Father-of-five Eli Schlanger, known as the “Bondi rabbi”, will be the first mourned in a service at Chabad of Bondi Synagogue
Australia will hold the first funerals on Wednesday for victims of the Bondi Beach mass shooting, with huge crowds expected to grieve two rabbis slain in the attack.
Sajid Akram and his son Naveed opened fire on a Jewish festival at the famed surf beach on Sunday evening, killing 15 people and wounding dozens more, according to authorities.Among the victims were a 10-year-old girl, two Holocaust survivors, and a married couple shot dead as they tried to thwart the attack.
Father-of-five Eli Schlanger, known as the “Bondi rabbi”, will be the first mourned in a service at Chabad of Bondi Synagogue.
Schlanger was a chaplain who served in prisons and hospitals, according to a website of the Chabad movement, which represents a branch of Hasidic Jews and organised the Bondi event.
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“Anyone who knew him knew that he was the very best of us,” said Alex Ryvchin from the Executive Council of Australian Jewry.
The Chabad of Bondi Synagogue will then hold a second funeral for 39-year-old rabbi Yaakov Levitan in the afternoon.
Levitan was a father of four renowned for his charitable work, the Chabad movement said.
Large crowds are expected to pack the synagogues to pay their respects.
Sowing panic
Authorities said the attack was designed to sow panic among the nation’s Jews.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the father-and-son gunmen had been radicalised by an “ideology of hate”.
“It would appear that this was motivated by Islamic State ideology,” he told national broadcaster ABC on Tuesday.
Questions are mounting over whether authorities could have acted earlier to foil the attack.
Naveed Akram, reportedly an unemployed bricklayer, came to the attention of Australia’s intelligence agency in 2019.
But he was not considered to be an imminent threat at the time and largely fell off the radar.
Police are