BLOODY SUNDAY

“I can't believe the news today

Oh, I can't close my eyes and make it go away

How long, how long must we sing this song?

How long? How long?

'Cause tonight

We can be as one

Tonight

Broken bottles under children's feet

Bodies strewn across the dead-end street

But I won't heed the battle call

It puts my back up, puts my back up against the wall

Sunday, Bloody Sunday

Sunday, Bloody Sunday

Sunday, Bloody Sunday

Sunday, Bloody Sunday”

- Song by the Irish band U2

This Sunday at sunset, my family and I lit the first candle on our new banana-shaped Hanukkah menorah (an eight-branched candelabrum) marking the beginning of the Hanukkah festival in our home here in Los Angeles.

After Passover, Hanukkah is my favorite holiday in the Jewish religious calendar. While Passover is the Festival of Freedom, commemorating the liberation of the Jewish people from slavery in Pharaoh-ruled Egypt, Hanukkah is the Festival of Lights. It recalls the revolt led by the Maccabees, a warrior family who rose up against the Syrian-Greek occupation of Israel, which had outlawed Jewish religious practices in Jerusalem.

After expelling the invaders, the Jews purified the Second Temple in Jerusalem and prepared to relight the great seven-branched Menorah. They soon discovered that they had only enough consecrated oil to keep the flame burning for one day, even though it would take eight days to produce more. Then a miracle occurred: the oil meant for a single day lasted for eight.

Since then, Jews have celebrated both this military victory and the miracle of the oil as enduring symbols of the resilience of the Jewish people and our unwavering commitment to our traditions and way of life, despite constant threats to our existence.

This year, the first day of Hanukkah fell on Sunday, December 14, 2025.

It was a Sunday also marked by great bloodshed. In Los Angeles, Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele Singer Reiner, were found dead in their home.

Rob was one of my favorite directors of his generation. I interviewed him three times -- for A Few Good Men (1992), North (1994), and The American President (1995) -- and each time the experience was wonderful, thanks to his intelligence and contagious warmth.

From his immense and varied filmography, I am especially fond of The Princess Bride (1987), When Harry Met Sally (1989), and Sleepless in Seattle (1993). I also had the pleasure of interviewing his father, the actor, screenwriter, and director Carl Reiner, in 2003, another towering figure in Hollywood whom I greatly admire.

I felt the loss of Rob and his wife as a deeply personal one, as did much of Hollywood. Many figures from the industry made a point of expressing their sorrow publicly, sharing their grief online.

Only one person made an absurd, pointless comment about Rob Reiner. Who? The President of the USA, Donald Trump. The comedian and host of Jimmy Kimmel Live! classified his comments as "hateful and vile" and lamented that "this corroded brain is in charge of our lives."

By the way: Rob and Michele were Jewish.

As if this sadness were not enough, two individuals inspired by the Islamic State group -- a father, Sajid Akram (50, an Indian national), and his son, Naveed Akram (24, an Australian national) -- opened fire on a crowd of Jewish families celebrating the first day of Hanukkah at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia.

This cowardly act of aggression against innocent Jews resulted, so far, in 16 confirmed deaths and more than 40 people injured. The victims ranged in age from a 10-year-old girl to an 87-year-old Holocaust survivor. Among them were a French citizen, a Slovak national, an Israeli, and two rabbis.

Amid the horror, one man intervened and prevented even greater loss of life. He was identified as Ahmed al-Ahmed, a 43-year-old Australian citizen who emigrated from Syria in 2006. A Muslim, a father of two, and the owner of a fruit shop in Sydney, Ahmed managed to disarm one of the attackers, immobilizing him and seizing his rifle. In doing so, he saved countless lives. He was shot twice and is now recovering in hospital.

The incident in Australia is part of a disturbing pattern of terrorist violence targeting Jews that has become increasingly common since the October 2024 attack in southern Israel and the ensuing wave of hostility directed at the Jewish state and Jewish communities worldwide. These attacks demonstrate that so-called anti-Zionism is often nothing more than a modern repackaging of old and familiar antisemitism. Today’s slogan, “Globalize the Intifada,” effectively signals that the hunting of Jews is once again being normalized.

Adding to the tragedy, Rob and Michele Reiner’s son is now being accused of responsibility for his parents’ deaths, an allegation of parricide that compounds the grief.

Arabs and Jews are, according to the Bible, half-brothers, sharing the same patriarch, Abraham. On this Sunday, an Arab man saved the lives of many of his Jewish half-brothers. When will the antisemitic segment of humanity stop blaming Jews for the world’s problems, and stop persecuting, accusing, and killing us?

As Shakespeare wrote in The Merchant of Venice:

“Laughed at my losses, mocked at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine enemies, and what’s his reason? I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why, revenge. The villainy you teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.”

Photo by Gaby Atherton

English translation of an article previously published in the Brazilian online magazine Chumbo Gordo.