An attack on a Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach in Sydney has drawn attention to Australia’s distinctive Jewish community.

A mass shooting at a Hannukah event in Sydney, Australia, has sent ripples of fear, loss, and hopelessness across the larger Jewish world at the start of the week-long holiday- including with community members in Berkshire County.

SYDNEY — A father and son are suspected by officials to have killed 15 people on a popular Australian beach, shocking a country where gun violence is rare. The government on Monday, a day after the shootings, proposed tougher new gun laws amid criticism that officials didn’t take seriously enough a string of antisemitic attacks.

For many, official promises to stamp out the “evil scourge” of antisemitism and consider further tightening gun control measures come too late.

The light of the menorah was one of several acts of remembrance that sprung up across Australia on Monday, a day after two terrorists opened fire on a ChabadHanukkah event on Bondi Beach, killing 15 and injuring at least 40.

The Holy Father expressed his spiritual closeness to those affected by the violence, which occurred as more than 1,000 people had gathered to mark the start of Hanukkah.

The massacre at a Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia, over the weekend did not keep members of the Seattle Jewish community from turning out in large numbers Sunday evening at the city’s oldest synagogue to celebrate the beginning of the Jewish holiday.

Maryland politicians condemned antisemitism while Jewish community leaders vowed to continue “spreading light” after a terrorist attack on Australians celebrating Hanukkah left at least 15 people dead and dozens injured on Sunday,