Hate targets innocence

What Australia witnessed at Bondi Beach in Sydney on Sunday was horrific beyond words.

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What should have been a peaceful community gathering to mark the first night of Hannukah turned into a scene of terror, bloodshed, and grief. More than a thousand people had assembled to celebrate light and hope. Instead, at least 15 innocent people were killed and many others injured when a father-son duo, heavily armed and dressed in black, opened fire on the crowd. Australian authorities have rightly described the massacre as a terrorist attack. One of the attackers was shot dead by the police; the other, his son, has been arrested. The dead include a respected rabbi and organiser of the event, who was also a Holocaust survivor. The symbolism of that loss alone underlines the unmistakably antisemitic nature of the crime.