A Prayer for the Shabbat After Bondi Beach, by Rabbi Menachem Creditor

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19 December 2025 under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 International copyleft license

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2025 Bondi Beach shooting, 21st century C.E., 58th century A.M., Australian Jewry, English vernacular prayer

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	Ribbono Shel Olam, God of life, God of light:
	We come before You on a Shabbat bruised by terror, still carrying the images we cannot unsee and the names we cannot stop whispering.
	This week, hatred erupted in a place meant for joy, at a shoreline where Jewish families gathered to kindle light. Blood was spilled where candles were meant to glow. Lives were taken. Lives were shattered. Lives were spared by miracle.
	We thank You for the healing underway, for the hands that stopped the bleeding, for breath that continues when it might not have. And we ache — deeply — for those whose breath was stolen, for families now learning how to live with an empty chair and a silence that screams.
	God, we say clearly what must be said: antisemitism is blasphemy against life. It is an assault not only on Jews, but on the sacred image You placed in every human being.
	And yet — we refuse to surrender the night.
	We light candles anyway. Not as denial. Not as decoration. But as defiance.
	Ḥanukkah’s lights are a sacred protest. They declare that we will not be quiet. We will not hide. We will not allow terror to dictate the terms of Jewish existence.
	Courage, this week, looks like flames held steady by trembling hands. It looks like three candles in a wounded week, refusing to go out. It looks like families showing up, like communities standing closer together than before.
	Kol Yisrael areivim zeh bazeh. All Jews are responsible for one another. All Jews are family.
	This truth has never felt more literal, more urgent, more demanded of us.
	So shape us, God, into what this moment requires: strong, outstretched hands — ready to help, to protect, to be of service, to build, and rebuild.
	Bless those who labor for justice and safety. Strengthen those who refuse despair. Comfort the brokenhearted. And let our light — not only our candles, but our actions — push back the darkness inch by inch.
	May this Shabbat be a pause for breath, not a retreat. A gathering of strength, not an escape.
	And may the light we kindle together carry us forward — visible, proud, unafraid — with work still to do in Your world. Amen.

“A Prayer for the Shabbat After Bondi Beach” by Rabbi Menachem Creditor was offered via Open Siddur Project’s discussion group on Facebook, 19 December 2025, in response to the Bondi Beach shootings in Sydney, Australia on 14 December 2025.

Menachem Creditor

Rabbi Menachem Creditor serves as the Pearl and Ira Meyer Scholar in Residence at UJA-Federation New York and was the founder of Rabbis Against Gun Violence. A frequent speaker in communities and campuses around the United States and Israel with over 1 million views of his online videos and essays, he was named by Newsweek as one of the fifty most influential rabbis in America. His 22 books and 6 albums of original music include the global anthem "Olam Chesed Yibaneh" and the anthologies When We Turned Within and None Shall Make Them Afraid. He has been involved in the leadership of American Jewish World Service, AIPAC, the Rabbinical Assembly, and the One America Movement, an organization dedicated to bringing together Americans of different faiths and opinions. He and his wife Neshama Carlebach live in New York, where they are raising their five children.

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Aftermath of Bondi Beach massacre, Bondi Beach, Sydney (credit: Sardaka, license: CC0)

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ויהי נעם אדני אלהינו עלינו ומעשה ידינו כוננה עלינו ומעשה ידינו כוננהו׃ (תהלים צ:יז) · "May the pleasantness of אדֹני our elo’ah be upon us; may our handiwork be established for us — our handiwork, may it be established." (Psalms 90:17)

A Prayer for the Shabbat After Bondi Beach, by Rabbi Menachem Creditor

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