#bondi-attack

#bondi-attack

New South Wales police said public order and riot squad officers would carry the weapons at the fifth and final Ashes Test, which starts on Sunday at the Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG), after similar measures were implemented at the Boxing Day Test in Melbourne and New Year's Eve events in Sydney. Police said the decision was not due to any active or imminent threat.

The issue there is that royal commissions can be good at deciding facts. What the Richardson review will do is decide facts. Where royal commissions are not as good, is to consider things that are not agreed, where people have differences of views, and to enable, which is what it would do, a repetition of some of the worst developments, he said.

Threats and hate speech against Muslim Australians have surged in the wake of the Bondi beach attack, with one mosque receiving dozens of offensive phone calls and reports of people being targeted in the street. As Australia's Jewish community deals with trauma from the attack that killed 15 people at a Hanukah event, religious leaders say societal and political divisions has led to other groups being targeted by hatred.

Our hanukiah is ridiculous. I love it precisely for its absurdity; a chunky, oversized piece designed by a dear friend and crafted from aircrete. It looks like a forgotten set piece from The Flintstones. In a family home that also contains challah covers, mezuzahs, kippot and Shabbat candles, our menorah is easily the most overtly Jewish thing we own. Its presence badges us immediately. Brash and proud.

The Bondi attack was an unutterably cruel event, all the more horrifying for being ours, and we can't stop ourselves saying so. It is a sword that fell on the necks of two sets of Australians. Yet again, young Australian Jews will be asking parents why they are hated, and that is heartbreaking. In a different sense, so will young Muslims.