By Ari David Blaff
Sunday, February 15, 2026
SYDNEY—My rabbi in Toronto loves telling stories of
“Yankel” during his sermons. Yankel is his favorite imaginary character, a more
observant version of TV actor and writer Larry David, I picture.
It’s usually through some light-hearted story about Yankel’s life that brings
my rabbi into a discussion of ethics and the Jewish people today.
Ten days after last year’s terrorist attack on Bondi
Beach in Australia, I stumbled across a flesh-and-blood Yankel on the Sydney
boardwalk. Much like the mythical character, Rabbi Yankel Koncepolski is funny
and warm, and he looks like the character my rabbi conjures up in my head:
white wispy beard, balding crown, simple black suit and white shirt who finds
himself at a great crossroads.
When we spoke, Koncepolski was sitting beneath a portable
gazebo in a camping chair just feet away from where two alleged Islamic State
shooters targeted Jews celebrating Hanukkah on December 14, killing 15 people.
It was a hot day. A cool ocean breeze crawled up the
hill, around a massive pavilion, and passed quietly through the gazebo. In
front of him sat a plastic folding table strewn with tefillin, kippahs, and
prayer books. On either side of the structure were pictures of two rabbis
murdered on December 14—Eli Schlanger and Yaakov Levitan—alongside their
families.
One question that preoccupied Koncepolski following the
Bondi attack is one that many Jews–in Australia, America, Canada and across
Europe–are increasingly asking since October 7, 2023: What is the future of the
Jewish diaspora?
“The antidote to antisemitism is semitism: being more
Jewish,” Koncepolski said, attributing the quote to Rabbi Levi Wolff, the
leader of Central Synagogue near Bondi Beach. “ There
was this tremendous arousal from people (who) all of a sudden started
identifying much more, and feeling that they’ve got to
start doing something about that,” he continued.
***
It might seem strange to embrace one’s Jewishness weeks
after the deadliest attack in the history of the Australian Jewish community,
but the sentiment resonates with many. That’s been a mission of Chavi
Block-Israel, a Melbourne-born Jew and Sydney transplant, since October 7. As
some have camouflaged their Judaism–removing mezuzahs from doorsteps or taking
off jewelry–Block-Israel remains committed to promoting a visibly, and
unashamedly, Jewish lifestyle.
“Basically, I’m all into being a proud loud Jew,
unapologetic for who we are and what we stand for,” she said. Following Hamas’
invasion of Israel more than two years ago, she created an organization, The Empowered Jew, that runs
workshops and lectures helping participants “respond to antisemitism,” among
other topics.
Her commitment hasn’t faltered since she and her
7-month-old son survived the Bondi terror attack. In January, Block-Israel
changed her WhatsApp profile picture to a sticker of the late Rabbi Schlanger
emblazoned: “Be, act and appear more Jewish.”
“I love that sticker cause it’s everything that I believe
in,” she said. “I believe that what our enemies want is, they want us to
retreat. And when we show that we are who we are, then we are actually
signalling that we’re here to stay.”
“I can’t even believe I am writing this. I am in shock,
in disbelief. I want to vomit,” she wrote in her own remembrance immediately
after the shooting. “I am bewildered, confused. I leave everything and shove
down to the ground, my brain thinking, No, no, this can’t be happening. I am
in Australia. People don’t have guns. This can’t be happening. I am shoving
my body over my baby. All I want to do is protect my baby. I start saying
Tehillim,” she continued, referring to prayers known in English as psalms.
“My baby is hot and sweaty and crying, earth and mud
going into his teeny little eyes. His face is bright red. He is sweating. He is
screaming,” she continued. Block-Israel and a friend covered themselves with a
nearby crate, sheltering in place. “My brain is half frozen, half speeding. Just
protect my baby, just protect my baby, please, I keep thinking. If the
bullet will come, at least it will come onto me.”
Police officers shot the father-son terror squad at Bondi, killing the elder and injuring, then arresting,
the younger. When the shooting stopped, Block-Israel and her friend ran to the beach,
collecting kids separated from their parents in the chaos. One woman, grazed by
a bullet, had blood streaked across her back. People gathered on the sand. One
offered them water. Onlookers, “some dudes,” she recalled, were “chilling as if
nothing has happened.” Folks were crying.
“This is what happens to Jews,” she told them.
***
Koncepolski’s booth looks out across the bloody triangle
of grass and trees where Block-Israel and her newborn son narrowly escaped with
their lives. It has become a pilgrimage site for Jews struggling to make sense
of the tragedy. While I was visiting, many stopped to pass along their regards
to Koncepolski and share in the collective grieving. It was a rare place since
October 7, 2023: an informally designated safe space to be visibly Jewish.
