A few hours ago Jews gathered on Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia, to celebrate Hanukkah - a festival of light, survival, and Jewish resilience. Instead, at least twelve innocent people were massacred and scores wounded. Once again, Jewish joy was answered with blood. Once again, Jews were murdered not in a war zone, not near Gaza, but at a communal celebration thousands of miles from Israel.
That is the lie October 7 destroyed forever: that Jews can outrun hatred by geography, discretion, or assimilation.
I am the father of Shani Louk. My daughter was murdered on October 7 and paraded through Gaza like a trophy. Her broken body became one of the most recognizable images of the massacre - not because she sought attention, but because Hamas wanted the world to see what they do to Jews.
I believed I had already endured the worst pain imaginable. I was wrong. Because with every new massacre - whether in Israel, Europe, or now Australia - another wound is opened.
And another phenomenon has emerged that I can no longer ignore: Jews within our own community learning to live with Jewish slaughter. Managing it. Softening it. Containing it. Turning memory into an inconvenience.
I can no longer remain silent - not only about those who murder Jews, but about those who desecrate the memory of murdered Jews by making their remembrance legally dangerous.
When Mourning Jews Becomes a Legal Problem
Last May, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach held a small memorial for Shani and the victims of October 7 inside his residential building, Waterline Square, in New York City. It was the exact one year anniversary of Shani’s burial, as her body had only been found by the IDF in the Hamas tunnel in Gaza eight months after her murder. Rabbi Shmuley, being one of my dearest friends, organized a tiny memorial with a handful of people to comfort me and my family.
Dignified. Fewer than ten people attended - well below by-laws requiring any notice or approval. No one was bothered. Nothing was violated. No disturbance was caused.
And for this - for remembering Jewish victims of terror - Rabbi Shmuley is being sued by his own building, Waterline Square, for potentially millions of dollars
Not for noise.
Not for crowds.
Not for disruption.
For not obtaining permission to remember a Jewish woman. Brutally murdered by terrorists
TheNew York Post, The Independent, and other global outlets reported the story because it exposes something profoundly disturbing: a moment when Jewish grief itself is treated as a threat.
This lawsuit is not about rules. It is about fear. About discomfort. About people who recoil from Jewish pain when it appears too close to home.
One of the board members of Waterline Square is a world famous Zionist, a staunch defender of Israel and the Jewish people. He is a moral voice for the Jewish State.
Maybe -
It is easier to defend Israel with cameras rolling.
It is easier to write books, record podcasts, and collect checks.
It is easier to speak about Jewish courage.
And what is harder - but morally essential - is allowing Jews to mourn murdered Jews in the building in which you live.
That, it seems, is where this board draws the line.
Israel on television? Yes.
Israel in the hallway? No.
This is the phenomenon I have come to understand all too well: the Not In My Backyard Zionist.
I came With ZAKA. This Is what Jewish memory means
I came to New York and was visited by Rabbi Shmuley with ZAKA, the sacred volunteer organization that does what few outside Israel can comprehend. ZAKA collects what remains after massacres:
Fragments of bone.
Blood-soaked clothing.
Shattered skulls.
Pieces of human beings.
They gathered what was left of my daughter.
Her body was not whole. There was no dignity left to preserve - only fragments to be honored.
ZAKA exists so that Jews murdered for being Jews can receive proper burial. So that their memory is not erased. So that barbarism does not have the final word.
And now I am watching Jews in New York use lawyers to sue us over a memorial for her.
What Kind of Jews Sue Over a Memorial?
I ask this not with rage, but with sorrow:
What kind of Jews sue another Jew for mourning murdered Jews?
After October 7, history is being written in real time. We will remember who stood with us. And we will remember who flinched.
This lawsuit is not merely a legal action. It is a moral failure. It sends a message that Jewish memory must be controlled, minimized, and hidden - lest it inconvenience the powerful.
My daughter is not a political statement.
She is not a provocation.
She is not a nuisance.
She is a murdered Jewish woman.
And a memorial for her is not activism. It is decency.
Pain Reopened
My wife Ricarda, my family, all of us have relived Shani’s murder countless times. But watching this lawsuit unfold, against one of our closest friends, Rabbi Shmuley, and one of the people who stood with us most in the week of unspeakable tragedy, has reopened the wound in a different way.
We expected cruelty from our enemies.
We did not expect it from Jews who claim to defend Israel.
To see a rabbi attacked for honoring my daughter.
To see remembrance treated as liability.
This pain cuts differently.
A Direct Message
You are community leaders, you cannot hide from its pain.
You cannot defend Israel globally while suppressing its memory locally.
You cannot preach courage while practicing avoidance.
Withdraw this lawsuit. Apologize to the Rabbi and to my daughter's grave in Israel and beg forgiveness
Correct this injustice.
We Will Not Be Silenced
Rabbi Shmuley honored my daughter. Indeed, aside from the tiny memorial at Waterline Square which made the building's board apoplectic, Rabbi Shmuley staged a massive event, just three months after Shani was murdered, where he hosted 1000 people in Manhattan, along with Robert Kennedy Junior, President Trump’s Secretary of Health and Human Services.
There, the Rabbi dedicated a beautiful Torah to my daughter Shani and brought me and my family tremendous comfort
He honored the 1,200 Jews murdered on October 7.
He honored ZAKA and the sacred work of Jewish memory.
For that, he deserves gratitude - not threats.
I lost my daughter in the most brutal way imaginable.
I can not lose her memory too.
Not to Hamas.
Not to fear.
And not to Jews who have grown uncomfortable with Jewish visibility.
The massacre at a Hanukkah celebration in Sydney proves what October 7 already taught us: Jews are hunted everywhere. There is no safe distance.
A people that cannot mourn its dead is already halfway defeated.
But we are not defeated.
And we will not retreat from honoring our own.
Not in Israel.
Not in Australia.
Not in New York.
Not ever.
As a grieving father and as a fellow Jew, I respectfully request that the building' board simply allow my murdered daughter the dignity to rest in peace.