{"id":187154,"date":"2025-12-16T07:32:06","date_gmt":"2025-12-16T07:32:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/187154\/"},"modified":"2025-12-16T07:32:06","modified_gmt":"2025-12-16T07:32:06","slug":"holocaust-survivor-and-10-year-old-with-gentle-soul-among-those-killed-in-bondi-beach-shooting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/187154\/","title":{"rendered":"Holocaust survivor and 10-year-old with gentle soul among those killed in Bondi Beach shooting"},"content":{"rendered":"

SYDNEY — Before the bloodshed and broken hearts, there was a little girl with a gentle soul, a loving grandmother who delivered meals to the needy and a young man dubbed a \u201cgolden person\u201d for his kindness. And there was an 87-year-old grandfather who sought solace in Australia after surviving the Holocaust, only to die in what officials have called antisemitic terrorism<\/a>.<\/p>\n

They are among the 15 people killed Sunday evening<\/a> by two gunmen during a Hanukkah celebration at Sydney\u2019s famous Bondi Beach<\/a>. Australia\u2019s federal police commissioner said it was a terrorist attack inspired by the Islamic State group<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Here is a closer look at some of the victims:<\/p>\n

Matilda, a 10-year-old whose last name has been withheld at the request of her family, was the youngest person killed in the massacre.<\/p>\n

Matilda\u2019s language teacher, Irina Goodhew, who launched a GoFundMe for the girl\u2019s grieving family, described her in a Facebook post as a gentle girl who saw beauty in everyone.<\/p>\n

\u201cMatilda was a bright and loving soul who taught us that true goodness is found in the love and compassion we share,\u201d Goodhew wrote. \u201cHer memory reminds us to carry kindness in our hearts and spread it to the world. May the light of her eyes live on through us \u2014 in our actions, our words, and our love for one another.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eli Schlanger, assistant rabbi at Chabad-Lubavitch of Bondi, organized Sunday\u2019s Chanukah by the Sea event. He was a father of five, the youngest of whom was born just two months ago, according to Chabad, an Orthodox Jewish movement that runs outreach worldwide.<\/p>\n

The 41-year-old, London-born Schlanger also served as chaplain to the state\u2019s corrective services department and as a chaplain at a Sydney hospital, where he ministered to patients and families.<\/p>\n

Schlanger would go wherever he was needed to help people including prisons, said his friend, Ben Wright.<\/p>\n

\u201cEli was a very special person,\u201d Wright told The Associated Press while standing near a cordoned-off section of Bondi the morning after the attack, a black box containing Torah verses strapped to his arm. \u201cHe spent a lot of his time trying to get Jews to do one good deed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wright, who saw friends and strangers gunned down during the attack while cradling his 6-month-old baby, said he hopes to emulate Schlanger\u2019s goodness. <\/p>\n

Yaakov Levitan, a rabbi and father of four, was known for his kindness and dedication to helping others, according to the Chabad movement, which described him as a \u201cvital, behind-the-scenes pillar\u201d of Sydney\u2019s Jewish community.<\/p>\n

Originally from Johannesburg, the 39-year-old served as the general manager of Chabad of Bondi and worked with the Sydney Beth Din, or religious court.<\/p>\n

Marika Pogany, an 82-year-old grandmother and community volunteer, delivered thousands of kosher meals to those in need, the Federation of Jewish Communities in Hungary said in a statement.<\/p>\n

COA, a Sydney volunteer service for Jewish seniors, said in an Instagram post that Pogany was part of the \u201cbeating heart of COA and a source of warmth for thousands of people.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFor 29 years she arrived at COA with her quiet smile and her steady kindness,\u201d COA wrote. \u201cShe lifted the room simply by being in it. She asked for nothing and gave everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zuzana \u010caputov\u00e1, the former president of Slovakia, called her \u201cMarika\u201d and described Pogany as her \u201clong-term close friend\u201d who had visited Slovakia every year since 1989.<\/p>\n

Dan Elkayam, a 27-year-old French national described by his brother as \u201ca golden person,\u201d was a talented soccer player who lived with his girlfriend in Sydney\u2019s eastern suburbs.<\/p>\n

