Let’s return to Bondi, where Jews from across the community have returned to the beach to pray.
Rabbi Yosef Eichenblatt was at the Chanukkah by the Sea on Sunday when the gunmen began firing at the crowd, and said today’s prayer marked a step towards healing.
Hundreds of people form a circle and splash the water during the paddle-out.Credit: Kate Geraghty
“We pray three times a day, and today we were just doing prayers to bring healing to the space that has been contaminated with evil and hate, and just trying to uplift and pray for the souls and people,” he said.
There was also a recitation of Psalm 23 before the paddle-out.
The paddle-out, as viewed from a drone.Credit: Janie Barrett
“Even when I walk in the valley of darkness, I will fear no evil,” a man read from a microphone as people on the beach stood and listened. “For you are with me,” he said, pausing to collect his breath and be supported by fellow mourners. “Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.”
Further back from the beach, awaiting hungry swimmers and surfers, was a table of jam doughnuts and water bottles, donated by the Bagel Company.
Mandy Glick, a member of the Jewish community helping to organise the paddle out, said a rabbi wrote in a Jewish WhatsApp group that there should be a paddle-out today.
She said all the donations and help came through the “Jewish grapevine” and that the doughnuts, the symbolic food of Hanukkah, represented light.