of anger that is building within the wider Jewish community, as well as the Bondi community as a whole.
What happened should not have happened. And it should have been and could have been avoided.
None of this has shocked me. I have been saying that this was bound to happen, [with the] lack of leadership towards our country.
My view of Australia hasn’t changed, but I’m angrier now. I consider myself a Bondi boy [but] it’s not the Australia that I grew up in. We grew up in a society where it was all about nature – everybody was looking out for everybody else in the community. We did not have this influx of radical Islam when I was growing up. Opening our doors to radical Islam and the ideologies that do not align with our values has brought to our shores something that I’m not sure we can deal back.
The government is weak and has allowed this disease to fester within our country. This was not, as our prime minister stated, a gun problem, with all due respect.
‘This is more than a gun problem’
I understand gun policy, and Australia does have some of the strongest gun laws in the world. But people intent on committing serious crimes operate outside those legal frameworks. In this case, the man had access to six firearms. It raises important questions about how someone on an ASIO watch list – and who had travelled overseas with his father to attend an ISIS training camp – was still able to obtain them.
This is not a gun problem. If anything, I wish that there were more good people that had guns, civilians that had guns in this country to be able to protect us.
Because clearly the people that want to create carnage and murder on our streets, just like we saw 11 years ago to the day or maybe yesterday with the Lindt café siege – people who want to create terror and murder, will obtain a weapon, whether it is a machete, a knife, a firearm, whether it’s illegal or illegal. It’s not a gun problem, it’s an ideology problem, and this is a government that has allowed this ideology to fester within us.
They have been allowed to run rampant on our streets, protesting every single weekend, death to Australia, burning Australia flags.
When you go to a Jewish protest or a Jewish event of any sort, you see both the Israeli flags and you see them side by side with Australian flags. Whenever you go to a pro-Palestinian rally or anything that is of this nature of ideology, they are burning our own flags in our own country.
Let there be light
It’s been a rollercoaster, but to welcome our baby in a time of such darkness – especially during Hanukkah, the Festival of Light – feels deeply meaningful. This child feels like the light our community needed right now. For all of us in this close-knit group, it’s a reminder of why bringing new life into the world matters so much.
Read more: A plea from a member of the Australian Jewish community
