Zionist Federation of Australia<\/a>, said when asked whether the visit mattered. \u201cWe\u2019ve felt isolated, and we\u2019ve seen the Australia that we love turning into a version of itself that we didn\u2019t know existed.\u201d<\/p>\nCassuto said that when October 7 hit, Jews in Australia felt as if their own family had been attacked. Herzog\u2019s visit at this moment \u2013 especially amid strained relations between Israel and Australia, and despite knowing it would be dogged by hateful protests \u2013 underscored that the feeling is mutual.<\/p>\n
Or, as Alex Ryvchin, co-CEO of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, put it at a commemorative event at Chabad of Bondi: \u201cWe need the comfort of the Jewish people, and we need the State of Israel, which has always shown us how to stand our ground and how to fight.\u201d<\/p>\n
Australian Jewery \u2013 or at least most of it \u2013 feels a strong connection to Israel and deeply internalizes the bonds of peoplehood. A tiny minority, which receives a disproportionate amount of attention in the press and loudly protested the invitation extended to Herzog, does not share that sentiment and has, in effect, placed itself outside that circle of connection. But it remains a minority.<\/p>\n
Israeli cynics might dismiss the singing of \u201cHevenu Shalom Aleichem\u201d and \u201cOseh Shalom\u201d at the central event in Sydney \u2013 along with strains from the theme song of Exodus played during a musical interlude \u2013 as somewhat corny and relics of another era. But in the hall, it reflected something genuine and unmistakable \u2013 a shared Jewish bond.<\/p>\n
That bond was equally evident when Herzog visited Moriah College, a sprawling complex of Jewish day schools in Sydney\u2019s eastern suburbs, and was greeted by grade-school students waving Israeli flags and singing \u201cAm Yisrael Hai.\u201d It surfaced again when he was loudly cheered by an audience of students whose daily reality \u2013 on the face of it \u2013 may seem quite different from that of their peers in Israel, yet for whom Israel, judging from their reaction to Herzog, carries profound meaning.<\/p>\n
If inside the hall the bonds were on full display, outside were those trying to undermine those very bonds and call them into question. As Herzog addressed students, some of them draped in Israeli flags, protesters in the streets were cursing him and Israel, seeking to delegitimize both.<\/p>\n
Inside the auditorium, young Jews swayed proudly to Hebrew music. Outside, demonstrators hurled slogans and invective. The contrast could not have been sharper.<\/p>\n
Acknowledging the antisemitism many of them are facing, Herzog urged the students to stand proud and strong \u2014 not to retreat, not to be intimidated.<\/p>\n
But beyond the singing and the slogans \u2013 beyond the contrast between pride inside and protest outside \u2013 the core purpose of the visit remained what Herzog had articulated from the outset: to comfort.<\/p>\n
Site of the attack at Bondi Beach<\/p>\n
Soon after arriving, he went to the site of the attack at Bondi Beach, laid a wreath, and placed stones from Jerusalem at the site.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are one big family, and when one Jew is hurt, all Jews feel their pain,\u201d he said. \u201cThat is why I am here today \u2013 to embrace and console the bereaved families.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was Herzog as Israel\u2019s comforter in chief \u2013 not Herzog the statesman interested in repairing strained ties between Jerusalem and Canberra \u2013 whom Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese welcomed to his country.<\/p>\n
Albanese, who has charted a more critical position on Israel than his predecessors since coming into office in 2022 \u2013 culminating in the recognition of a Palestinian state in the summer, a move that set back bilateral ties \u2013 made clear that the invitation to Herzog was extended primarily to bring comfort to a bereaved community.<\/p>\n
He said as much in Parliament on Tuesday before meeting Herzog in the first of two meetings, stressing that he would not \u201cwalk away from my support\u201d for Herzog\u2019s visit, even as some voices in his Labor Party and many on the hard Left questioned the invitation.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is appropriate that he be here at this time,\u201d Albanese said. \u201cAnd it\u2019s appropriate that people understand the context which is there: a community which is hurting, a community that is reaching out and just asking for some understanding.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Herzog framed his visit as both an effort to comfort a bereaved community and an attempt to reset Israeli-Australian ties, the second element of that equation was never mentioned by Albanese or Australia\u2019s Governor-General Sam Mostyn, the president\u2019s formal counterpart.<\/p>\n
And herein lies a stark difference between Herzog\u2019s visit and that of Netanyahu some nine years ago.<\/p>\n
When Netanyahu, in 2017, became the first Israeli prime minister to visit Australia, then-prime minister Malcolm Turnbull sought to give Netanyahu\u2019s visit prominence, spending almost two full days with him. Turnbull welcomed the cameras and the symbolism. For him, Netanyahu was an asset.<\/p>\n
At the time, Turnbull was coming under pressure from the right wing of his Liberal Party, and a visit by Netanyahu, a poster boy of the kind of right-wing conservatism Turnbull sought to project, served him politically.<\/p>\n
Albanese, in contrast, has taken pains to downplay any significant diplomatic aspect to the visit, regulating it largely to a mission of comfort. It is no coincidence that Herzog was not invited to address Parliament, but only to meet the prime minister and other parliamentarians in closed-door sessions, away from the cameras. Turnbull wanted the cameras in the room; Albanese has preferred minimum press availability with Herzog.<\/p>\n
For Albanese, Herzog is \u2013 to a certain extent \u2013 a political liability. He came under attack from elements of his base for extending the invitation, with story after story in the left-wing press stressing the International Criminal Court\u2019s absurd claim that remarks Herzog made after October 7 amounted to incitement to genocide.<\/p>\n
Yet, said Colin Rubenstein, head of the Australia\/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council, many Australians are turned off by the rhetoric and the street demonstrations, and will give Albanese credit for standing by the invitation.<\/p>\n
That he did not back down under pressure to rescind it \u2013 and publicly defended it, even if framed strictly as support for a wounded community rather than as an embrace of Israel \u2013 suggests that the Bondi Beach attack had an impact not only on Australia\u2019s Jews, but on the country\u2019s leadership as well.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/images.jpost.com\/image\/upload\/f_auto,fl_lossy\/c_fill,g_faces:center,h_537,w_822\/705785\"\/)
A protester holds a sign as demonstrators gather at Town Hall Square to protest against Israeli President Isaac Herzog’s state visit to Australia following a deadly mass shooting during a Jewish Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach on December 14, in Sydney, Australia, February 9, 2026. (credit: Jeremy Piper\/Reuters)Impact of Bondi Beach<\/p>\n
\u201cThey have woken up,\u201d Rubenstein said, \u201cnot only to the threat facing the Jewish community, but to the threat to the basic fabric of Australian society.\u201d<\/p>\n
Does it wipe clean the diplomatic tensions of the last two years? Hardly.<\/p>\n
But that wasn\u2019t the primary purpose of the trip, which was to underscore that even amid strained ties at the governmental level, and even amid loud and hostile protests in the streets, the bonds between Israel and Australian Jewry not only remain intact but \u2013 through tragedy \u2013 have become more tightly woven.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MELBOURNE \u2013 Israelis are strong at nationhood \u2013 the lived reality of a Jewish state and the sense…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":289618,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[111,16607,972,106840,106841,1903,1902,85,2894,46,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-289617","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-israel","8":"tag-antisemitism","9":"tag-antizionism","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-australian-jewry","12":"tag-bondi-beach-mass-shooting","13":"tag-diaspora","14":"tag-diaspora-jews","15":"tag-il","16":"tag-isaac-herzog","17":"tag-israel","18":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=289617"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289617\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/289618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=289617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=289617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=289617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}