One twentysomething Jewish woman on holiday from the
United Kingdom said she felt relieved to be around other Jews. She vowed to
pick up a necklace at a nearby Judaica store. Young men stopped and spoke with
Koncepolski, wrapping tefillin while silently whispering the Shema, a daily
prayer many know by heart. A group of young American Jews pulled up on the side
of the road and did a quick prayer before driving to the airport.
Many in the Jewish community here have faulted Australian
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for turning a blind eye to antisemitism as it
has festered across the country. Last year, the Executive Council of Australian
Jewry recorded a spike in antisemitic incidents “almost five times the average
annual number” prior to October 7.
Gentiles came out of sympathy and curiosity, too. Bondi’s
not only the heart of Sydney’s Jewish community but also a national symbol, a
sacred surf site and home to a reality
television show about the beach’s legendary
lifeguards. Koncepolski saw many milling on the now-infamous bridge,
a vantage point from which one of the perpetrators stood atop and aimed his
rifle at Jews of all ages.
“ Of
the older non-Jewish people that I met there, it was clearly an overwhelming
disgust with the prime minister for the whole thing and the blame was right on his head,” Koncepolski said of people he met on the Bondi bridge. “It was clear to me, to nearly everybody, that the atmosphere
that [Albanese] had created since the seventh of October was one which
emboldened the Muslim militants to feel they could do whatever they wanted. And
that’s what they believe created this result.”
Among the worst episodes of pre-Bondi antisemitism have been hundreds of
pro-Palestinian demonstrators flocking to the Sydney Opera House days after
October 7 chanting, “Where’s the Jews?” and “F— the Jews” while burning Israeli
flags; a kosher deli in Bondi being set aflame; a Melbourne synagogue built by
Holocaust survivors being torched; and two
Australian nurses boasting they would not care for
Israeli or Jewish patients.
When Albanese attended a memorial service at Bondi in
December, he was widely booed.
Some attendees confided privately that while they understood the antipathy
Albanese inspired, the display reflected poorly on the community and was
unbefitting of the office he represented. In early January, Albanese relented,
following weeks of pressure from Australian Jews, and appointed a royal
commission to undertake a detailed study of the drivers of antisemitism in the
country.
But many Australian Jews believe the country’s political
and security leaders are wholly unprepared for the challenge. David Cohen, the
chief executive of a risk management firm that works with law enforcement agencies and critical
infrastructure crews on identifying threats, immigrated with his family from
South Africa four years ago. He thought it was only a matter of time before an
antisemitic attack happened.
“ I’ve always maintained that, particularly knowing what I know in
the industry in which I work and seeing the vulnerabilities, that an attack was
imminent,” he told me.
Cohen and his family stumbled upon the Hanukkah event on
December 14 at Bondi by chance, and Cohen was troubled as soon as he entered
the space. Security was lax, he remembered. Asked why he was attending during a
screening check before entering, he gave intentionally vague answers but
received no pushback. It was “a massive red flag for me,” he said.
Then shots rang out, and he saw someone shot in the head.
His family ran to their car for shelter and eventually made it home safely.
Photos taken shortly before the attack show his son in a blue shirt and
white-and-red baseball cap popping water bubbles beside a 10-year-old girl in a
yellow dress and blue facepaint. Matilda, as she is now known across Australia,
was the youngest
fatality.
Cohen isn’t optimistic law enforcement at either the
state or federal level is prepared. He spoke of Bondi as “the natural next
step” in a chain of events since October 7.
“ I
believe that the infrastructure in Australia is very, very lax,” he said. “There’s an
Australian saying: She’ll be all right, mate.
Don’t worry about it; it’ll be fine; it’ll be okay,” he said. “ We don’t have
tactical experience. We don’t have tactical knowledge.”
He’s cautiously encouraged by the government considering
the prospect of banning the chant, “Globalize the Intifada,” empowering
local authorities to crack down on so-called “hate preachers,” and pledging to
curtail public protests for “a summer of calm.”
 |
David Cohen's son, in the blue shirt, plays at Bondi Beach on December 14, 2025, just before the attack began. Next to him is Matilda, the youngest victim of the attack. (Contributed photo) |
***
Australians remain divided over how to define
antisemitism, how to protect Australian Jews, and how to make meaningful
change. That includes whether banning speech would undercut the ability of pro-Palestinian demonstrators to organize, which
risks conflating legitimate protests with violence.
These debates exploded in January when Palestinian
Australian author Randa Abdel-Fattah was disinvited from Adelaide Writers’ Week, one of the most prestigious
literary events in the country. The festival board noted “her past statements”—without
specifying which comments were deemed
controversial—and cited the need to be “culturally sensitive” following Bondi.
