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In the days after the Bondi attack, Rabbi Yehoram Ulman presided over 10 funerals in three days. The first was that of his son-in-law, Rabbi Eli Schlanger, the father of his five grandchildren.

On the day of Schlanger’s funeral, his community made a decision.

“On the final night of Hanukah, we would return to Bondi beach, to where the attack had taken place, and we would light the menorah there,” Ulman said.

“We couldn’t undo what had happened. We couldn’t bring back those we had lost or remove the grief from the families whose lives had been shattered. But we could decide what we would do next. That is why the work of the royal commission matters so deeply.”

Ulman was the final witness, of more than 300, who appeared before the royal commission on antisemitism and social cohesion, called in the wake of the Bondi terrorist attack of December last year in which 15 people were killed.

He urged a reckoning across the country, that the next generation is taught “what freedom requires of them, not only what it gives them”.

“We have to rediscover the confidence to say that some things are right and some things are wrong, while making room for Australians who profoundly disagree with one another’s views to share this country in peace.”

The rabbi offered a prayer for his youngest grandson, just two months old when his father died.

“My prayer is that when my grandson is old enough to understand what happened to his father, he will also be able to understand what Australia chose to do about it. And that he will be proud of the choice we made.”

These are some of the key moments from the royal commission’s four months of public hearings.

Special adviser ‘surplus to requirements’

The first challenge to the commission came at its inception: Australia’s former spy chief Dennis Richardson resigning his post before any hearings had been held.

Richardson – former head of Asio and ambassador to the US – had initially been named to lead an inquiry into intelligence and policing in the lead-up to the terror attack at Bondi.

However after the government relented to calls for a royal commission into the attack and the broader issue of antisemitism, Richardson’s review was folded into the commission, led by former high court judge Virginia Bell.

While he was made special adviser to the inquiry, he said he felt “there wasn’t enough discussion right at the beginning about the precise way things would work. And ultimately … I was surplus to requirements”.

Richardson’s role commanded a daily rate of up to $5,000.

“I was being way overpaid for what I was doing.”

But Richardson left emphasising the royal commission’s work would be valuable and strongly praised Bell’s stewardship.

Interim report calls for greater coordination

In April, before any public hearings had been held, Bell handed down an interim report, finding that Sydney’s Jewish community had told police of a “high” threat of an attack at the Chanukah by the Sea festival at Bondi, but that NSW police appeared not to have completed a comprehensive risk assessment for the event.

The interim report found no gap in existing laws that could have prevented the shooting, but it did call for greater coordination of policing at Jewish festivals and events.

The report also warned that the war being waged against Iran by the United States and Israel was “likely to have increased the risk of attacks directed at the Australian Jewish community”.

Bondi victims share their anguish

Some of the most powerful evidence of the commission has come from survivors of the Bondi terror attack, and family members of those killed.

Sheina Gutnick – whose father, Reuven Morrison, was killed at Bondi after throwing bricks at the gunmen as they fired – told the commission she had “received and seen hundreds of comments … that I should have been killed in the Bondi attack, calls to kill Israelis, [and] comments celebrating violence against Jews”.

She said there had been a “massive shift” after the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, and the subsequent Israeli military offensive.

“From that point onwards I felt as though antisemitism was being allowed to come into the open,” Gutnick said.

“That was completely unprecedented. All of a sudden it was socially, morally acceptable for antisemitic comments to be made in public.”

Bondi attack survivor Arsen Ostrovsky said when images of his injuries in the attack were circulated online, “there were messages of solidarity, but there was almost immediately an influx of hate, of abuse, of vilification, of AI manipulation”.

Voices heard and not heard

The Australia Palestine Advocacy Network (Apan) was initially refused leave to appear before the commission in Hearing Block 2, told it did not have “a direct and substantial interest in the scope of the hearing”. Apan was granted leave at a subsequent hearing block, during which time its questioning was criticised by some in the Jewish community, but defended by the commission.

Counsel for Apan, Ragni Mathur SC, questioned the Jewish Board of Deputies president, David Ossip, about the timeline of Israel’s response to Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack in the context of a protest held at the Sydney Opera House two days later.

