Before the Bondi Beach massacre, Jews said an attack was coming. They weren’t believed

Among Jews responsible for the safety of their community, there was a feeling before the Bondi Beach massacre their fears a big attack was coming weren’t taken seriously.

Thursday’s report from the Royal Commission into Anti-Semitism and Social Cohesion suggests they were right.

In what is otherwise mostly an already-known timeline of events before and after December 14, the report reveals failed attempts by the Community Security Group — a Jewish self-protection organisation — to get a sizeable police presence at the Chanukah by the Sea festival where 15 people were slain in a park overlooking one of the world’s most-famous beaches.

Six days earlier the Jewish group told the NSW Police Force a terrorist attack was “likely” and asked for protection by armed officers for the whole event, which was expected to attract about 1000 people. Among the attendees was Golda Dunn, a Russian-Australian who was 2m from the man who organised the event, Rabbi Yaakov Levitan, when he was shot dead.

Before that day, Ms Dunn was one of the many Jews who watched nervously as anti-Israel protesters marched every weekend through central Sydney and Melbourne, turning the cities into no-go zones for people like her.

“The people didn’t take the threat seriously,” she said today. “We had all these protests and everything and nothing happened.”

‘Feel safe’

Emails published in today’s report show police commanders in Sydney’s eastern suburbs did not believe an attack on any of the Chanukah events being held in Sydney’s Jewish heartland was likely.

One unnamed inspector told a subordinate to “take a car crew or two with you” to Bondi. Not for protection of families, but public relations.

“Your presence will ensure the community feel safe,” the officer wrote.

To be fair on the police, an outgunned few bravely moved through rifle and shotgun fire and fought back with pistols. They saved lives.

Neither is there is any indication officers with responsibility for Chanukah events in Sydney’s Eastern suburbs were provided with specific information about a terror threat.

After the Newtown Synagogue in Sydney was set alight January 11, 2025, the danger may have seemed to be receding. After two years of protest, graffiti and abuse, no one had died or been seriously injured.

Investigations by the NSW police terrorism investigations squad fell 30 per cent in 2025. The Dural Caravan plot turned out to be a hoax. Even reported incidents to a Jewish-run database of anti-Semitic incidents showed a 20 per cent drop.

Counter-terrorism teams

As everyone would soon realise, the quasi-calm was deceptive. The intelligence agencies either did not know, or did not alert the NSW police, that a father-and-son team were stockpiling weapons and visited Mindanao, an Islamic radicalism hot spot in the Philippines.

A discussion about the intelligence services is confined to a confidential section of today’s report. But commissioner Virginia Bell does call for more information sharing between among Joint Counter-Terrorism Teams, which include police forces and ASIO, about firearms ownership and international travel.

No senior public servant told the inquiry that urgent legal changes are necessary to prevent another massacre. Which means that something went wrong within a system created to do that.

If Ms Bell cannot explain what, she will have failed.

As for Australia’s Jews, they were horrified but not surprised. David Ossip, the president of the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies, said anti-Semitism has a cycle: hateful rhetoric followed by attacks on property and possessions that culminates in physical violence.

“To be Jewish is to be student of our own history and it is the same pattern repeating,” he said. “It was just a matter of time.”