Elkayam\u2019s brother, J\u00e9r\u00e9mie Elkayam, told broadcaster France Info that his brother was \u201csomeone extraordinary \u2026 who profited from life, wasn\u2019t at all materialistic, who understood the value of things and who loved to travel.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are four brothers and, of the four, for me he was the kindest of us,\u201d J\u00e9r\u00e9mie Elkayam said.<\/p>\n

Sydney soccer club Rockdale Ilinden FC said in a statement that Elkayam was an extremely talented and popular player with the club\u2019s Premier League team who \u201cwill be sorely missed by his teammates and everyone that knew him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThose who were closest to him described him as a down to earth, happy go lucky individual who was warmly embraced by those he met,\u201d club President Dennis Loether said.<\/p>\n

French Foreign Minister Jean-No\u00ebl Barrot wrote in a post on X that Elkayam\u2019s death was \u201cyet another tragic manifestation of a revolting surge in antisemitic hatred that we must defeat.\u201d<\/p>\n

Peter Meagher, known to friends as \u201cMarzo,\u201d was a retired police officer and a team manager and beloved volunteer at Randwick rugby club, which condemned the \u201cabhorrent targeted attack on our Jewish community” in a statement Monday and called Meagher an \u201cabsolute legend in our club.\u201d <\/p>\n

Meagher was working as a freelance photographer at the Bondi Hanukkah event, the club said, noting his presence was \u201csimply a catastrophic case of being in the wrong place and at the wrong time.\u201d <\/p>\n

A photograph with the statement showed \u201cMarzo\u201d written in chalk on a rugby field, along with a team jersey.<\/p>\n

Reuven Morrison, 62, was killed while trying to stop one of the shooters, according to his daughter, Sheina Gutnick.<\/p>\n

Gutnick told CBS News that her father is the person seen in widely circulated video footage throwing objects at the gunman, which Gutnick said were bricks, after another passerby, Ahmed al Ahmed<\/a>, wrestled the gun away from the shooter.<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe after Ahmed managed to get the gun off the terrorist, my father had then gone to try and unjam the gun, to try and attempt shooting. He was screaming at the terrorist,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

Morrison migrated to Australia from the Soviet Union five decades ago to escape antisemitic persecution. He thought Australia would be safe, Gutnick said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is where he was going to have a family, where he is going to live a life away from persecution,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd for many years, he did do that; he lived a wonderful, free life. Until Australia turned on him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alex Kleytman was an 87-year-old Holocaust survivor who had moved to Australia from Ukraine.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have no husband. I don\u2019t know where is his body,\u201d his wife Larisa Kleytman told reporters outside a Sydney hospital Sunday. \u201cNobody can give me any answer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Larisa told The Australian newspaper that her husband died while protecting her.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were standing and suddenly came the \u2018boom boom\u2019, and everybody fell down,\u201d she said. \u201cAt this moment, he was behind me and at one moment he decided to go close to me. He pushed his body up because he wanted to stay near me.\u201d<\/p>\n

The couple survived \u201cthe unspeakable terror of the Holocaust\u201d as children before moving to Australia, according to a 2023 report by JewishCare, a service provider for Australia\u2019s Jewish community.<\/p>\n

Tibor Weitzen, a 78-year-old grandfather who saw the best in people, migrated to Australia from Israel in 1988, his granddaughter said.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy grandfather was truly the best you could ask for,\u201d Leor Amzalak told the Australian Broadcasting Corp., the country\u2019s public broadcaster. \u201cHe was so proud of us \u2026 and loved us more than life itself.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Panagiotis Pylas in Sydney, John Leicester in Paris, Justin Spike in Budapest, Hungary, and Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv, Israel, contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SYDNEY — Before the bloodshed and broken hearts, there was a little girl with a gentle soul, a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":187155,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[108147,127,122,42,43,3894,98,40,38,41,39,126],"class_list":{"0":"post-187154","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-108147","9":"tag-article","10":"tag-general-news","11":"tag-headlines","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-shootings","14":"tag-terrorism","15":"tag-top-news","16":"tag-top-stories","17":"tag-topnews","18":"tag-topstories","19":"tag-world-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=187154"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187154\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/187155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=187154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=187154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=187154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}