Alex Ryvchin, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry’s co-chief executive, told The Australian it was “deeply concerning that these groups predictably used the opportunity to hijack an examination of lethal antisemitism for their clickbait theatrics and gratuitous slurs against Israel”.

But Bell said that Mathur “did not hijack this Royal Commission”, directly refuting the language of critics.

“Counsel appearing for groups at this Royal Commission should no more be the subject of Islamophobic or other attacks than members of the Jewish community who have been subjected to antisemitic attacks after giving evidence.”

The issue over Apan’s leave to appear highlighted a corollary to the evidence presented before the commission: that of the voices not heard, those not called to give evidence in public, given the strict time constraints on the inquiry.

More than 20,000 submissions have been received by the commission. It has heard from just over 300 witnesses at public hearings in Sydney and Melbourne across four months.

Jewish identity and the state of Israel

Another consistent theme over the course of the nine blocks of public hearings has been the conflation of Jewish identity with the state of Israel.

Concern came from across the political spectrum.

The government’s antisemitism envoy, Jillian Segal, told the royal commission the “fastest-growing” form of antisemitism was “those who just conflate dissatisfaction with the legitimacy of the State of Israel or the actions of the government of the State of Israel with the Jewish people”.

In its submission, the Jewish Council of Australia said one of the key drivers of antisemitism was “the aggressive actions of the State of Israel and conflation of Jewish identity with Israel – a conflation that the State of Israel itself has long cultivated and which causes direct harm to Jewish people worldwide when they are blamed for Israel’s actions”.

Vic Alhadeff, former chief executive of the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies, told the commission: “Jewish Australians have no agency in what the Israel Defense Force does, or indeed what the Israeli government does. And yet so much of the manifestation of antisemitic incidents and attacks is interlaced with, and references, what is taking place on the other side of the world. We are not responsible.”

Contested definitions

The letters patent for the royal commission notes the Australian government has adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism. The definition is contested for the illustrative examples that accompany the core definition, which some say conflate criticism of Israel with antisemitism.

The definition is not universally accepted, and its enforceable application has been rejected by its lead drafter, Kenneth Stern, who argued the definition was being “weaponised” as “an attack on academic freedom and free speech”.

The ABC and SBS both declined to adopt the definition this year.

Jillian Segal told the commission there was a “common and pervasive perception” in the Jewish community that the ABC and SBS “lacked balance” in their coverage of the Middle East. She proposed a new “oversight” committee to vet their coverage. This was rejected by both public broadcasters.

The Australia Palestine Advocacy Network said in its submission: “The definition of antisemitism is distorted and weaponised in attempts to silence those who criticise Israel”.

The royal commission heard significant evidence of antisemitism on Australian university campuses, including the occupation of a Jewish professor’s office.

Universities Australia last year adopted its own sector-wide definition of antisemitism, which stated that criticism of the Israeli government was not necessarily antisemitic but could be if it was grounded in “harmful tropes, stereotypes or assumptions”.

Progress and setbacks

The commission heard from community groups about progress on work promoting social cohesion, but also setbacks.

Rabbi Zalman Kastel told the commission about the work of educational not-for-profit organisation Together for Humanity in schools across Australia. He gave the example of a recent school presentation alongside Muslim and Christian educators, “demonstrating a genuine concern for the wellbeing and experiences of all communities affected by prejudice”.

“Another small step towards furthering our mission of strengthening social cohesion and affirming our shared humanity.”

But Sandy Kouroupidis from the Faith Communities Council of Victoria said its work to promote harmony between different faith groups had become far more difficult following the 2023 Hamas attacks, the subsequent war in Gaza, and the Bondi massacre.

Interaction between the Muslim and Jewish communities has stopped altogether, Kouroupidis said.

“It has been very, very challenging to get those two communities in the same room.”

Jewish people had stopped attending interfaith events, and schools stopped taking part in visits to Muslim and Christian institutes, Kouroupidis said.

“A lot of the Jewish schools simply don’t feel safe.”

Bell will hand down her final report on 18 December after requesting a four-day extension so as not to distract from the one-year anniversary of the Bondi attack.