Australia's Islamist Problem : Jewish-Australian Deaths

"We are heartbroken by the sudden and senseless loss of our beloved Boris and Sofia Gurman. They had been married for 34 years, with their 35th wedding anniversary approaching in January."

"We were looking forward to celebrating Sofia’s 62nd birthday on Wednesday 17th of December."

"While nothing can lessen the pain of losing Boris and Sofia, we feel an overwhelming sense of pride in their bravery and selflessness."

"This encapsulates who Boris and Sofia were -- people who instinctively and selflessly tried to help others."

"They were the heart of our family, and their absence has left an immeasurable void."

"We are deeply grateful for the love, compassion and support that has been shown to our family during this unimaginable time. From here, we kindly ask for privacy as we grieve."

Gurman Family 

 

“My dashcam accidentally captured this shocking scene."

"One terrorist on the bridge fired the first shot, then the second, then the third. Meanwhile, the other terrorist had just gotten out of the car when an elderly man by the roadside didn’t run away. Instead, he charged toward danger, fought desperately to grab the gun, and held on tightly! Watching through the lens as the old man was finally shot and fell to the ground — my heart was torn apart."

"[Gurman] did not run away — instead, he charged straight toward the danger, using all his strength trying to wrestle away the gun and fighting to the death."

Jenny, owner of dashcam   

Boris and Sofia Gurman were killed trying to take down a suspect in the Bondi Beach attack that killed 16 people at Hannukah event on Sunday. GoFundMe

 

Boris Gurman, 69 and Sofia 61, residents of Bondi, became the first victims of the Bondi Beach terrorist attack, dying when they attempted desperately to stop one of the gunmen. They were on a sideroad close to Bondi Beach, a short walk they had often taken as frequent visitors to the popular site. There, they witnessed one of two terrorists emerging from a car. What obviously caught their attention was the vehicle's windshield, with an Islamic State flag. The two men had parked their car close to a footbridge leading to the beach, and overlooking it. 

 

Quick thinking led to a frantic impulse of quick action as they confronted the man who was in fact the father of a father-and-son duo committed to Islamist jihad who had set out to mount their very own atrocity of unimaginable proportions, prepared with four long guns at hand and more than ample ammunition to fulfill their grisly expectations. A witness to what occurred was in another car parked at that juncture, and her dashcam recorded the shocking scene that unveiled itself, as Boris Gurman  launched himself at the man in a desperate attempt to disarm him.

 

In the melee that unfolded with the two men grappling, the two men fell onto a road nearby. Mr. Gurman had managed to grab the weapon and hit the terrorist with the gun. As it happened, however, it is assumed that the attacker was able to reach another gun to and killed his first two Jewish victims, Boris and Sofia Gurman, and then went on to fulfill the balance of the bloody assaults that would follow.   

 

Video shows elderly couple trying to stop the killers

 

The tally of dead reached 15 people, ranging in age from a ten-year-old child to others in advanced years, including two rabbis, one of whom had organized Hanukkah festivities on the beach to celebrate the Jewish Festival of Lights. When gunshots rang out, people frantically ran to try to evade the carnage they could see taking place around them, as people were shot and the wounded fell everywhere, some forty in number. The crowd was estimated to number around a thousand people.

 

There were happy children at play on the joyous occasion, vendors of sweets, people swimming, others mingling on the beach. The first day of Hanukkah 2025, will become yet another sorrowful chapter of virulent antisemitism taking Jewish lives, just as Hanukkah celebrates ancestral Jewish heroism in confronting ancient persecution and surmounting it against all odds. The symbolism of rededicating the Temple that had been desecrated by lighting candles with only enough oil to last a day, miraculously burned for an entire week. 

 

Jewish resilience against continued and ongoing assaults against their existence, their courage and emphasis on their entitlement of universal human rights has ensured that a people beleaguered throughout history will endure. In Australia, as elsewhere around the world, Jewish life has once again been disrupted and flagrantly threatened. In developed, civilized, democratic Western nations where diaspora Jews have lived for millennia, antisemitism has once again reared its evil presence, aided and manifested by the importation of Islamist jihad.

Police tape off a road after the shooting in Bondi. (ABC News: Victoria Pengilley)

 

Governments like that of Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese have chosen -- instead of firmly ensuring security for Australia's Jewish population -- to ignore the indelible warning signs that hate-frenzied demonstrations targeting Jews in Australia would inevitably lead to violence. While government officials intoned less-than-comforting statements that antisemitism would not be allowed, that the Jewish population was in no danger, that danger materialized. There were two Sydney police on hand at the beach on Sunday, likely unarmed.

 

There were heroic moments when people even in their panic attempted to shield one another from harm. A Muslim man, once trained as a policeman, spontaneously undertook to disarm one of the attackers at grave risk to himself. Ahmed al Ahmed, 43, tackled one of the gunmen, wresting his rifle from his grasp and in the effort was himself wounded, shot repeatedly, and now recovering in hospital, with more surgeries to come, as he is feted for his courage and humanity.

 

Yet Australia's prime minister, while condemning the attack and its outcome, has vowed to tighten his country's restricted access to firearms. Not once referencing the fact that this was not merely a terrorist attack, but one that is a product of Islamofascism, a jihadist attack with the intention of murdering as many Jews as conceivably possible by two men armed with four long guns and the conviction that they were honouring their version of god. One, the father, is dead. The other, his son, has regained consciousness from his wounds in hospital and has been charged with mass murder.