Nearly 90 Chabad-Lubavitch rabbis from across Australia walked down to Bondi Beach together this past Tuesday afternoon, the southern hemisphere’s summer sun blazing over the famous half-moon crescent of sun and surf.
But something has irrevocably changed about this stretch of shoreline. On Dec. 14 a father-son pair of Islamist terrorists opened fire at the “Chanukah by the Sea” celebration in Sydney, killing 15 people, including two Chabad emissaries: Rabbi Eli Schlanger and Rabbi Yaakov Levitan. Though two months have passed, the site remains an open wound.
The country’s Chabad rabbis gathered this week in Sydney for the Regional Conference of Chabad-Lubavitch Emissaries for Australia and New Zealand, held at Chabad of Bondi. Rabbi Shmuel Yosef Greenbaum is one of Australia’s newest emissaries, having arrived in Melbourne six months ago to join the team at Chabad of Moorabbin, which his parents had built. Greenbaum had thought he understood what the walk to Archer Park—the site of the attack—would feel like. He was wrong.
“Blood-curdling,” he said simply, of being present at the site.
The pilgrimage to the beach was led by Rabbi Menachem Dadon, a Sydney emissary, co-host of the original Chanukah by the Sea event, and the father of Chaya Dadon, the teenage girl who was wounded while she shielded children from terrorist gunfire. He walked the assembled rabbis through the geography of that late afternoon: where Schlanger tried to intercede with the shooters and was killed, and where community member Reuven Morrison made his heroic stand.
The site of the massacre had, in the months since the attack, become a place of pilgrimage. People come to lay flowers and notes of support, Jewish and non-Jewish visitors paying their respects. On the Tuesday afternoon that the rabbis visited, a crowd of curious watchers approached the assembled rabbis with questions, with condolences, with curiosity.
Something about that interaction, said Rabbi Bochi Broh of Chabad on Campus in Melbourne, moved him deeply.
“It was like the most evil place was being transformed into one of Torah and mitzvot” he told Chabad.org.“So many people walked past, showing support, asking questions.”
‘Strengthen Yourself’
The Conference of Chabad-Lubavitch Emissaries for Australia and New Zealand convened at Chabad of Bondi on Feb. 17–18. The gathering drew representatives from every Australian state and territory but one, as well as New Zealand—86 rabbis in all.
The conference was formally opened by Rabbi Pinchus Feldman OAM, director of Chabad activities in New South Wales. Rabbi Yehoram Ulman, director of Chabad of Bondi, shared a message from Australia’s Prime Minister, who was in Tasmania and could not attend in person.
The first item on the program was “From Pain to Purpose”—a structured session moderated by Rabbi Chanoch Sufrin of Chabad North Shore in Sydney, asking everyone present to develop one concrete initiative for his community and one personal commitment for his own Divine service.
At lunch session on Tuesday afternoon, Rabbi Nochum Schapiro of Chabad North Shore spoke about meeting with government officials, promoting a “One Mitzvah for Bondi” campaign—15 suggested acts of goodness and kindness, one for each of the martyrs.
Round-tables covered the full breadth of emissary life: pastoral care, kids and teen programs, congregational management, general operations, personal growth, policies and procedures. A fast-paced TED-style session had attendees sharing programs that had worked in the field.
During an afternoon session, Rabbi Ulman—whose right-hand man and son-in-law Schlanger had been—took the podium for a session dedicated in Schlanger’s memory. A Melbourne artist named Miriam Lang had painted a portrait of Schlanger alongside Ulman, commissioned by Melbourne’s Chabad emissaries, who presented it to Ulman.
The keynote address at the concluding banquet was given by Rabbi Mendy Kotlarsky, director of Merkos 302, who flew in from New York for the occasion as a representative of Merkos L’Inyonei Chinuch, Chabad’s educational arm. Larry Diamond, founder of Zip Co, spoke on behalf of the Federation of Chabad Institutions of Australia. Feldman presented him with an Australian dollar from the Rebbe, and Kotlarsky then led a roll call of every delegation—state by state, region by region.
Later that evening, after the banquet, the rabbis made their way five minutes down the road to the Nefesh Center for a Chassidic gathering. The theme, drawn from Isaiah, set the tone for everything that had come before: “Each one shall aid his fellow, and to his brother he shall say, ‘Strengthen yourself.’”
“Whatever we did before has to be exponentially more going forward,” said Greenbaum. “This is a watershed moment for Chabad in Australia.”
Wednesday brought a session on Moshiach and the era of Redemption, and a discussion in which people shared personal directives and guidance they had received from the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory.
For Rabbi Ari Rubin of Chabad of Northern Queensland, who made the journey down from Cairns, the gathering was a reminder of something easy to forget when you’re that far from the nearest Jewish neighbor. “The point was for us to give chizuk [strength] to our brothers in Sydney,” he said. “But in reality, we were the ones who walked away with chizuk.”
Sufrin put it simply: “The regional conference was small—but it was so big.”
‘I’ll Be There’
The morning after the rabbis made the trek to the site of the massacre, Broh returned. Already charged by the events of the preceding day, he felt he needed to do something.
So he did what any Chabad rabbi would do: he picked up his set of tefillin and started to wrap them with people at Archer Park. People stopped. People talked. Broh felt invigorated and energized for his return home. It’s been the summer holidays and universities aren’t yet in session, but Broh is ready.
He’s heading back to campus with a new plan. To set up a table, open to anyone, with a simple invitation: ask me anything. It was mentioned more than once at the conference that Schlanger had been passionate about Project Noah, encouraging gentiles to take upon themselves the Seven Noahide Laws.
“The Rebbe encouraged us to spread to everyone,” Broh said. “If anyone wants to engage, I’ll be there.”
Rabbi Avremi Joseph of Chabad Youth NSW shares the sentiment for immediate action. A day after the conference, he’s already in New York.
He’s accompanying a group of teenagers—members of CTeen Bondi, the youth group Schlanger founded just months before his murder—to the CTeen International Shabbaton. Schlanger’s daughter Priva is helping lead the group.
“As Rabbi Ulman said at Eli’s funeral,” Joseph reflected, “we have to be Eli’s feet and hands. His shlichus still needs to happen. And if I can help with that, I’m so honored.”
Schlanger, he said, will always be the head of CTeen Bondi. The rest of them are just the custodians.
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