Israeli President Isaac Herzog visited Sydney this week, meeting with bereaved families and survivors, in addition to national leaders, offering public expressions of solidarity after the mass shooting during a “Chanukah by the Sea” event on Dec. 14, when 15 people were killed and dozens of others wounded.
Some people wonder why the incident is still in the news, assuming that it is an inability to move on. But for the victims, families, witnesses and even heroes of that domestic terror attack, moving on isn’t a choice.
As a survivor of terrorism and someone who works with victims around the world, I hear this: Bondi is still being discussed because the attack didn’t actually end that day. The cameras faded. The beach reopened. The news cycle moved on. But survivors, bereaved families and a shaken community are living in what comes after.
And that “after” is exactly what terrorism counts on.
We naturally tend to focus on the actual attack—the chaos it causes, the sirens, the death toll, the manhunt. We talk about intelligence failures and political accountability. In Australia, even media coverage has become part of the national argument, with claims and counterclaims about what agencies knew and when, which will likely be examined further.
All of that matters. But it can become a way of avoiding the harder work.
Because once the dust settles, the real questions begin: Who is staying with the victims when the attention fades? Who is helping the witnesses and first responders who ran toward horror and now can’t sleep? Who is rebuilding a community’s sense of safety so that Jewish life can be public, joyful and unafraid?
Terrorism and targeted antisemitic violence don’t aim only for casualties; they aim for behavior change. They aim to make Jews hesitate before gathering, celebrating, praying or showing up visibly Jewish. The weapon isn’t only the bullet or the bomb; it’s the fear that spreads afterwards. And fear spreads quickly.
It spreads to parents, who now watch crowds differently. It spreads to teenagers, who think twice about wearing Jewish symbols. It spreads to communities that feel a new vulnerability in a place that once felt safe and normal.
That is why “Bondi” isn’t just a location. It’s a warning.
The world sees the front end of an attack and assumes that the story is over. But victims know the truth: The story is only beginning.
In the months after I was severely injured in a terrorist bus bombing in Jerusalem, I discovered what many survivors learn the hard way—that the physical wounds are only the first chapter. The real battle begins later, when your body might be physically safe, but your nervous system is not. When your community expects you to “be fine” because you’re alive. They cannot understand that every time an attack takes place in the world, you are brought back to the exact day and moment of your own experience. When people don’t know what to say, they say nothing.
That silence is isolating. And isolation is where fear grows roots.
That’s why I founded Strength to Strength, because victims need more than sympathy. They need a framework for recovery grounded in peer support, led by those who understand the trauma firsthand.
Bondi should force a similar response in every country where Jews are targeted: Do we have a real recovery system or just headlines?
In the immediate aftermath of the attack, community support efforts and practical assistance were made available locally, including counseling and other support for those impacted. That matters. It’s important. But it’s not the same as a long-term recovery infrastructure that lasts beyond the initial shock.
Here is what I mean by “infrastructure,” and why it is a security issue and not just a social service:
A standing victim-support plan that activates immediately: Not a list of phone numbers, but a coordinated response that includes case management, trauma-care navigation, family support and follow-up.
Long-term support, not short-term gestures: Trauma has a long tail; it’s not a one-size-fits-all. Panic attacks, insomnia, hypervigilance, depression and more don’t always appear in the first weeks. They often surface months and even years later, when the mind finally begins to process what happened.
Community-level recovery, not only individual therapy: After a targeted attack, the “victim” is not only the person impacted by what happened. It’s the family that helps grapple with the after-effects. It’s the community that now carries fear together. Recovery requires peer support, group spaces, youth programming and communal resilience-building so people do not retreat into isolation.
A refusal to normalize Jewish fear: This is the part that requires moral clarity. Not just “we condemn.” Rather, “we will not accept Jewish life lived behind barricades as the new normal.” Because when we normalize fear, we hand terrorists and extremists their biggest victory.
Bondi hasn’t faded from the national conversation for a reason. Survivors are still speaking, often for the first time, about what they saw, what they felt and what they carry with them. That isn’t “dwelling.” It’s a society still coming to terms with the magnitude of what happened.
Now we need to do something with that understanding.
If the lessons become only a political argument about failures, then we will miss the most urgent takeaway—that the true measure of a society is what it does after the attack when there are no cameras and no trending hashtags.
Do we leave victims to carry the trauma alone? Or do we build a culture, community and system that says: “Your recovery matters. Your life matters. You are not alone.”
That is how we defeat fear. That is how we defeat terrorism.
