Tzipporah

# ILYA ROZANOV IS A COMEDIAN PT. 02

It's time to know theirs:

Boris and Sofia Gurman - Russian Jews. The first people who attempted to disarm one of the shooters. They died protecting people.

Reuven Morrison - a 60 year old Jewish man who hurled a brick at one of the shooters to distract him. He was shot and killed.

Edith Brutman - vice president of an anti-prejudice and anti-discrimination committee at B’nai B’rith NSW.

Marika Pogany - an 82 year old Jewish volunteer who assisted Jewish seniors.

10 year old Matilda. A Jewish girl who was shot and killed while playing at the petting zoo.

Dan Elkayam - a French Jew living in Australia who loved soccer.

Rabbi Eli Schlanger - father of five, who promoted dancing with joy to combat antisemitism.

Rabbi Yaakov Levitan - shot while handing out tefillin.

Peter Meagher - retired police officer who was taking photos at the events. Photography was his retirement passion.

Alex Kleytman - a Holocaust survivor who died protecting his wife.

Tibor Weitzen - a Russian Jew known as the "lolli man". He would give confectionery to the children of his shul.

An unidentified 40-year-old man was taken to Royal Prince Alfred Hospital on Sunday but died at the hospital.

And we still have more to be identified.

first, the facts: on december 14, 2025, a father-and-son duo attacked a menorah lighting celebration to mark the start of hanukkah in bondi beach. they explicitly targeted a jewish celebration and murdered 15 people and wounded many more. people tried to intervene by fighting off the shooters, and several were shot or lost their lives in the attempt.

you’ve probably heard of ahmed al ahmed, the shopkeeper who seized a gunman’s weapon and forced his retreat, sustaining gunshot wounds in the process. you should also hear about alex kleytman, a holocaust survivor who died saving his wife; reuven morrison, who warned of dangerously rising antisemitism in australia a year before and hurled bricks at the attackers before being shot dead; sofia and boris gurman, a couple who died trying to fend off the attackers; and chaya dadon, a 14-year-old girl who was shot multiple times while shielding younger children with her body. she is in the hospital.

then, the spin:

when the details of the attack became clear, i saw condemnations of the violence. some of them highlighted the explicitly antisemitic nature of the attack. others decided this was really an issue of gun control, or a false flag, or actually a really great thing that they wanted to see more of because the victims belonged to a group that they despised.

i saw a few themes emerge. one was apologetics, a desperate desire to downplay the significance of the attack.

and this weird forced positivity approach of “look at this person who helped other people, even though he is — gasp — muslim and they are jews.” as though muslims and jews are fundamentally at odds, that it’s surprising that human beings would come to the aid of human beings outside their group.

take none of this as a criticism of ahmed, who is objectively a hero and righteous man. he did not ask to be made the symbol of a feel-good story, to be the only thing that many people mention about the attack at all.

and i understand that it is an effort to preempt islamophobic responses to the attack, i do. it’s just that the message, over and over again, makes jews an afterthought in our own story.

it’s not his fault that his gofundme has received more donations than all of the other victims and survivors’ combined. he did risk his life to save others at considerable cost to himself.

but i’m reminded of righteous gentiles, the ones who saved jews in the holocaust. certainly they are worthy of admiration. but there were relatively few righteous gentiles all told, which you might not know considering the many, many movies about them. jews are so rarely seen as the heroes in our own stories.

i think dara horn was wrong: people don’t love dead jews. they’d really prefer not to think about them at all.

is this the story?

I’ve personally had the experience where my advisor told me “you should do such-and-such certification, go talk to Jill,” and I went to talk to Jill & she said “actually you can’t do such-and-such because XYZ,” so I went back to my advisor to relay this, and he just kind of shrugged and was like, “well if Jill says no, then it can’t be done” and that was the end of it. Complete veto power, no higher authority to turn to, because the only reason Jill can’t do something is if it’s literally impossible.