The Bondi Chabad at the Sydney Opera House in January. (Pic: Kamal Weerakoon)
On Sunday 14 Dec 2025, two gunmen motivated by militant Islamism murdered fifteen Jewish people who had assembled to celebrate Hanukkah at the Bondi Pavilion. As the Presbyterian member of the NSW Government’s Faith Affairs Council (FAC), I had the privilege of participating in some of our communal responses to that tragedy.
The morning after the attack, a large group of religious and ethnic community leaders met with Jewish leaders to express our grief and sympathy to them. The NSW Minister for Multiculturalism, Steven Kamper, sobbed as he embraced Jewish rabbis. That was consistent with everything I’ve seen about him over the last couple of years. Mr Kamper is not in politics for his own power and prestige. He really wants NSW to be a place of peace and harmony for all people from all different ethnic and religious backgrounds. So when that peace was shattered by this attack, he felt it personally.
The FAC released a statement from that meeting. That same morning, the Presbyterian Church’s NSW Moderator, David King, also released our own statement of grief and sympathy. The Jewish community appreciated our solidarity with them.
This attack was such a serious breach of our social fabric as to warrant the involvement of our Governor-General, Sam Mostyn. She hosted a dinner at Admiralty House where we discussed how to rebuild trust in the long run. I was impressed with the way she used the office of royal representative to provide a forum which avoided political advocacy and let us talk honestly about the values and perspectives which feed into the political process. Her Excellency is the symbolic head of our nation. She invited us to tell each other how our particular religious communities, guided by our particular doctrines and convictions, can contribute to national peace and harmony.
At that dinner we officially launched the One Mitzvah initiative. ‘Mitzvah’ means good deed. The Jewish community has suggested 15 kinds of charitable acts people can perform, each in memory of one of the Bondi victims. It’s their way of following Joseph’s example of taking human evil and turning it, in God’s name, to good (Gen 50:20). This is consistent with the Jewish belief that God reveals himself and his moral laws to all people, therefore everyone, of every ethnicity and religion and even irreligion, can perform righteous deeds which benefit themselves, their families, their communities, and the nation. The Apostle Paul refers to that belief when he says in Romans 2:14-15 that we “Gentiles, who do not have the law,” still have “the requirements of the law written on [our] hearts.”
Protestant Christians don’t believe we can be right with God through these good deeds. We are saved by God’s grace, through faith in Christ alone: Romans 5:21-26; Ephesians 2:8-9. But that doesn’t mean we should avoid doing good towards the people around us! Christ called us to love our neighbour as ourselves, Matt 27:37-40; Mark 12:29-31; Luke 10:27-28. We are made new in Christ to do good works, Ephesians 2:10. The One Mitzvah initiatives are all thoroughly consistent with Christian morality. So I commend them to you. Let’s turn evil into good, in the name of our Lord and God Jesus Christ, who took the ultimate evil of all the world’s sin and turned it into the ultimate good of saving the world.
I also attended the Opera House memorial on the national day of mourning on January 22nd. It was a celebration of heroism and communal resilience. Ahmed al Ahmed, who disarmed one of the gunmen, and 14-year-old Chaya Dadon, who shielded two younger children, received tumultuous applause. Both were still recovering from the injuries they sustained during the attack. NSW Premier Chris Minns was welcomed with a standing ovation. He promptly congratulated NSW opposition leader Kellie Sloane for the way she had turned up and rendered first aid while the attack was still progressing, ensuring she received a standing ovation too!
I found the whole event encouraging. It gave me courage: it put steel in my spine. It motivated me to work towards the peace and safety of our state and nation – and do so in the name of Jesus Christ, Lord of all nations. The Presbyterian Church, and the global church in general, is a microcosm of the kind of peace and harmony which Christ brings. We can’t save the world; only Christ can do that. But we can make the world a better place for everyone. In today’s increasingly fractured, suspicious, and polarised world, let’s recommit to doing that, in the name of our God.