Arsen Ostrovsky lived through years of war in Israel and never once questioned where he called home. Weeks after moving his family back to Sydney, he was shot in the head on Bondi Beach.

Arsen Ostrovsky is head of the Sydney office of the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC), former CEO of the International Legal Forum, and an international human rights lawyer.

He left Odessa as a boy because his parents wanted him free to live as a Jew. Daniel Pearl's last words later set him on the road to Israel, where he spent thirteen years defending the Jewish state in international courts and at the United Nations.

His wife and daughters were on the beach with him that night. They survived too, and the whole family is still healing.

Midway through the conversation, the advocate gives way to the father. He repeats something his daughter said to him out of the blue, and Avi Jorisch asks how he answered her.

This is not another account of the attack. It is about what a second chance at life asks of the man who receives it.

After Bondi, a journalist asked whether he was more or less a man of faith, and the question almost stopped him. Nearly a year later, Avi asks it again.

Statecraft with Avi Jorisch is a production of IEF. Conversations with the people shaping the destiny of Israel and the Jewish people.

An IEF Production