My 12 year old son, Naftali, called me last Sunday night from a friend’s bar mitzvah at the Bondi pavilion.

“Mum. I am not joking. There is a shooter here. I… I don’t know what to do”.  

I did not for one second think he was joking. It was not because he prefaced the call in a mature, clear voice belying his 12 years that I understood this was no joke. It was not the gunshots ringing out in the background that assured me that this was indeed very real. It was the deep seated knowledge that a serious terrorist attack on the Australian Jewish community was unquestionably inside the realm of possibility.

For the past 805 days we, the Jews of Australia, have repeatedly told the Australian government “We do not feel safe,” and so when my son called me to say there was a gunman (actually there were two), no part of me questioned the veracity of the unbelievable words I was hearing.

The first Shabbat after October 7, my husband was interstate at a conference.

I asked my rabbi if it was okay to carry a phone in a bag on Shabbat as an emergency safety precaution. I did not feel safe walking our local streets, in the heart of Sydney’s Jewish community.  

I began........

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