By Michelle Watson, Julia Vargas Jones, Aileen Graef, CNN

(CNN) — Members of the Jewish community across the world woke up Sunday to yet another fatal attack — something that has become all too common for those of the faith.

The attack Sunday on Sydney’s Bondi Beach, which has been declared a terrorist incident, has left at least 15 people dead and 40 hospitalized in what police say was an incident targeting Jewish people.

The shooting took place as hundreds gathered to celebrate the first of eights nights of Hanukkah, a holiday which takes place close to the winter solstice during the longest nights of the year. A millennia-old tradition, it celebrates the triumph of light over darkness: the victory of the Maccabees over the Syrians and the rededication of the Second Temple of Jerusalem around 165 BC.

Today, that history is resonating even more with Jewish communities across the world following the latest in a wave of antisemitic attacks in Australian cities.

“Sydney was always the type of place which was a haven for all people,” Rabbi Levi Shemtov, executive vice president of American Friends of Lubavitch, told CNN’s Dana Bash on Sunday.

“But lately, things have taken a turn for the worse in a very major way. People saw this coming. They said it would come. They begged the prime minister to do something about it, and he just was casual or went the other way too many times,” Shemtov said.

In July, a man set the door of a synagogue alight and a group of protesters stormed an Israeli restaurant in Melbourne. The next month, the country expelled the Iranian ambassador to Canberra after the country’s intelligence agency found Iran was behind at least two antisemitic attacks on Australian soil.

President Donald Trump called Sunday’s incident “a terrible attack.”

Authorities in New York, Washington, DC, and New Jersey have said they’re deploying additional resources to Hanukkah celebrations and synagogues.