Santa Barbara Jewish Leaders Respond to Hanukkah Shooting in Sydney

After the killing of at least 15 people during a Jewish holiday celebration in Sydney, Australia, on Sunday, the Jewish community in Santa Barbara is mourning. But despite feelings of shock and grief, community leaders say they will not dim their lights this Hanukkah.

What was meant to be a joyful celebration of the first night of Hanukkah on Sydney’s Bondi Beach turned tragic when a father and son allegedly opened fire on the crowd, reportedly motivated by radical “Islamic State ideology” and related anti-Semitism, according to Australian officials. 

Hundreds had come to the beach for the event, where the two gunmen arrived by car and began shooting at the crowd. In addition to the confirmed deaths, it was reported that nearly 40 people were sent to the hospital with mild to severe injuries. Australian police reportedly found homemade Islamic State flags and two improvised explosives in a vehicle registered to one of the suspects. One bystander, Ahmed el Ahmed, a Syrian immigrant, is being hailed a hero for tackling and disarming one of the attackers before being shot in the shoulder, as seen in a witness video posted by The New York Times.  

One suspect died on the scene after being shot by officers, while the younger suspect was taken to the hospital. Early Wednesday morning, the surviving suspect was charged with murder, grievous bodily harm, and terrorism, according to Australian police. 

Victims of the attack — for whom funerals began on Wednesday — ranged in age from 10 to 87, according to initial reports. Chabad, a global Jewish organization, organized the event, and identified one victim as Rabbi Eli Schlanger, who served the Bondi community. 

For Rabbi Mendel Loschak, who leads Chabad of Santa Barbara, this loss was personal. In 2014, he assumed the leadership of his late father, Rabbi Yosef Loschak, who together with his wife, Devorah, founded the local Chabad in 1979. 

Rabbi Schlanger was a close family friend, he noted.

“Anytime something happens to a fellow Jew anywhere in the world, there’s a visceral reaction,” Loschak said. “But this is very personal and very real. It doesn’t feel far away in Australia. It feels very close.”  

Loschak added that acts of anti-Semitic violence are often perpetrated with the hope that “everybody will cower and step back.” 

“That’s never been the Jewish people’s response,” he said. “On the contrary, when we’re trying to be silenced, we need to come back with greater good.”

That was the prevailing message that echoed across the Jewish leaders the Independent spoke with: light will prevail over darkness, and the community remains resilient. 

Organizations including Chabad, Congregation B’nai B’rith (CBB), and the Jewish Federation of Greater Santa Barbara say the Sydney shooting has not and will not deter Hanukkah celebrations, which run December 14-22. There were strong turnouts for Sunday night menorah lightings to celebrate the first day of Hanukkah across Santa Barbara. 

“The devastating attack on the Jewish community in Sydney diminished our ability to fully embrace one of the most festive nights of the year,” wrote Rabbi Daniel Brenner, CBB’s senior rabbi, in an email to congregants. “And yet, in that darkness, the light we kindled felt even more significant.”

Security concerns remain at the forefront. Many organizations have sought additional protection for events this week. Still, celebrations continue, including private menorah lightings held in solidarity with the Sydney community. 

“It’s unfortunate, but the Jewish community for the last many years has had to operate in a very heightened sense of security,” Brenner told the Independent. “Moments like Sydney remind us just how easy it can be to shatter what should be a beautiful, joyous celebration.”

Others are still planning public events, including Chabad of Montecito’s Chanukah celebration on Thursday night at the Lynda Fairly Carpinteria Arts Center, starting at 5:30 p.m. and featuring a menorah lighting, music, latkes, and doughnuts. Extra security will be present.  

Leaders also emphasized the importance of resisting Islamophobia in the wake of the attack.

“I’ve been deeply moved by the support from friends and faith leaders across town who aren’t Jewish,” Brenner said, noting a call from the imam of the Islamic Society. “It was a beautiful conversation that reaffirmed our friendship and our love for each other.”

In his message to the congregation, Brenner quoted Martin Luther King Jr.: “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.” 

In recent memory, the Jewish community in Santa Barbara has not experienced outright violence but threats and hateful messages have been spread, particularly around UC Santa Barbara — manifesting in flyers distributed to residents and businesses across Isla Vista in 2023 denying the Holocaust, and seemingly connecting Jewish people with racism, homophobia, and pedophilia. A year prior, similar anti-Semitic flyers were tossed into the yards of residents on the Mesa on the first day of Hanukkah.  

Additionally, on the UCSB campus, antisemitic messages were scrawled across the chalkboard of an Israeli Politics class around the same time as the flyers were distributed in Isla Vista.  Then, in 2024, anti-Zionist signs were hung around the UCSB’s Multicultural Center building, including apparent threats toward the former UCSB Associated Student President, Tessa Veksler, the daughter of Soviet Jewish refugees. 

Only a couple of months later, a group of white supremacists hung an anti_Semitic banner over the Highway 101 overpass in Santa Barbara, reading, “Aryan Youth Against Foreign Invaders” with the men reportedly displaying swastikas and performing Nazi salutes. 

“It just takes one crazy person,” said Cyndi Silverman, chief executive officer of the Jewish Federation of Greater Santa Barbara. “So, am I fearful? Yeah, sometimes I am. When I walk into the front door of the Federation, I always scan the area to make sure I don’t see anything. 

“We’re living in a really challenging time where hate really is extreme … and, especially at the top, we need our leaders to stand up against hate and say, ‘This is unacceptable,’” she said. 

Although the community is reeling from what happened in Sydney, there was an echoing sentiment that they will not give into fear. They are mindful of security, but after these kinds of events, “it’s important that you do gather and stand up and light a menorah and let people know you’re proud of being Jewish,” Silverman said. 

In general, Santa Barbara is a “very loving, safe community,” said Marcy Wimbish, former president of CBB. “We still have security concerns that most denominations don’t have, but we don’t live in constant fear.” 

Rabbi Daniel Brenner agreed, saying that Jews in Santa Barbara do not feel any more or less safe than Jews in other parts of California, or anywhere else — but people also aren’t any more hateful in other parts of the world.

“Unfortunately, it takes one person making a radical decision to cause damage,” he said. “I wear a yarmulke anytime I’m out in the city, and I’ve never once had a negative comment or felt threatened being outwardly Jewish in the city. But it doesn’t mean that the risk of threat isn’t real, and so we just have to be careful while being proud of who we are.”