Darren Chait
Co-Founder & Director, Community Health Support (CHS); CMO, beehiiv
2026
Darren Chait is a co-founder and Non-executive Director of Community Health Support (CHS), a community-powered medical service in Sydney, Australia, and a qualified EMT (Emergency Medical Technician).
CHS was established in 2022 in response to the reality that access to emergency healthcare was rapidly declining in a post-COVID era, and the Sydney Jewish Community had needs the public system was not built to meet: specific cultural norms of an aging and very orthodox community, more than 60 communal facilities in a few mile radius, hundreds of community events annually, and no community capability for a mass casualty incident or a terror attack, which – even then – was a probable scenario. At the same time, in the relatively tight geography that most of the community resides, there were hundreds of healthcare professionals in the Community – all willing to help their neighbors, regardless of faith.
Four years on, CHS runs a 24/7 emergency response and advice line staffed by volunteer doctors, nurses, paramedics and trained first responders. To date, CHS has responded to almost 10,000 calls for help. CHS also delivers free first aid and CPR training to the public, and provides medical coverage at community events across Sydney. 12,000 households are registered with the service and close to 5,000 people have been trained through it.
On 14 December 2025, following two years of rapidly accelerating antisemitism in Sydney, it was tested. Darren was on call as the CHS Duty Operations Manager and was the first qualified medical responder on scene at Bondi Beach, where two ISIS-motivated gunmen opened fire on Chanukah by the Sea, a celebration attended by around a thousand members of the Sydney Jewish Community. Fifteen people were killed and roughly forty were injured in an act of terrorism targeting the Jewish community, and the largest terror attack in Australian history. Alongside 27 other CHS volunteers, Darren enacted CHS’ mass casualty plan – exactly as they had been trained over the previous four years – working for hours to save lives in partnership with NSW Ambulance and other emergency services, which were expectedly stretched thin.
Seeing the silver lining of this horrific attack, CHS has both used the opportunity to connect over their shared role and training and expose other emergency services to the consequences of hate and antisemitism, and what communities can choose to do in advance and in response. Darren’s view is that the people best placed to make that case are the ones who have done the work. A nurse who has run a mass casualty triage knows things an academic studying one does not, and a community that waits for policy to catch up pays for the delay in lives.
By day, Darren is Chief Marketing Officer at beehiiv. He previously co-founded San-Francisco based tech company, Hugo, which was acquired by Calendly in 2021, where he was an executive until recently. After a number of years in San Francisco CA, Darren now lives in Sydney, Australia with his family.
My network of professionals working on countering hate in all its forms grew exponentially after attending Eradicate Hate in 2021. The myriad voices represented at Eradicate Hate, from big tech companies to academic researchers to those with lived experience, reinforced to me the importance of cross-cutting and collaborative approaches to counter hate and its devastating impacts on society. I’ve been fortunate to sustain and build those networks with many of those I met at Eradicate Hate in 2021.
