On the third day, Bondi began burying its dead.
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Rabbi Eli Schlanger, known for driving hours to help people in hospital and prison, was first.
At a synagogue built by Jewish migrants from the Soviet Union, mourners gathered on Wednesday to farewell their spiritual leader.
Some sang while black-and-navy-suited men trailed the hearse, those at the front pressing their hands on the car's rear window.
An unshakeable pillar of Sydney's Jewish community, respected for his purity, compassion and sincerity, was swallowed by the damp earth.
Rabbi Schlanger's funeral preceded 14 others at a time when Jews around the world usually celebrate their unique faith.
But this year is different.
On Sunday, a father and son, believed to have undergone terrorist training overseas, opened fire on a crowd of Jewish faithful gathered to mark Hanukkah at Bondi Beach.
In a matter of minutes the pair unleashed a hail of more than 100 bullets into the terrified gathering.
When their weapons eventually fell silent, the stench of gunpowder hung heavy over Australia's most famous beach and 15 people and one shooter lay dead or dying.
The victims included a 10-year-old girl, Matilda, and elderly Holocaust survivor Alexander Kleytman.
Also killed were a second Rabbi, Yaakov Levitan, Frenchman Dan Elkayam, 61-year-old Peter Meagher, Reuven Morrison, 62, Tibor Weitzen, 78, Marika Pogany, 82, and six others.
Dozens were rushed to hospital in screaming ambulances.
While many of their injuries were treatable, the scars in the community will likely take generations to heal.
Emeritus Professor Suzanne Rutland, the daughter of Polish-born Jewish refugees and a leading Jewish historian, watched on from Israel, where she was representing Australia at an International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance event.
"I was literally shaking, I was just so stressed with what I was reading," she tells AAP during a late-night phone call from Jerusalem.
The Jewish community had been facing rising anti-Semitism well before Hamas' attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023, but the war in Gaza turbocharged the issue as protests and university encampments sprung up around the country, Professor Rutland says.
She says her community had been raising the alarm about the spike in Jewish hatred but was largely ignored.
In one case, which resulted in a nearly half-a-million-dollar payout, Jewish students at a Melbourne state school were subjected to jokes about gas chambers and Hitler over five years.
In late 2023, pro-Palestinian protesters took to the steps of the Sydney Opera House chanting "where's the Jews".
More recently, a Melbourne synagogue and a Jewish catering company in Sydney were set alight and suburbs with large Jewish populations were targeted with anti-Semitic and anti-Israel graffiti.
"People in the community warned. (ASIO boss) Mike Burgess warned," Prof Rutland says.
"There was this sense that people, maybe they said words, but there was no action."
While the police investigation is still in its early days, it's evident the two Bondi shooters were motivated at least partly by anti-Semitism: they targeted Jews lighting candles for Hanukkah.
But Levi West, an internationally recognised counter-terrorism expert, says the ideology behind the attack is more complex.
The father and son carried out the shooting in the name of Islamic State, and while hatred of Jews is part of that ideology, it's not the whole thing, he explains.
"There is no question that Jihadist ideology, much like neo-Nazi ideology and a whole range of other extremist ideologies, has an anti-Semitic component to it," Dr West tells AAP.
"These two guys, from what we understand now about their Islamic State affiliations, believe in a broader set of ideas than just anti-Semitism, right?
"They believe in Islamic State ideology which is multifaceted and goes beyond anti-Semitism."
While many Jewish leaders and some politicians have sought to paint the massacre as the climax of years of anti-Semitic hate at protests and other events, Dr West believes there's more to it.
He says the pair were well-committed to their cause and the rhetoric at some of the demonstrations was unlikely to have swayed them.
"I don't think these two needed anti-Semitic statements and offensive statements being made at protests to convince them to commit a terrorist attack," he says.
"Whilst some of that rhetoric may have played around as background noise, the radicalisation process … is much more complex."
That's cold comfort for the Jewish families who've spent the week burying loved ones.
From here, the path forward for Australia's Jews appears uncertain.
Many are now considering moving overseas, according to Daniel Aghion, the president of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry.
"Are we now going to have demographic issues into the future because our community will now start to shrink?" the long-serving barrister asks.
The attack will radically change the way the community goes about its day-to-day life, Mr Aghion says.
"Does this mean we need to hide our religious festivals, our schools, our places of worship … do we have to put them all behind walls?"
For years, many Jewish schools have posted armed guards outside and already the federal government is pouring more money into community security programs.
NSW parliament is being recalled to pass tougher gun laws and other states and territories are considering similar legislation.
But Mr Aghion warns the fear felt by the Jewish community will only get worse.
"I don't think the Jewish community in Sydney will ever be the same, just as the people in and around Port Arthur aren't the same," he says.
Asked about the timing of the shooting, coinciding with Hanukkah, Mr Aghion takes a long, shaky breath.
"We are desperately trying to find the light. It is a festival of light," he says.
"This is supposed to be a time of celebration. That has been lost to us."
In the wake of the massacre, Australians have wrapped their arms around the Jewish community.
Crowds of young and old have queued at Parliament House in Canberra to sign two condolence books placed in the black-and-white marble foyer.
While outside the Bondi Pavillion, a floral tribute grows by the day: thousands upon thousands of blossoms have been laid by political leaders and grieving locals alike.
But as the petals bake in the scorching summer sun, uncomfortable questions remain for those seeking to re-knit the fabric of a nation torn asunder.
Furious political debates on migration, national security and social cohesion will likely ensue.
There are many paths to take but one thing is certain.
We will be strongest together, if only we can find the light.
Australian Associated Press
