Blog

September 28, 2026

Bondi Testimony Project “Cathartic”

SJM’s Bondi Testimony project continues apace with more than 37 survivors, witnesses, first responders and everyday heroes already interviewed. The project – working in conjunction with the University of Southern California (USC) Shoah Foundation – is recording first-hand experiences for posterity while memories of the horrific 14 Dec 2025 terror attack are still fresh. Far from reliving the trauma, interview subjects report that the experience is cathartic and one – Chavi Israel-Block – went to social media to relate her experience:

“Never in my wildest dreams (or in anybody’s) did I think that I would survive a terrorist attack. Even as I write it, it doesn’t feel real at all.

When the Sydney Jewish Museum asked me if they could interview me and record my story, partnering with the USC Shoah Foundation, of course I agreed, but I was in disbelief. Wait, partnering with the Shoah Foundation and interviewing me?! That didn’t sound right, and it still doesn’t.

But it is so, so, so important that every single survivor’s story is heard, shared and recorded.

As I was doing the interview, recounting my story, I felt as if I was in a time capsule. I feel that often. I don’t feel that I am sharing MY story, but a story that is sadly now part of the Jewish story.

I felt this especially afterwards, when talking to these four exceptional Jewish women who have worked for the SJM for years, about how they went from interviewing Shoah survivors to now interviewing Bondi survivors.

It’s eerily strange, and yet somehow familiar.

The women shared that at the start, it was really heavy and disturbing for them (understandably so), but as the interview process has continued and eight months have passed, they realise what a mitzvah this is and how they are preserving history. They have also formed such a unique bond through this wild journey together, definitely worthy of a book (but that’s for another time)!

I never thought I would live through history, but we all are.

Yet, as we know, the Jewish people have never allowed ourselves to remain victims of circumstance. The complete opposite.

And this experience has only inspired and fuelled me even more to be an Empowered Jew! I hope these times do the same to you, because that’s the only way.”