The NYPD has increased its presence at public Chanukah celebrations and synagogues after a pair of gunmen killed 16 people at Australia’s Bondi Beach, as New York City elected officials condemned the attack Sunday.
NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said that the police haven’t found any specific credible threats but will be increasing security out of caution at Chanukah-related events, menorah lightings and Jewish houses of worship in all five boroughs.
“You will see an enhanced uniformed presence, specialized patrols, heavy weapons teams, community affairs officers, counterterrorism resources and bomb squad deployments where appropriate,” she said. “I’m going to be blunt. This is not an isolated incident. It is part of a wider assault on Jewish life, an environment in which hatred far exceeds rhetoric and erupts into horrifying acts of violence.”
“Innocent souls were taken by vile antisemitism and hate,” Mayor Adams said on X Sunday. “May their memories be a blessing.”
Benny Polatseck / Mayoral Photography Office
Mayor Adams and NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch hold a security briefing at One Police Plaza on Sunday to discuss Hanukkah security after the terrorist attack in Australia. (Benny Polatseck / Mayoral Photography Office)
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese called Sunday’s shooting an act of antisemitic terrorism.
Police fatally shot one of the gunman, while the second, who was arrested, was in critical condition, Australian authorities said. At least 38 people were confirmed wounded, including two police officers, said Mal Lanyon, the police commissioner for New South Wales state.
“This attack did not come out of nowhere. It came out as the consequences of Islamic extremists, and we have to be clear on that,” Adams said at a press conference at NYPD Headquarters Sunday.
He said one of the victims, a rabbi, had ties to Crown Heights and pointed out that another was a Holocaust survivor.
“Let me say that again, a rabbi and a Holocaust survivor killed for being Jewish,” he said.
Adams also took a veiled swipe at Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, saying, “That attack in Sydney is exactly what it means to ‘globalize intifada,’” he said, referring to a slogan that became a flashpoint in the mayoral election. Mamdani early in his campaign declined to condemn that rallying cry embraced by some pro-Palestinian activists but later agreed to discourage its use.
On Sunday, Mamdani decried the attack of a “vile act of antisemitic terror” and vowed to keep Jewish New Yorkers safe.
“This attack is merely the latest, most horrifying iteration in a growing pattern of violence targeted at Jewish people across the world. Too many no longer feel safe to be themselves, to express their faith publicly, to worship in their synagogues without armed security stationed outside,” Mamdani said in a statement posted on social media. “What happened at Bondi is what many Jewish people fear will happen in their communities too.”
“When I am mayor, I will work every day to keep Jewish New Yorkers safe – on our streets, our subways, at shul, in every moment of every day,” he added. “Let this be a purpose shared by every New Yorker, and let us banish this horrific violence to the past.”
Ryan Murphy/Getty Images
An NYPD vehicle is seen outside of the Congregation Temple Emanu-El in Manhattan on Sunday. (Photo by Ryan Murphy/Getty Images)
The congregation Temple Emanu-el on the Upper East Side is rattled but defiant — and grateful that the NYPD is keeping watch, Rabbi Joshua Davidson said Sunday.
“We will light our Chanukah menorahs tonight, and we will display them in the window as our tradition would have us do, as a proud and public display of Jewish pride in defiance of those who would seek to do us harm,” he said. “The Jewish community and the Jewish people are too well versed in hatred, and throughout the centuries we have made a commitment that we’re not going to let those who would seek our end prevent us from celebrating the joy and beauty of Jewish life.”
Davidson was heartened by the actions of bystander Ahmed al Ahmed, a 43-year-old fruit shop owner who tackled one of the gunmen.
“The fact that there was this Muslim bystander who decided he was gonna be an upstander instead, that’s something I hope people see, ” he said. “The guy who intervened is from a community that so many Jews often kind of look at as ‘other,’ and I found that to be very powerful.”
Emergency workers transport a person on a stretcher after the shooting at Bondi Beach on Sunday. (AP Photo/Mark Baker)Davidson, who’s been critical of what he calls Mamdani’s “anti-Israel rhetoric,” said of the mayor-elect’s statement on the shooting, “I’m grateful for that response.”
Gov. Hochul vowed extra vigilance by state police after the attack.
“Horrified by a cowardly terrorist attack against the Jewish community,” she posted on X. “New York will always stand against the scourge of antisemitism and confront violence head-on.”
Rabbi Benjamin Spratt of Congregation Rodeph Shalom on the Upper West Side decried the attack and called for leadership against antisemitism in a Facebook post Sunday.
“This did not emerge in isolation. We are living through a season in which antisemitism is given permission to speak loudly, to cloak itself in moral language, and to spread without consequence,” he wrote. “When Jewish life is portrayed as illegitimate and Jewish presence as provocation, words become weapons. Rhetoric metastasizes. Violence follows.”
