Last weekend, just as the sun began to sink behind the horizon, we gathered on the St Kilda promenade—just in front of the Life Saving Club—to celebrate Tilly’s Bat Mitzvah. A Mincha-Havdalah service on the sand, surrounded by friends, family, and the vastness of the ocean. It was Tilly’s idea. She wanted to bring her Judaism into the open, to share her voice and her soul with the world.

When her family first approached me with the idea, I was deeply moved. It was creative, bold, and profoundly spiritual. But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t also terrified.

Because this isn’t the Melbourne of a year ago.

The air in our city has shifted. There’s a heaviness now, a tension that many of us carry quietly, all the time. The fear is real. And it is growing.

Jewish schools have added security. Shuls have fortified their gates. Some of us now check over our shoulders before stepping into a kosher bakery, or pause before putting on a kippah in public. We’ve watched protests spiral into open expressions of hate. Homes have been targeted. Businesses defaced. Families intimidated.

There is a quiet ache in our community—a collective holding of breath.

So, yes, the idea of gathering publicly, visibly, and joyfully as Jews—on a Saturday evening by the sea—made my heart beat a little faster. I feared hecklers. Disruption. Or worse.

And then, something incredible happened.

As Tilly sang, her voice clear and full of courage, people passing by stopped. They didn’t sneer. They didn’t scoff. They joined us.

They sang with us.

Strangers, drawn in by the sound of prayer and hope, stood beside us as we sang Oseh Shalom. Some of them cried—tears gently falling as a 12-year-old girl strummed her ukulele and sang Salam in both Hebrew and Arabic.

A song of peace. A message of unity. A prayer for wholeness in a world that feels increasingly fractured.

It was one of the most powerful moments I’ve ever witnessed.

Tilly’s Bat Mitzvah wasn’t just a celebration of Jewish identity—it was a moment of quiet resistance, a declaration of dignity, a protest wrapped in prayer. In the face of fear, we found music. In the shadow of hate, we found harmony.

The fear remains. It would be dishonest to say otherwise. But for a brief, sacred time on the St Kilda foreshore, something else took hold. Courage. Kindness. Connection.

Tilly, with her light and her song, reminded us that hope is not naive—it’s necessary.

She reminded us that while fear might be loud, joy can be louder.

And above all, she reminded us that the most powerful thing we can do in the face of darkness is to keep showing up—in the open, on the beach, under the sky—and keep singing.