Sheba Trauma Experts Support Australian Jewish Community After Bondi Beach Incident 

The Chanukkah Bondi Beach incident this past December left the Jewish community deeply grief-stricken and devastated. In the days and weeks that followed, many people were left carrying fear, shock, and uncertainty. Some were directly exposed to the event, many others were affected indirectly as parents, educators, or members of the community, simply trying to regain their footing. As the immediate shock gave way to ongoing strain, it became clear that existing systems were being asked to respond to something unprecedented. 

In the immediate aftermath of the incident in Bondi Beach, it became clear that while Australia has dedicated and highly skilled mental health professionals, the community had not previously faced an event of this nature or scale. Schools, community organizations, and frontline carers were navigating unfamiliar territory, supporting children, families, and staff through acute shock, fear, and uncertainty. Local leaders, therefore, reached out for guidance from those with deep experience in large-scale trauma response. In response, Sheba assembled a delegation of senior trauma professionals – Dr. Naama de la Fontaine, Dr. Jana Porat, Shani Or-Noy, and Tamar Silber – to support the Kesser Torah community and the wider Jewish community. Their role was not to replace local mental health services, but to strengthen them by sharing practical frameworks, training educators and clinicians, and working alongside local professionals so that knowledge, confidence, and capacity would remain long after the delegation returned home.

Supporting Community Recovery After the Bondi Beach Incident

This was the first time Sheba’s trauma specialists had travelled to a Jewish community outside Israel to offer direct, on-the-ground trauma support, reflecting a growing commitment to extend Sheba’s patient‑centered care model far beyond its own campus. Their purpose was to share knowledge, experience, and tools that strengthen local responses to trauma by engaging with schools, mental health professionals, and community organizations.

This support has included remote psychological assistance via Sheba Beyond for children, families, and adults seeking help, sharing trauma-informed frameworks shaped in contexts of extreme violence and prolonged uncertainty, and working alongside those who support others, educators, clinicians, and community leaders, so that recovery can continue well beyond the immediate aftermath.

Applying Frontline Trauma Expertise Beyond Israel

In Sydney, the delegation focused on listening, validating, and strengthening resilience in a community shaken by violence but bound together by solidarity. “It feels like we are having this shared feeling that we’re together in this and we want to build this resilience together with the community,” said Tamar Silber, senior mental health and rehabilitation professional at Sheba. 

She emphasized the reciprocal nature of global Jewish support:

“We all felt after October 7 we had the support of the Jewish community around the world and that really helped us to not feel alone. By coming here we also wanted to show the Jewish community that we’re in this together.”

The visit underscored a powerful message: the same compassion that flowed toward Israel after October 7 now returns outward, as Sheba’s teams help other communities navigate their own moments of crisis.

Strengthening Resilience Through Shared Community Support

For Dr. Jana Porat, senior clinical psychologist and Director of the Virtual Psychology Clinic at Sheba Beyond, the mission to Australia was a natural extension of Sheba’s global engagement.

“We feel we are part of the same community, the same people. Our goal is to empower the community,”

She said. Porat highlighted that resilience begins with honest, open conversations, particularly with children and adults who may struggle to process what they have seen or heard. She stressed the importance of encouraging questions, legitimizing emotions, and creating space for grief, fear, and confusion. “Healing from trauma is feeling,” she said, capturing a core principle of trauma‑informed care: people cannot heal from what they are not allowed to feel.

Supporting Children Through Developmentally Appropriate Care

As the founder of Sheba’s Children’s Trauma Clinic and head of the Pediatric Anxiety Clinic, Dr. Naama de la Fontaine has witnessed firsthand the emotional shockwaves of October 7 across generations. She reflected on the months following the atrocities in Israel, describing how an outpouring of global solidarity provided moments of “light coming out of the darkness.”

In Sydney, she stressed the importance of speaking with children in ways that match their age, language, and emotional capacity. Conversations must be honest but measured, offering information without overwhelming them, and always framed within a sense of safety and support. “When children, and adults, avoid trauma reminders their world becomes limited,” she said. 

For de la Fontaine, helping children name and integrate their experiences is essential to healing.

“Part of the work that we do for all children is that memories can’t hurt you. They can be painful, but they’re not dangerous. Putting the past in the past is the first step towards moving forward.”

A Message of Hope and Post-Traumatic Growth

Shani Or-Noy, an expert rehabilitation psychologist at Sheba, shared a message of hope grounded in Sheba’s experience working with returned hostages, injured civilians, and soldiers following October 7: “We see from working with the hostages who came back, and also the soldiers and people who were hurt on October 7, that there is post-traumatic growth. This is very important to know.”

Or-Noy explained that while trauma is deeply painful, it can also lead to strengthened personal values and deeper human connections, “Often you get more strength. You understand what is important for you, you make deeper connections, and you feel more loved and bring more love to the world,” she said. “This is something I found out in Israel, and I hope your community will also find out this is what can happen.”

A Shared Commitment to Healing and Resilience

Through this visit, Sheba Medical Center embodied a core Jewish principle that the Jewish nation is one people, one community, bound together even across borders.

When violence wounds one Jewish community, others answer the call with expertise, presence, and open hearts, sharing strength where it’s needed most. By bringing lessons learned from Israel’s darkest days to Sydney’s grieving community, Sheba’s team helped create a bridge of mutual care, one that honors loss, nurtures resilience, and keeps hope firmly in view.

In doing so, Sheba continues to grow its role as a global partner in healing, standing shoulder to shoulder with Jewish communities worldwide and embodying a shared commitment to recovery, dignity, and post‑traumatic growth in the face of violence.