The chief rabbi, who represents the largest Jewish community in the UK, also said the causes of “toxic antisemitism” must be addressed, calling for authorities to crack down on hate speech.
Around 1,000 people were said to be attending the Bondi Beach Hanukkah celebration on Sunday evening when the shooting began, with verified videos showing attendees screaming and running as a volley of gunshots rang out.
The ages of the victims range from 10 to 87 years old. Among the dead are two rabbis and a Holocaust survivor.
The two gunmen have been named in local media as 50-year-old Sajid Akram, who died at the scene, and his 24-year-old son Naveed Akram, who is in hospital in a critical condition. The two had reportedly pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group.
Rabbi Mirvis, who will travel to Sydney on Tuesday, said Jewish people had been “targeted for the simple act of gathering together, visibly and peacefully, as Jews”.
The right of Jewish communities to gather safely and publicly was a “test of the moral health of any society”, he said.
“Jews have lived with security concerns for as long as I can remember, but the fact that today every public Jewish gathering must be weighed for risk is a sign of something deeply wrong.”
A society in which a minority group have to “calculate whether it is safe to be seen together in public” is a society that is “failing all of its citizens”.
Sir Keir, who spoke to Rabbi Mirvis on Sunday night, has pledged a “more visible security presence” at Hanukkah events following the attack.
“It has impacted on Jewish communities here in the UK, that I know feel even more insecure today than they did before,” he told a Commons committee on Monday.
“This is clearly not an isolated incident, and these incidents are chillingly focused on some of the holiest days of the Jewish calendar,” the PM said, referencing an attack on Heaton Park Synagogue on Yom Kippur that left two Jewish victims dead.
