There is a pattern - do you see it yet?

The Way It Is

There’s a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change. But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread.

- William Stafford

Writing is often the detection of connections between things - that’s what themes and storylines are. When we discern subtle patterns and convert them to the explicit, we are able to make meaning.

A month ago I stood in parks and on beaches in Latvia and Lithuania where Nazis and local collaborators rounded up Jewish communities including my family members, and murdered them.

In each place, I touched the earth and recited prayers, finally opening the Pandora’s box of ancestral memory. I allowed myself to pull it all out and say, ‘this is mine to bear.’

I then went to Israel to the sites where 7 October massacres happened.

Wherever I went, I recited Psalm 23 in both Hebrew and English until I knew it by heart.

Last week I had this line tattooed on my right forearm in Hebrew. ‘Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.’

There is a thread that links the massacre of my grandmother’s family on Yom Kippur in 1941 in Naryshkin Park, and my grandfather’s family on a beach in Liepaja, on the coast of Latvia, to the events which played out last night on Bondi beach in which 16 people were murdered, including a 10 year old girl.

Last night, my family and a few friends lit the first light of Channukah and were sitting down for our dinner to celebrate miracles and light when our phones began to ping.

We sat around the TV for hours, frantically texting friends we knew were there for Channukah by the Sea, and waited for news, as our candles burnt down, and our dinners sat untouched.

I want to be precise and clear but it is difficult after a night of very little sleep and no rest in my soul.

I am shattered.

But I am whole.

I have never been more tightly woven and braided into an understanding of who I am, where I come from and what I stand for.

A terrorist attack is not a random event but is the logical outcome sufficient enabling conditions - subtle permissions and tolerances in which antisemitism is normalized. Since 8 October 2023, when chants of ‘Gas/F-ck or Where’s The Jews’ were chanted on the Opera House steps, the environment for Bondi Beach, 14 December 2025 was set in motion.

In December 2024, when the Adass Synagogue was bombed in Melbourne, I implored on Facebook for people to speak up. I appreciate private messages of support but Jewish people need more from our friends.

Today, while the Jewish community, in Sydney, and worldwide, reverberates with shock, I am struggling to find a voice.

So I ask you to listen to my friend Van Jones here. (I hope this link works - it is worth listening to).

If you’re in Sydney, and you are able to donate blood, there is a call out this week especially for type O-negative and O-positive. Please contact your nearest blood donation centre here if you’re able to help.

Also, Hatzolah in Melbourne is offering free counselling for anyone who needs support during this time. You can book here.

Tonight, we will light candles again. Whether or not you’re Jewish, I invite you to light candles too, and say this prayer with me:

‘Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

I will fear no evil,

for you are with me.’

With deep love and sorrow,

Joanne