Jewish communities and peace loving people worldwide were shocked, saddened, dismayed and angered by the Bondi terrorist attack on 14 December 2025. Our CEO, Dr David Reiter, proudly Jewish, co-wrote this extended poem with prompts to Gemini. Feel free to copy & share.

(on Bondi Beach, 15 December 2025, courtesy ABC Australia)

Toward a Scripted Empathy

1. Sydney Redux

Gemini, what’s to say
Of sorrow
when my scriptwriter’s
on parliamentary holiday?

Easy, peesie, Boss!

The sun’s too bright
for a sandy eulogy

It glares off the white
arches of the Westfield
bounces off the pavement
where flowers are already
wilting in the humidity.

The politician is wearing
his dedicated “crisis suit”
(navy, no tie, sleeves rolled up)
that signals Action & Reliability.

His crumpled A4 underlines
“community cohesion” twice
because he knows Jewish nerves
have been frayed as NBN wires
since they warned about
The Attack we had to have.

Now the blood is real
as an empty commercial break.

‘We stand together,’ he murmurs,
but the phrase lands like a salt-soaked
towel. He enunciates “anti-semitism”
like a suffocating flag, careful
to pirouette to “Islamophobia”
on a verbal seesaw
that must never
tip.

He praises Bollard Man because
heroes poll better than victims
nodding to the rabbis at the back
with a whisper that says ‘I feel

your pain, but please don’t ask
for policy changes right now.

Behind him, the mall is a tomb
of unbought clothes…

That’s a good start, Gemini,
but please update to Sydney
14 December 2025…

2. A Hanukkah Protocol

(thinking,
thinking,
thinking…)

The menorah was meant to compete
with the sunset, great silver arms
against Pacific orange burn

But now the LEDs are crime scene
markers as Archer Park is wrapped
in yellow tape that mimics
festive streamers.

The PM walks past the ghost
of a sandcastle, past the echo of April ’24
past the flowers straining not to wilt.

His optics flash to “Setting 5:
Sombre Resolve” as salt spray
riddles his “crisis suit”
(navy, loose tie, mindful sleeves)
that affirms Work & Grit.

He mantras ‘evil’, ‘cowardice’,

‘un-Australian’ to bleach the blood-
stained pavement, then pivots to

a goal-stopping bollard meant to freeze
the traffic of blame—“We must not
let this divide us”—invoking gun law
reform as his fallback zone

Then it’s easier to invoke the Father
The Son and Paperwork than keyword
The Ideology that oppositions
from the abyss.

The cameras flash, miming
the lightning of bullets that have passed.
And X says his hero hashtags are trending