Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan booed and heckled while attending Hanukkah event
Updated ,first published
Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan was booed and heckled at a Hanukkah event in Caulfield.
The Prime Minister attended the Caulfield Shule on Monday night along with most of his cabinet ministers, Opposition Leader Jess Wilson and federal MPs from across the political divide.
Despite this gesture of non-partisan support for the Jewish community in the wake of the Bondi massacre, the community greeted Allan with hostility.
Wilson, by contrast, received warm applause. The loudest applause was reserved for members of CSG, the Jewish community security group that protects Jewish events, schools and places of worship.
It comes as Melbourne’s Jewish community expressed its anger and deep sorrow for the victims of the horrific attack on Bondi Beach.
At a Hanukkah celebration in St Kilda’s Renfrey Gardens, Rabbi Effy Block lit menorah candles less than 24 hours after people celebrating the same festival in Bondi were murdered.
“We cannot be ashamed,” he said.
“We must remain proud. We have no choice.”
Block’s friends and colleagues were among the 15 killed; among them Eli Schlanger, assistant rabbi at Bondi Chabad; Rabbi Yaakov Levitan, secretary of the Jewish organization Beth Din; and businessman Reuven Morrison.
“This is what my slain colleagues in Sydney want us to do – to come out stronger rather than cower and cancel event after event.”
Her sister, Chavi Block, was at Bondi’s Chanukah by the Sea celebration with her six-month-old son chatting to her friend about her weekend beach plans. “Everything was beautiful,” he said before hearing ‘fireworks’. The sky was empty.
Security then shouted “Down, down, down” and the woman tried to protect her as she slumped her body over her baby and screamed.
“No, no, this can’t be happening. I’m in Australia. People don’t have guns. This can’t be happening,” Block remembers thinking.
People ate latkes and donuts, children played in the zoo and armed security guards were on hand at the small Hanukkah celebration in St Kilda.
Local Deborah Leiser-Moore, who was home from work on Monday, said while the event was a bit saddening, nothing should stop her from celebrating. He had planned to bring his grandson to the event, but the family decided not to come.
Denise Fradkin said she felt incredibly saddened and horrified by what happened in Bondi.
“It will never be the same again,” he said.
Addressing the crowd, Rabbi Block asked why they lit Hanukkah candles after dark.
“Because we understand and accept that darkness exists in the world,” he said.
“We don’t ignore it, we don’t say it doesn’t exist. We embrace it. We understand that we live in a difficult world; that is exactly the message of Hanukkah. We, each of us, have a duty to enlighten the world with goodness to eliminate evil,” he said.
At the Pillars of Light event in Federation Square on Monday, Rabbi Gabi Kaltmann remembered Reuven Morris, who lived between Melbourne and Sydney, as a man who “single-handedly built the Cabad Bondi Synagogue” and came to Australia in search of a better life.
“He was such a beautiful man. You would see him and he would greet you with his Australian-Russian accent and shake hands and hug you with that amazing smile, he would light up the room,” Kaltmann told the ABC. “He would tell you that you were doing well and everything was fine.”
Morris is survived by his wife, daughter and grandchildren.
Speaking to the small crowd of dozens of people surrounded by police, Kaltmann described Sunday’s scenes as unimaginable.
“This is something unthinkable, unimaginable, something straight out of our worst nightmares. It’s something we, as Australians, read about in the press, something that’s happening in faraway lands and countries, not on our beautiful sun-kissed shores,” he said.
Calling for a moment of silence to honor the victims, Kaltmann said the Jewish community would not be forced to surrender or hide their “Jewishness” in the wake of this tragedy.
In Ripponlea, where the Adass Israel synagogue was bombed in a targeted attack in December 2024, locals were outraged by what they saw as a failure of governments and the wider Australian public to respond to, or even recognize, the growing threat of antisemitism.
“I keep hearing that we’re paranoid and somehow exaggerating these threats. But that’s why we have security guards outside schools and synagogues. People don’t seem to believe us,” said a Jewish man who asked to remain anonymous.
“There’s a tragedy in Sydney and suddenly cops are walking up and down the street and concerns are rising, but none of this was a surprise. It was expected,” he said.
A woman from Caulfield, who asked to be named Lyla, said Melbourne’s Jewish community felt vulnerable and unsupported.
“It feels like we’re back in 1939 and not enough is being done to protect us. We don’t need to hide. The people you expect to have your back are doing nothing,” he said.
His friend Simon, who declined to give his surname, said most people were indifferent to the increase in anti-Semitic attacks facing Jewish people in Melbourne.
“We need Australia’s support. We need people to stand in solidarity with the Jewish community. This is happening and we need people to believe us,” he said.
Local barista Eli Leibler, who wears a kippah and shield of David to work every day, said he’s proud to speak on behalf of his community.
“While I am grateful for the support and love from our community, we experienced the same thing on October 8th. [the day after Hamas terrorists attacked Israel in 2023]and again on December 6 [Adass Israel] The synagogue was set on fire. It’s over now. “And I think the Jewish people are starting to be told what antisemitism is,” he said.
“There is enough anger and enough pain. But if I had one message, it would be this: We are a forgiving nation, but not a forgetful people. Countless civilizations have come and gone. We have suffered and thrived under them, but we are not resentful. We look forward to being embraced and continuing to thrive in Australia,” Leibler said.
He said his café has always been a crossroads for Jewish, non-Jewish, secular and Orthodox communities and a refuge for all.
Jewish Community Council of Victoria chief executive Naomi Levin encouraged her community, with support from police and government, to ensure their children go to school.
“While all Australian children were able to go to school safely this morning without a second thought, I find it really difficult to even consider removing Jewish children from school.”
Just a year ago, Levin stood in front of the firebombed Adass Israel synagogue and thought: “It can’t get any worse than this.”
He said he was afraid to hear the names of those killed in the Bondi attack on Sunday night.
“We just want to live in peace as a Jewish people.”
Federal Labor Party’s Macnamara member Josh Burns said in a statement that Hanukkah was a festival of “hope, resilience and tradition”.
“But now it has become unimaginable pain and our hearts are broken,” Burns said. “Over the next few days we will all be working together to support each other.”
State MP David Southwick, Member for Caulfield, described the attack as “an attack on the existence of Jews in Australia. Many people in the Victorian Jewish community know someone affected,” he wrote on social media.
“This violence has been on the rise for the past two years, and this tragedy represents a devastating climax.”
Victoria’s former governor, Linda Dessau, the first Jew to hold the post, echoed a similar sentiment on Monday.
“Some of the things we feared most have now happened. And I think the time has come when we see, in the country’s worst terrorist attack in our history, that the stakes are too high for us to fool ourselves about what’s going on here. Over the last two years, there has been a tolerance for antisemitism and hatred, often under the guise of freedom of expression,” he said on radio station 3AW.
“The Jewish community is grieving deeply at this time. They are horrified, they are hurt, they are heartbroken. But this should make every Australian feel the same way.”
Meanwhile, Victorians have responded to a nationwide appeal for blood donations to support those injured in the shooting.
The response was immediate and overwhelming. By Monday afternoon blood donation centers in Melbourne’s CBD and Caulfield were nearly full for the week.
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Nicole Precel is an education reporter for The Age. He was previously an audio video producer. He is also a documentary producer. Contact Nicole.precel@theage.com.auConnect with: excitement, Facebook or email.
Chip Le Grand leads our state politics reporting team. He had previously served as the newspaper’s chief correspondent and was a journalist with 30 years of experience.Connect via email.
