Allan announces $2m community safety package
Benita Kolovos
The Victorian premier, Jacinta Allan, is holding a press conference at the Beth Weizmann Jewish Community Centre in Caulfield to announce a $2m community safety package.
The package includes:
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$900m for the Community Safety Group to deploy further security measures at community events, holiday programs and Jewish cultural ceremonies
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$250,000 to increase security at Jewish youth summer camps
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$100,000 each for the Jewish Community Council of Victoria and the Rabbinical Council of Victoria
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$280,000 for JewishCare, including for mental health services
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An additional $250,000 will also be spent on a therapeutic intervention program to combat radicalisation.
Allan says:
This is immediate support because it will provide additional capacity for the Community Safety Group to be able to provide resources around a range of cultural events that will be going on and [for] school holiday programs that have been scheduled over this summer period.
Key events
Rabbi Levi Woolf has spoken after the ambassador. He said:
This is a time to remind the Australian community that the only way we can eradicate anti-Semitism is to not wait for another press conference, commissioner, from Premier, members of politics, but from mothers and fathers to sit down with their children at the dinner table and say that words of hate and words of evil, bigotry, have no place in our home.
Have no place on a university campus, have no place on social media.
Anyone who hears someone make a comment like that, sitting at a cocktail party, at a bar, sitting at a beach, stand up and face that person and say ‘this is country where we have always welcomed minorities’.
Amir Maimon to meet with Chris Minns
Maimon said he would not comment on the government but that he was meeting with Chris Minns afterwards, whom he called a “dear friend to the community”.
I am not here to point fingers. I am here to embrace [the community]. I am here to hug the community and the Australian citizens that care about life here in Australia and care about the Australians of Jewish faith.
Israeli ambassador says Australians of Jewish faith forced to worship ‘behind closed doors’
Maimon said he will not be able to understand how rabbis feel – he is speaking as a representative of the state of Israel, not the Jewish community.
The only community that is in need to go through security in order to exercise their right to worship their God is the Jewish community. I do not know when the last time that you visited a temple, a church or a mosque, the doors are open.
Only the Jewish, the Australians of Jewish faith are forced to worship their gods behind closed doors, CCTV, guards, it is insane. This is really insane.
Amir Maimon says he warned against dangers of antisemitism
Maimon said he has warned against the dangers of antisemitism for the past four years and that he has visited every synagogue that has been attacked.
It is also very important to remember that, when we’re talking the Jewish community, we are talking first and foremost about Australians. Australian citizens.
From here, I would like to convey our heartfelt condolences to the community, to all Australians and to join the community and their call to the government to take all necessary measures to make sure that the life of every Australian, whether they are Jewish, Muslim or Christian, would be safe.
Israeli ambassador to Australia says his heart ‘is torn apart’ by Bondi shootings
The Israeli ambassador to Australia, Amir Maimon, is speaking in Bondi.
My vocabulary is not rich enough to express how I feel. My heart is torn apart … The Jewish community, the Australians of Jewish faith, the Jewish community is also my community. My people. The people that were brutally murdered here are people that I have known. I have met.
Allan announces $2m community safety package
Benita Kolovos
The Victorian premier, Jacinta Allan, is holding a press conference at the Beth Weizmann Jewish Community Centre in Caulfield to announce a $2m community safety package.
The package includes:
-
$900m for the Community Safety Group to deploy further security measures at community events, holiday programs and Jewish cultural ceremonies
-
$250,000 to increase security at Jewish youth summer camps
-
$100,000 each for the Jewish Community Council of Victoria and the Rabbinical Council of Victoria
-
$280,000 for JewishCare, including for mental health services
-
An additional $250,000 will also be spent on a therapeutic intervention program to combat radicalisation.
Allan says:
This is immediate support because it will provide additional capacity for the Community Safety Group to be able to provide resources around a range of cultural events that will be going on and [for] school holiday programs that have been scheduled over this summer period.
Pip Edwards, a fashion designer, was there on Sunday, and posted on Instagram about having to hide after the gunmen opened fire.
“The gun man [sic] fired his first round of shots right behind my girlfriend newand I as we had just passed the bridge were they were standing,” Edwards wrote in an Instagram post.
The shots continued to fire incessantly, and quite literally as close as two metres away.
We had to immediately take refuge under a van and watched the gunman’s feet with his gun pace in front of the van right at our heads, using our van as his post.
Edwards and her friend took cover and hid under the van for about 15 minutes until the shooting stopped.
I was convulsing with fear, trapped, thinking this was it for us. I cannot comprehend nor compute it at all.
Krishani Dhanji
Gun law changes won’t stamp out antisemitism, opposition claim
The shadow home affairs minister, Jonathon Duniam, says the opposition is open to supporting changes to gun laws but want to see the detail first.
Duniam spoke with ABC’s Radio National Breakfast earlier this morning, and said he’ll wait to see what proposals states and territories come back with on gun reforms before offering bipartisan support. But he said those reforms don’t go far enough on combating antisemitism.
Changes to gun laws that prevent serious incidents like this from happening will always be welcome, I think it’s important for us to see the detail.
But what a change to gun laws won’t do is stamp out antisemitism and that was the driver behind these attacks and we can’t forget that fixing the gun laws in some way will not prevent from happening what happened yesterday. If it’s not guns, it’s explosive devices, it’s knives, it’s other forms of attack weapons.
Duniam claims the government hasn’t acted on recommendations by Jillian Segal that would crack down in institutions like universities that allow “antisemitic behaviour to occur on campus”.
Penry Buckley
One injured police officer identified as families thanks first responders
The families of two NSW police officers who were injured as they sought to apprehend the alleged gunmen have issued a statement, passing on their “thoughts to the loved ones of those who were killed and injured in the Bondi shooting tragedy”.
One of the officers has been named by NSW police as Constable Scott Dyson, who has been attached to Bondi’s local eastern suburbs area command for 18 months. Dyson remains in a serious but stable condition in hospital.
The NSW police commisioner, Mal Lanyon, said yesterday that the two officers suffered gunshot wounds as the multiple officers exchanged fire with the two alleged gunmen.
NSW police have yet to confirm the identity of the second officer, who was also taken to hospital following the attack.
In a statement shared on social media, NSW police said the families wanted to “express their heartfelt gratitude to all first responders who acted with courage, in particular the police officers and paramedics who responded”.
“They also wish to thank their hospital team, and especially those in ICU.”
“They thank the community for their support but have asked for privacy as their loved ones focus on recovery and healing.”
Israel’s ZAKA Search and Rescue team has been deployed to Sydney to assist authorities and the Jewish community in ensuring proper kavod hameit — dignity for the dead in accordance with Jewish law, faith and tradition.
ZAKA’s CEO, Dubi Weissenstern:
Our mission is simple and unwavering: ZAKA is there for every Jew, no matter where they are, in times of crisis.
We bring deep experience from terror scenes, working hand-in-hand with law enforcement to preserve critical forensic evidence, while also ensuring the dead are treated with the utmost dignity and can be buried as quickly as possible in accordance with Jewish law.
ZAKA officials said responders will provide both technical assistance and spiritual support to local communities grappling with the aftermath of the attack.
