THE SYDNEY Harbour Bridge has been lit up in white to honour victims of the Bondi Beach shooting.
Before Australia welcomed the New Year, a minute of silence was held for the fifteen victims killed on the first night of Hanukkah.
A menorah was projected on the landmark, after an open letter from Jewish creatives.
Fifteen people killed and many more injured when two shooters opened fire on Hanukkah celebrations in Sydney earlier this month.
The dead included a 10-year-old girl who was shot in front of her younger sister.
Tonight, Sydney came together to pay tribute to the victims, as Australia celebrated the start of 2026.
But the menorah was a last minute addition to light projections.
The city had first planned to use an image of a dove with the word “peace”, but creatives urged the council to project a “Jewish-specific symbol”.
More than 30 Jewish Australians wrote to Lord Mayor Clover Moore this week about plans to commemorate Bondi victims.
The open letter argued that a generic symbol “obfuscates and erases the problem of domestic antisemitism”.
They claimed that “generic calls for peace” dismissed warnings of hatred towards Jewish communities in Australia.
They wrote: “The selection of this word, coupled with the dove, without any specific reference to the targeting of the Jewish community, prolongs our erasure and obfuscates the problem of domestic antisemitism.”