Published: 18 December 2025
Last updated: 18 December 2025
“I have no words” is in many of the many messages I have been receiving from Australia and from around the world. The words are appropriate because many of us have no words to describe the flow of liminal emotions passing through our systems as we mourn the dead and injured and as we process what the events at Bondi beach mean for the way we live as Jews in Australia.
The thing is that there are words to describe what happened: people were murdered, assassinated, slaughtered, mowed down, terrorised, targeted, terrified, hurt, killed, maimed. There are words to describe the victims: they were Jews, Jewish people, rabbis, and they were celebrating a Jewish festival: Chanukah.
I am finding that the media, many organisations and people expressing their shock and horror do not mention the words above - especially the word Jew or Jewish. Even antisemitic is absent sometimes.
Words matter
I am a publisher, media owner, a humanist and a Jew and I find that each article that espouses generalised platitudes about humanity is insufferable at this point. It negates the individual human experience and the very real stories of each person's experience and suffering as a result of the Bondi massacre.
It's also dangerous. Dangerous because it allows the writer and reader to slip away from the very difficult task of embedding in our emotions and psyche the devastating nature of what has occurred. What's written are flip niceties and they mean many people will just move on rather than addressing the deeper issues we must face - the growth of antisemitism and racism in our Australia.
Imagine one in twenty being slaughtered at Carols by Candlelight. That's relatable.
Comments6
Peter Fenwick6 January at 09:44 pm
Excellent article Karen.
It deserves to be published to a wider audience.
I do not believe that most Australians are anti Jewish. But we all know who are. And they should be held to account. There must be consequences.
Deborah Zion5 January at 11:45 pm
Thank you. A wonderful article.
Debbie Lustig23 December at 09:42 am
Great piece, Karen.
I, too, am baffled by the spineless equivocation and absence of public condolences by our biggest companies and institutions.
On a personal note, I wrote a condolence post on a 3.9K FB group (which wasn’t published). I received the following comment from the administrator: “we have never commented on political matters outside of [conservation] matters and …once we did, we’d have to do so for everything, which we don’t have the capacity to do and manage.”
NB the Yalukit Willam Nature Reserve in Elwood has many Jews among its volunteers.
I’m not sure I’ve ever felt so dismayed. Love of nature never looked so naive and stupid.
Martin21 December at 04:43 am
Correct, it wasn’t an attack just on ‘people’; it was an attack on Jews. And to the killers it wouldn’t matter one hoot whether they killed Australian Jews, Argentinian Jews, American Jews or any other.
Memorial speeches, candle-lighting and being held in an embrace is all well and good, but I want to see Islamic extremists held in handcuffs.
Paula McLean20 December at 08:35 am
Words matter but your words mattered more to me than any others I’ve read this past awful week Thank you.
Lawrie Zion18 December at 09:49 am
Great article Karen