Woman says her father died a hero during Bondi Beach attack and ‘Australia

The daughter of one of the Victims of Sunday’s terrorist attack on Bondi Beach. told News themezone on Monday that his father was “shot to death for being Jewish” and now believes Australia is not a safe home for Jews.

Sheina Gutnick said her father, Reuven Morrison, a 62-year-old Soviet-born member of Australia’s ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, was killed while trying to stop one of two gunmen during Sunday’s mass shooting, which Australian authorities have called an anti-Semitic terrorist attack.

“According to my sources and from what I understand, he jumped the moment the shooting started. He managed to throw bricks at the terrorist,” Gutnick told News themezone in Bondi on Monday, referencing an attempt to stop one of the gunmen who was caught on camera during the attack the day before.

He said it was his father who was seen trying to stop one of the attackers after another man, later identified as Ahmed al Ahmed, a 43-year-old fruit seller, confronted the suspect and grabbed a gun.

“I think after Ahmed managed to take the gun from the terrorist, my father went to try to unlock the gun, to try to shoot. He was yelling at the terrorist,” he said. “My dear father, Reuven Morrison was shot dead for being Jewish at a Hanukkah event in Bondi Beach while protecting lives, while jumping, putting his own life at risk to save his fellow members of the Jewish community.”

Dramatic social media video verified by News themezone Confirmed shows Morrison throwing objects at one of the alleged shooters after another man, confirmed by Australian authorities to be Ahmed, tackled and disarmed him.

Gutnick recalled the devastating moment he discovered his father had died in the attack.

“As my family was leaving a Hanukkah event in Melbourne, we heard news from a friend that there was a shooting in Sydney. I immediately felt a big knot in my stomach and tried to call my father, who didn’t answer the phone. Then I called my mother and heard screaming, screaming. She was screaming that there was an active shooter,” Gutnick said. “I called her back and she was screaming that she was running, that she was running, and then that she had been shot. After a few more attempts to hang up and call again, my mother was screaming for medical help, screaming for an ambulance, screaming for help, asking for help… Then she informed her that they were giving her oxygen and hung up the phone.”

He said he got his mother back on the phone, “and she was screaming that they had stopped working with him and had covered him with a sheet. I was hoping in his hysterical state that he was just delusional and that wasn’t the case.”

Gutnick said he believes Australia is no longer a safe country for the Jewish community and blamed the country’s government, accusing leaders of failing to address a rising wave of anti-Semitism.

Australian police “were lying on the ground in the grass covering their heads, untrained for this massacre, untrained for what is to come, untrained for what the Jewish community has been telling the Australian government is inevitable,” Gutnick said, adding his voice to a Chorus of criticism after a documented increase in hate attacks. aimed at Jewish residents of Australia.

“Australia is no longer a home for Jews. It cannot be. If we are shot dead while celebrating our religious festival of lights, of pride, of celebrating who we are, and if we cannot do that, Australia is no longer a home for us. We cannot be here,” he added.

Morrison had fled the Soviet Union to escape anti-Semitic persecution five decades ago, Gutnick said, and said he was left with a sense of “betrayal” because of the way his father died.

“He came to Australia because he thought it would be safe,” he said. “This is where I was going to have a family, where I was going to live a life away from persecution.”

“And for many years he did: he lived a wonderful, free life, until Australia turned against him.”

“I feel betrayed by the government. I feel like the signals took a long, long time to come. The warning bells were there and the government sat back and did nothing.”

“The Jewish community is suffering today,” Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told reporters at a memorial in Bondi Beach on Monday. “Today, all Australians embrace you and say: we stand with you. We will do whatever it takes to eradicate antisemitism. It is a scourge and we will eradicate it together.”

One of the suspects, a father and son, was killed on Sunday, and the younger man, who was investigated in 2019 for alleged links to extremism but was deemed not to pose a threat, remained hospitalized in a coma on Monday, Albanese said.

“People’s circumstances can change,” he told reporters before a cabinet meeting on Monday. “People can become radicalized over time. [Gun] “The licenses should not be in perpetuity.”

“We are doing a lot of work on both people’s backgrounds. At this point, we know very little about them,” New South Wales Police Commissioner Mal Lanyon said Monday.

Gutnick said he would remember his father as a hero who “fell fighting.”

“He added so much light to the world. There was no human being on Earth that you could compare him to. If there was a way to get off this Earth, it would be fighting a terrorist. There was no other way he could have been taken from us,” Gutnick said.