A couple who tried to stop a mass shooting before it could begin have been remembered as martyrs.<\/p>\n
Boris and Sofia Gurman<\/a> were the first of 15 people to be killed when two men opened fire on Hanukkah celebrations at Bondi Beach<\/a>.<\/p>\n Dashcam footage from Sunday night showed Gurman wrestling a weapon away from Sajid Akram before the gunman’s son emerged with his own firearm.<\/p>\n The couple’s coffins rested side by side at the Sydney Chevra Kadisha funeral home on Friday.<\/p>\n Though their son believed his parents were far from Judaism, Rabbi Yehoram Ulman told the funeral they were “closer than all of us”.<\/p>\n “Boris and Sofia were taken from us, not just because they were Jewish, but fighting to be Jewish,” he said.<\/p>\n “A place in heaven is reserved for those that are called Kedoshim – holy martyrs \u2013 above even those that are called Tzadikkim \u2013 righteous people.”<\/p>\n Married for 34 years, the long-time Bondi locals were remembered as people of deep kindness, quiet strength and unwavering care for others.<\/p>\n Retired mechanic Boris, 69, took enormous pride in his cornucopia of a garden.<\/p>\n Lemons and chillies were always harvested and shared with the family, as bunches of bananas grew 50 at a time.<\/p>\n Australia Post worker Sofia, 61, was a family leader who showed her love through food.<\/p>\n Her traditional Soviet wafer cake became something of a legend.<\/p>\n But her sense of order and occasions was so strong, the family couldn’t have it whenever they wanted, they had to wait a full year before the next cake.<\/p>\n The pair met in the USSR before moving to Sydney to start a new life in Bondi.<\/p>\n “They were often genuinely perplexed when people spoke about travelling overseas, wondering why you’d ever leave when paradise was right at your front door,” the rabbi said.<\/p>\n The couple were among four members of the public known to have fought the two Bondi gunmen.<\/p>\n Ahmed Al Ahmed was the only one to survive after wrestling a weapon from the older gunman.<\/p>\n The Gurmans and 62-year-old Reuven Morrison, who threw a brick at one of the shooters, paid for their courage with their lives.<\/p>\n Rabbi Ulman has led a number of funerals for shooting victims, including a service for primary school student Matilda and fellow Rabbi Eli Schlanger.<\/p>\n “Every single member of our community feels the pain of each other,” he said.<\/p>\n “Yesterday we buried a 10-year-old girl and today … it’s been years since I’ve seen two coffins next to each other.”<\/p>\n NSW Premier Chris Minns and Israel’s ambassador to Australia Amir Maimon attended the funeral on Friday.<\/p>\n The Gurmans are among five victims due to be buried on Friday.<\/p>\n Six of the victims were laid to rest on Wednesday and Thursday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A couple who tried to stop a mass shooting before it could begin have been remembered as martyrs.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":192476,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[85,42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-192475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-australia","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192475"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192475\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/192476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}