Survivors of the Sydney Hanukkah Attack

The Dr. Phil Podcast

Dr. Phil McGraw

Education, Society & Culture

4.3 • 13.5K Ratings

🗓️ 23 December 2025

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

On a night meant for celebration and light, terror erupted at a beach in Sydney, Australia during the first night of the Jewish holiday, Hanukkah. What should have been a safe, public gathering became a scene of chaos and unimaginable loss. Fifteen people were killed, and many more were injured.

Tonight, we hear firsthand from two families who lived through that nightmare. Lissy, a mother who was forced to run for her life while protecting her young daughter, and Rabbi Yosef, whose 14 year old daughter survived the attack while others around her did not.

Through their stories, we confront the human cost of hatred, the trauma of survival, and the resilience it takes to move forward after unspeakable violence. As Hanukkah continues, we reflect on loss, courage, and the enduring search for light in the darkest moments.

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Transcript

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0:56.0	On an evening meant for celebration, terror struck at the beach in Sydney, Australia, during the first night of the Jewish holiday Hanukkah.
0:59.0	Fifteen people were killed and many more were injured in a place that should have been safe.
1:05.0	Tonight we hear from two families who faced that nightmare up close. Lissy, a mother, who ran for her
1:14.5	life with her daughter. Lissy, I know this was an extremely upsetting occasion for you. Can you tell
1:22.5	me what happened as you and your daughter were near this Hanukkah event?
1:29.3	Yeah, hello there. My daughter is an adult, and we had just parked our car, and we were walking past the Hanukkah first night lighting, and we were just pointing it out because we were on our way to a bar mitzvah.
1:45.0	And we looked at the event and we said it looked beautiful and we walked on, we started to walk a little further and all of a sudden we heard gunshots.
1:55.0	And I screamed to my daughter really quickly. I just said, run, You've got to run their gunshots. And she wasn't
2:03.4	sure at first, and so I just said, you've got to go. And I was wearing high-heeled shoes. And I
2:08.8	wasn't able to run as fast, even though I can run. I couldn't run as fast as I would have liked.
2:13.5	And so I told her she had to run ahead and get to safety she needed to go.
2:19.4	She didn't leave me. And that was really uncomfortable because then I was really concerned about what that meant.
2:25.0	We went down onto the beach side and we found the lifeguard tower.
2:30.1	Underneath there was a section where they store all of the equipment for the rescue, surf rescues.
2:36.0	And there were some people in there and people didn't know what was going on.
2:40.0	But I went in and I said, this is a terror attack.
	...

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