Two rabbis, a girl and a Holocaust survivor among victims of Bondi Beach terror attack

One of 15 people killed by a pair of gunmen Sunday in an attack on a Jewish gathering on Australia’s famous Bondi Beach was the rabbi who helped coordinate the event, friends and family confirmed.

Rabbi Eli Schlanger was praised Monday as an “extraordinary human being” as information began to emerge about the victims of what Australian authorities have called an anti-Semitic terrorist attack. Among those killed were another local rabbi, a 10-year-old girl and a man who survived the Holocaust.

Alex Ryvchin, co-chief executive of the Executive Council of Australian Jews, told News themezone he believes a last-minute decision not to attend the event in the Sydney suburb could have saved his life.

“For the last 10 years, the rabbi has invited me to speak and deliver a message. And this year, for the first time, I didn’t attend. I had my oldest daughter’s best friend’s bat mitzvah, so I was somewhere else,” he said.

“The rabbi who invited me, who was a dear friend of mine, who I would have been with, was among those massacred,” Ryvchin told News themezone, referring to Schlanger.

He said Schlanger was an “extraordinary human being” whose work across New South Wales included helping the disadvantaged and visiting people hospitalized with terminal illnesses.

Schlanger’s brother-in-law, Rabbi Mendel Kastel, was also present with his family.

“The last 24 hours have been really difficult,” Kastel told News themezone on Monday. “You know, losing a brother-in-law, you know, a family member, it affects me directly. But at the same time, I have a role in the community supporting others. It’s been really difficult.”

Kastel praised Schlanger as “an incredible young man, a person committed to his work.”

“He was committed to the community. People loved him. Everywhere he went, he was really interested in people and people were really interested in him. He visited people in hospitals, he visited people in prisons, he taught people, he taught bar mitzvahs. He inspired other rabbis with his enthusiasm and his positivity,” Kastel said.

Grieving residents living in Bondi, a suburb south of Sydney, gathered on Monday to lay flowers and mourn those killed after the attack. For Rabbi Kastel, that community spirit is the essence of what Hanukkah symbolizes.

“We want to shine, we want to light those candles together, we want to embrace each other and really build a proper Australian community where people feel valued, loved and cared for,” she said.

Who were the other victims of the Bondi shooting?

Australian authorities have not confirmed the identities of any victims, but friends, family and media reports have begun to build a picture of the lives lost, including a 10-year-old girl and an 87-year-old Holocaust survivor. The young victim has not yet been identified

At least 38 people, including two police officers, were still being treated in hospitals on Monday.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry said at least one Israeli citizen was among the dead, but provided no further information.

Another local rabbi, Yaakov Levitan, was also mourned as a victim of the attack in a fundraising campaign backed by the Jewish organization Chabad World HQ. The organization’s state chapter in the Australian state of New South Wales confirmed Levitan’s death, and the fundraising page for his family called him “an active and deeply loved member of the Sydney Jewish community.”

“He was a man of quiet devotion, known for his kindness and tireless work helping others,” according to the tribute, which called him “the cornerstone of his family: a devoted husband and father” and urged people to “urgently rally around the Levitan family.”

Reuben Morrison, a 62-year-old Soviet-born member of the Sydney-area ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, was killed while trying to stop one of the two gunmen during the shooting, his daughter Sheina Gutnick told News themezone correspondent Anna Coren on Monday.

“According to my sources and my understanding, he jumped the moment the shooting started. He managed to throw bricks at the terrorist,” Gutnick told News themezone, referring to an attempt to stop one of the gunmen that was caught on camera.

French President Emmanuel Macron said a French citizen, Dan Elkayam, was among the dead.

Larisa Kleytman told reporters outside St Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney that her husband, Alexander Kleytman, was among the dead. The couple were both Holocaust survivors, according to The Australian newspaper.

The rugby club in the nearby Sydney suburb of Randwick posted an online tribute on Monday to its “loyal club volunteer Peter Meagher”, saying he was “caught up in these horrific shootings at Bondi Beach and was sadly one of the 15 innocent people who lost their lives”.

The club said Meagher was working the event as a freelance photographer, “and for him it was simply a catastrophic case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Slovakia’s president, Peter Pellegrini, said Monday that the dead also included a national of the European country, but identified her only as Marika.