Pushback was immediate. More than 150 participants pledged
to boycott the event. Writers who did not support Abdel-Fattah have been
harassed,
and the controversy triggered the resignation of festival director Louise Adler, a notable anti-Zionist
Australian Jew.
So what did she say?
In March 2024, she proclaimed,
“If you are a Zionist, you have no claim or right to cultural safety” and vowed
to make “every space Zionists enter is culturally unsafe.” The previous month,
Abdel-Fattah shared a link doxxing hundreds of Australian Jewish creatives. (Neither Abdel-Fattah
nor Adler responded to multiple requests for comment.)
***
Although life for Australian Jews has been anything but
calm since Bondi, my week in Sydney was restorative, a moment to reconnect with
Judaism after months away from a Shabbat table or a synagogue.
Bondi made me more Jewish, more proud to stand beside my
people. I bought a Chai necklace, a Hebrew word denoting life, at a nearby
Judaica store before leaving Sydney. Its lettering is etched with the pattern
of the limestone blocks that make up the Western Wall in Jerusalem. Running my
fingers across its silvery bumps reminds me how small the Jewish world is. An
extended family whose strangers are, at most, 2 degrees separated.
As all rabbis are seemingly commanded to do, Koncepolski
asked what my wife and I were doing for Shabbat. We had no plans, and he
promptly invited us to join him at Rabbi Wolff’s congregation at Central Synagogue. We exchanged
phone numbers and agreed to meet shortly before services and walk over
together.
But Koncepolski is a Where’s Waldo? kind of
figure. He can be picked up by the winds and you might not know where you’ll
meet him again. We knocked on his door at the designated time, but no one
answered. Fortunately, it was just down the street from the synagogue, and we
walked up hoping to meet him there. A female congregant dressed as a security
guard met us in the front and rattled off a series of security questions.
What type of Jewish stuff do you do in your life? What
congregation do you belong to? What is the reason for your visit?
The shul was beautiful, rebuilt following an electrical fire in
the 1990s. It was modern and glassy, unlike any Orthodox synagogue I’d seen.
Our timing was good: We ran into Koncepolski just through the main doors.
The congregation had a large South African contingent,
and we met members of the all-male choir, an unusual sight in observant North
American shuls. I wrapped tefillin before services and met the tenor who had
just finished. He asked what our plans were for New Year’s and, once more, we
said we had none. Again, we exchanged contact information and received an
invitation. My wife and I parted ways before the service. She walked up to the
airy balcony with the women, while I stayed on the ground and joined the men.
It was hard to follow the service: The tunes and page
numbers were different than the ones I know. My mind wandered around the prayer
hall. A large glass window notched out of the ceiling let natural light seep
in. Drifting clouds, just blocks away from the ocean, passed overhead. I
scanned the crowd, looking at congregants’ faces, wondering what Bondi meant to
them and what future they saw for themselves. I spotted my wife tearing up in
the balcony as the choir sang with the guidance of a white-haired conductor.
Rabbi Wolff graciously invited us back to his place for
dinner, and we walked over with Koncepolski. It was a small gathering, the day
after Christmas, when schools and work were closed and many were on vacation.
Yet, it felt like a Shabbat at home. We went around the table, in what seems to
be a universal Jewish custom, and spoke of our weekly inspiration. We talked
about life since Bondi, community healing, the rabbi and rebbetzin meeting with
victims’ families, funerals, and how antisemitism in Canada compares.
The tenor lived around the corner from the shul in an
apartment with an unobstructed view of the harbor. We arrived two hours before
the fireworks with a bottle of cheap champagne and were swept up in a whirlwind
of life and kids and South Africans. Young girls were gossiping in the
daughter’s bedroom. Mean Girls was playing in the background; the
teenagers across the hall barely bothered to look up when we were introduced.
We grabbed a seat on the balcony where the fathers were
drinking and talking life. The whiff of the earlier braai,
a traditional South African barbecue and hangout, still clung in the air. Wives tried
selling off a mountain of leftovers, which the host’s fridge couldn’t
accommodate. Ahead of the massive New Year’s celebrations, a minute
of silence was held for the victims of Bondi. A blue
and white image of a menorah was projected onto the city’s bridge. We strained
to see the commemoration but saw nothing from our view. Kids came running in,
crying and breaking up conversations.
Many were survivors of the Bondi attack. Cohen was there
with his family. Another father, Wayne Miller, an expert in making piña
coladas, carried his small daughter, rocking her in his white linen shirt. He
showed us a scar on the top of her hand where a bullet had grazed her. We
counted down from 10 as midnight approached. It was a magical week. We bumped
into congregants around the neighbourhood, shared shavua tov wishes and
considered moving our lives here. My people, on the other side of the globe.
Only a Jew, I thought, could meet a stranger on a beach and know with
certainty, absolute certainty, that a place at a Shabbat table would be
found.
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