I was in Australia learning English when the Charlie Hebdo attack happened in Paris. January 2015. I remember the phone calls, the texts from friends, the surreal feeling of watching my city wounded from the other side of the world. Then came November 2015 and the Bataclan, the cafés, the stadium. One hundred and thirty people killed while simply living their lives in Paris. I was home by then.

Those attacks changed something fundamental in me. They weren't the only reason I left France, but they crystallised a decision that had been forming. By 2016, I'd made Australia my home. Not as an escape, but as a choice, a choice about the kind of society I wanted to be part of, the kind of community I wanted to help build.

This week, I've watched that choice tested in the most heartbreaking way.

Bondi Beach, December 2025

On Sunday, December 14, at Bondi Beach, one of Australia's most iconic locations, a place synonymous with joy and summer and the Australian spirit, two gunmen opened fire on a Hanukkah celebration. Fifteen people were killed. A 10-year-old girl. An 87-year-old Holocaust survivor. A rabbi with five children, one just two months old. Among them was Dan Elkayam, 27, a French compatriot who had made Sydney his home, working as an IT analyst. French, Israeli, Slovak citizens. Australians of every background.

Among those who died were people who ran toward the danger, not away from it. Boris and Sofia Gurman, a Russian-Jewish couple, physically confronted one of the attackers. Reuven Morrison, who had fled antisemitism in the former USSR to find safety in Australia, threw bricks at the terrorists while protecting his community. He told ABC just a year ago that Australia was "the safest country in the world" for Jews. Ahmed al Ahmed, a Syrian-born Muslim shop owner, tackled and disarmed one of the gunmen. He was shot but survived.

I am devastated. I am angry. And yet, watching Australia's response this week, I am also profoundly moved.

The Paddle Out

This morning, I watched footage of thousands of people gathering at Bondi Beach for a paddle out ceremony. If you're not familiar with this tradition, it's a surfing ritual typically held when a surfer dies. I experienced it in Margaret River in 2019. Participants paddle out into the ocean, form a circle on their boards, observe silence, and then splash the water in tribute and in defiance of death.

At Bondi Beach, more than 2,000 people entered the water at Bondi. Surfers, swimmers, paddleboarders. People of every faith, every background, every nationality. They formed an enormous circle in the ocean where, just five days earlier, fifteen people had been murdered for being Jewish, for celebrating their heritage, for existing.

On the beach, Jews prayed alongside Muslims, Christians, atheists, everyone. A menorah had been projected onto the sails of the Sydney Opera House. Nearly 35,000 Australians donated blood in the days following the attack, a national record. The city turned its Christmas lights white in mourning.

This is what stopped me in my tracks. This is what reminded me, through tears, why I chose Australia.

The Intrinsic Force That Links Difference

In France, after the 2015 attacks, there was solidarity, yes. There were vigils and "Je suis Charlie" and unity rallies. But there was also division. Debates about Islam and laïcité, about national identity, about who really belonged. The fractures were always there, and the attacks made them deeper.

What I've witnessed in Australia this week is different. Not perfect. Australia has its problems, its tensions, its own rising antisemitism that should have been addressed more forcefully. But the response to this horror has revealed something essential about Australian culture that I don't think exists quite the same way anywhere else.

It's that intrinsic force that links people when adversity strikes. No religion. No sex. No nationalities. Just a desire to be together and share the present moment. To say, collectively, "not here, not to us, not in our home."

When Ahmed al Ahmed, wounded in hospital, raised his fist and chanted "Aussie, Aussie, Aussie". Here is the scene: a Muslim Syrian defending Jews against Islamic State terrorism while celebrating Australian identity. Ahmed al Ahmed captured something profound about this country. This is why I became a citizen. This is what I chose.

"The Best Country in the World"

That's what Ahmed al Ahmed called Australia from his hospital bed, with shrapnel still in his body from defending strangers. He's not wrong.

I left France after experiencing terror firsthand. I left because I could see the way violence drives communities apart, the way fear calcifies into resentment, the way diversity can become a source of division rather than strength.

In Australia, I've found the opposite. Not a naive multiculturalism that ignores differences, but a practical, lived commitment to the idea that we're all here together,  that when terror strikes, when hatred attacks, when violence tries to fracture us, we respond not by turning on each other but by turning toward each other.

I am sad, of course. Fifteen people are dead. Families are shattered. A 10-year-old girl will never grow up. A Holocaust survivor made it through the worst of humanity only to be murdered celebrating a Jewish festival in a country that promised him safety.

But I am also proud. Proud to be Australian. Proud to live in a place where thousands of people paddle out into the ocean together to say that love is stronger than hate, that community is more powerful than terror, that we will not let fear change who we are.

No One Will Destroy This Force

The terrorists who attacked Bondi Beach wanted to spread division, to make Australians afraid of each other, to turn communities against one another. They failed spectacularly.

They met Boris and Sofia Gurman, who fought them with their bare hands. They met Ahmed al Ahmed, who disarmed them. They met an entire nation that responded to their hatred with blood donations and prayers and thousands of people forming a circle in the ocean.

This is Australia's strength. Not its gun laws, not its counter-terrorism apparatus, not its policies, though all of those matter. Its strength is in the social fabric, the cultural understanding that we're all in this together, that an attack on one community is an attack on all of us.

No one will be able to destroy this force. Not with guns, not with bombs, not with ideology. Because it's not enforced from above, it comes from within, from the everyday choices people make to see each other as human beings first, to defend strangers as if they were family, to gather at dawn and paddle out into the ocean together.

I chose Australia. Even in grief, especially in grief, I know I chose well.

We are Australian. All of us. And that means something profound this morning,