Resilience. Solidarity. Overcoming darkness. These are among the sentiments several rabbis at Los Angeles area synagogues and temples shared about this particular Hanukkah season, which came as the Jewish community faced violence thousands of miles away.
Two gunmen killed 15 people, including a couple nearing their 35th wedding anniversary and a 10-year-old girl, at a Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach in Australia on Dec. 14. Political officials both in Australia and in the U.S. have called it an “antisemitic act of terror.”
Spurred by the Bondi Beach violence, the Los Angeles Police Department and Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department put out statements saying authorities would increase their patrols. The Los Angeles area is home to a large and diverse Jewish community — an estimate from the American Jewish Population Project found that Los Angeles County’s Jewish population is over 500,000 — composed of various denominations such as orthodox, conservative and reform Judaism.
And within the county, public Hanukkah celebrations went on this year.
Several hundred people joined Chabad of Burbank’s evening festivities on Dec. 21, where a towering menorah’s flames danced in the night sky on the eighth night of Hanukkah. The celebration had been planned prior to the attack at Bondi Beach, and while some wondered if Chabad of Burbank would go through with it afterwards, it was never a question, Rabbi Shmuly Kornfeld said.
