"Some traditions are getting harder to maintain. Among them, my own custom of devoting the last column before Christmas to reasons to be hopeful. In recent years, amid war and bloodshed, that task has been especially challenging and this week was no exception. It began with the news from Bondi beach, where 15 people were gunned down and dozens more injured, most of them Jews celebrating the festival of Hanukah."
"The global imagination has been captured, rightly, by the heroism of Ahmed al-Ahmed, the passerby who, with no weapon of his own, tackled one of the two attackers, even wresting his gun from him. In an instant, al-Ahmed disproved the very case the gunmen were doubtless trying to make: that Muslims are somehow commanded to see Jews as their enemy, a foe to be destroyed."
"Al-Ahmed was not the only one to feel that urge. Footage has emerged of a retired couple, Boris and Sofia Gurman, both in their 60s, making a similar move, tussling with one of the gunmen and grabbing his rifle. For a moment Boris seemed to succeed, wrestling the man to the ground. But the attacker apparently had another gun, and he used that to shoot Boris and Sofia dead."
Fifteen people were gunned down and dozens injured at Bondi Beach during Hanukah, following a deadly attack on Heaton Park synagogue months earlier, intensifying fear among Jews about gathering. Hanukah's theme of finding light in darkness framed responses to the massacre, and acts of bravery emerged amid the violence. Ahmed al-Ahmed, an unarmed passerby, tackled an attacker and wrested his gun away, demonstrating solidarity across faiths and challenging narratives that Muslims are commanded to hate Jews. Footage also showed retired couple Boris and Sofia Gurman struggling with a gunman and briefly seizing a rifle before being shot dead. These incidents combined horror with moments of human courage and sacrifice.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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