Daughter of Bondi Beach shooting victim tells antisemitism inquiry she received death threat messages

The daughter of a victim in the Bondi Beach shooting testified that she has received messages since the attack saying she too should have been killed.

Sheina Gutnick was the first witness at Australia's royal commission into antisemitism, established after a December shooting at a Hanukkah event where 15 people died.

Gunman Sajid Akram, 50, was shot dead by police at the scene. His son Naveed Akram, the other alleged attacker, suffered critical injuries, was transferred from hospital to prison, and faces 59 charges, including 15 counts of murder and one of committing a terrorist attack.

At a public hearing in Sydney on Monday, Gutnick said she saw people trying to excuse and justify the events as only anti-Zionist. She listed ways she felt unsafe in her own country.

"I felt as though antisemitism was allowed to come into the open," she said. "All of a sudden it was socially, morally acceptable for antisemitic comments to be made in public discourse."

Gutnick said her father Reuven Morrison was deeply proud of being Australian. He had fled the USSR at age 14 and later met her mother on Bondi Beach.

Bondi now holds complicated feelings for her, Gutnick said, despite her beautiful childhood memories there.

Another witness, known only as AAL, said he moved to Australia from South Africa in the 1980s and loved it from the start. "I treated Australia as home from the day I stepped off the plane," he said, appearing to break down. "I have to admit things have changed - I have to think very seriously whether this is the country for my grandchildren."

The royal commission reported nearly 7,500 submissions as of Monday morning. The first block of public hearings, running until May 15, focuses on lived experiences of antisemitism.

Last week, former High Court judge Virginia Bell, who leads the commission, released an interim report with 14 recommendations. They included prioritizing gun reforms and extending policing for Jewish high holy days to other Jewish events.

Before Monday's hearings, Bell noted a sharp spike in antisemitism mirrored in other western countries and linked to events in the Middle East.