The funeral for Rabbi Eli Schlanger on Wednesday was the first held for one of the 15 people killed in a mass shooting at a Jewish celebration in Sydney, Australia.
Hundreds of mourners streamed into the Chabad of Bondi synagogue on Wednesday morning, some wiping away tears or audibly sobbing. Guarded by dozens of police officers, they filled the synagogue to capacity; dozens more waited outside.
They had gathered to honor Eli Schlanger, one of the 15 people who were killed when two gunmen opened fire at Bondi Beach on Sunday, in a shooting that the Australian authorities described as a terrorist attack targeting the Jewish community. The funeral for Rabbi Schlanger of the Chabad of Bondi, a key organizer of the beachside Hanukkah event where the attack took place, was the first to be held after the assault.
Speakers and attendees mourned a man they described as a pillar of the community who was devoted to his faith and generous with his time. They grappled with the aftershocks of the worst mass shooting in the country in nearly 30 years, which has left a tightknit community deeply shaken.
For many, grief and shock were mixed with anger at an attack that they believed could have been prevented, and at a government they saw as not having done enough to combat antisemitism.
“Our community suffered our own seventh of October,” Yehoram Ulman, Rabbi Schlanger’s father-in-law, said during his address, referring to the 2023 Hamas attack on Israel, which set off the war in Gaza.
Choking back tears, Rabbi Ulman said of Rabbi Schlanger: “You’re my son, my friend and confidant. To think that your wife, your children, I, will have to go a day without you is impossible.”
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