SYDNEY, Australia — An Australian inquiry opened public hearings Monday into an antisemitic shooting that killed 15 people at a Jewish Hanukkah event on Sydney’s Bondi Beach last year.

The federal royal commission — the highest level of government inquiry — was called to probe factors leading to the attack by two gunmen on Jewish families at Australia’s most famous beach in December.

Public hearings began with members of Sydney’s Jewish community talking about their experience of antisemitism.

“The sharp spike of antisemitism that we have witnessed in Australia has been mirrored in other Western countries and seems clearly linked to events in the Middle East,” inquiry chief Virginia Bell said in opening remarks.

“It’s important that people understand how quickly those events can prompt ugly displays of hostility towards Jewish Australians simply because they are Jews.”

The inquiry has received thousands of submissions about the impact of “one of society’s oldest hatreds,” said the counsel assisting the inquiry, Zelie Hegen.

Sheina Gutnick, whose father Reuven Morrison was killed in the Bondi attack, told the inquiry there had been a shift in antisemitism since 2023, when the Gaza war began with the Hamas terror group’s October 7 mass onslaught.

“Antisemitism was allowed to come into the open,”........

© The Times of Israel