Chabad rabbis, Holocaust survivors, 10-year-old among victims of Sydney terror attack

At least 15 people were killed when two gunmen opened fire on ‘Chanukah by the Sea’ event at Bondi Beach. These are some of their stories

Two Chabad rabbis, two Holocaust survivors, a recent immigrant from France, a retired police officer and a 10-year-old girl are among the 15 people confirmed to have been killed on Sunday when two gunmen opened fire on a Hanukkah event at Sydney’s Bondi Beach, in one of the deadliest terror attacks targeting Jews outside of Israel in decades.

The attackers targeted “Chanukah by the Sea,” an event organized by the Chabad Hasidic movement to mark the first night of the eight-day Jewish festival of lights.

They fired some 50 shots at the 1,000-strong crowd and wounded an estimated 38 people, including two police officers.

It was the second-worst mass shooting in Australian history and the deadliest attack targeting Jews outside of Israel since the start of the war sparked by Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel.

These are the stories of the victims who have been identified.

This article will be updated as more information emerges.

Edith Brutman

Edith Brutman was named on Tuesday as one of the 15 people killed.

The Sydney Morning Herald reported that she was the vice president of an anti-prejudice and anti-discrimination committee at B’nai B’rith New South Wales.

“Former vice president of ADU and long-time member of Aviv, Edith Brutman, was killed in the massacre. She was a gracious woman and a devoted member of B’nai B’rith NSW,” B’nai B’rith said in a statement.

A fellow worker at B’nai B’rith, Ernie Friedlander, told the paper: “She was a very clever lady, and she was very, very passionate about dealing with prejudice and discrimination.”

According to 7NEWS Sydney, Brutman attended the Hanukkah party with friend Tibor Weitzen, and was seated next to him when they were both shot dead.

Boris and Sofia Gurman, 69 & 61

Russian-Jewish couple Boris and Sofia Gurman, 69 and 61, were both killed on Sunday as they tussled with terrorist Sajid Akram next to his car in an attempt to thwart the shooting attack.

In a statement from their family distributed to Australia news outlets, they said they were “heartbroken by the sudden and senseless loss of our beloved Boris and Sofia Gurman.”

Video footage showing their heroism, the family added, fills them with an “overwhelming sense of pride in their bravery and selflessness. This encapsulates who Boris and Sofia were – people who instinctively and selflessly tried to help others.”

Australian media outlets reported that the couple had been married for 34 years and are survived by their son. Boris was a retired mechanic, while Sofia worked for the Australia Post service, according to the family.

Marika Pogany, 82

A Holocaust survivor and 82-year-old grandmother, Marika Pogany, was seated in the front row of the annual Hanukkah event when the gunmen opened fire, Chabad said.

She had lived in Australia for decades and was honoured in 2022 for her work delivering kosher meals on wheels, the group said.

Friends knew her as an “amazing person.”

In 2019, she was honored with the Jewish Communal Appeal’s “Mensch Award” for delivering more than 12,000 kosher “Meals on Wheels” over more than 20 years.

She was also a longtime member of the Harbour View Bridge Club.

“She was a terrific person, excellent bridge player, and an even better friend. Incredibly loyal. I knew her for 40 years,” Matt Mullamphy, director of the Harbour View Bridge Club, told the Sydney Morning Herald.

Pogany was seen in photos at the Hanukkah event sitting and smiling in the front row.

The Jewish community of Komárno, in present-day Slovakia, wrote on Facebook that Pogany would attend a Holocaust memorial event with the community every year.

According to Kidma, a Hungarian Jewish organization, Pogany also had roots in Hungary and stayed connected to her heritage.

Peter Meagher

A retired policeman and long-time rugby volunteer, Peter Meagher was struck down while working as a freelance photographer at the Hanukkah event, Randwick Rugby Club said in a statement.

“‘Marzo’ as he was universally known, was a much loved figure and absolute legend in our club, with decades of voluntary involvement, he was one of the heart and soul figures of Randwick Rugby,” the club said.

“The tragic irony is that he spent so long in the dangerous front line as a Police Officer and was struck down in retirement while taking photos in his passion role is really hard to comprehend,” it said.

“For him, it was simply a catastrophic case of being in the wrong place and at the wrong time.”

Tibor Weitzen, 78

Tibor Weitzen, 78, was a father, grandfather and great-grandfather who was a beloved member of the local Jewish community and Chabad.

His granddaughter, Leor Amzalak, told the Australian ABC news outlet that “my grandfather was truly the best you could ask for.” She said that he “was so proud of us… and loved us more than life itself.”

She said that he moved to Australia from Israel in 1988.

“He only saw the best in people and will be dearly missed,” she added.

He was killed as he tried to protect a family friend from gunfire, according to COLlive, a Chabad-focused publication.

The publication said he was a “sweet grandpa” who served as the “lollipop man” in synagogue, giving sweets to children.

Matilda Britvan, 10

The youngest victim of the attack was identified as a 10-year-old girl.

Local outlets named the girl as Matilda Britvan. She was a student at the Harmony Russian School in Sydney and had been attending the Chanukah by the Sea event.

“Her memory will remain in our hearts, and we honor her life and the time she spent as part of our school family,” the school posted on Facebook, saying it will remember her “with love, grief, and deep sorrow, and we honor her memory by standing together in compassion.”

A GoFundMe page set up by one of Matilda’s teachers, Irina Goodhew, aims to raise money for her mother.

“I knew her as a bright, joyful, and spirited child who brought light to everyone around her,” Goodhew wrote. “Yesterday, while celebrating Hanukkah, her young life was tragically taken. Her memory will live on in our hearts.”

Reuven Morrison, 62

Reuven Morrison was shot dead after trying to stop one of the gunmen.

Video footage shows Morrison, a 62-year-old grandfather, hurling items at Sajid Akram, after Ahmed Al Ahmed had disarmed him. Morrison was then shot dead by Naveed Akram.

“My dear father, Reuven Morrison, was shot dead for being Jewish at a Hanukkah event on Bondi Beach,” his daughter, Sheina Gutnick told CBS News.

He “jumped up the second the shooting started,” she said. “He managed to throw bricks, he was screaming at the terrorist and protecting his community, he was shot dead.”

“If there was one way for him to go on this Earth, it would be fighting a terrorist,” she told CBS. “There was no other way he would be taken from us. He went down fighting, protecting the people he loved most.”

His close friend, Vladimir, told The Daily Mail that Morrison “was trying to get people to get down out of the way and then maybe disarm the shooter on the ground, he was walking towards him to fight him.”

Vladimir said that he then saw Morrison get shot, “hit in the kidneys, I think. I was there when he died.”

He said that at one point he walked toward one of the shooters, who seemed to wave him away: “I think he thought I wasn’t with the Hanukkah event,” Vladimir told the news site. “But I am Jewish.”

Vladimir said that Morrison “died a hero trying to save his community and it cost him his life.”

ABC Australia noted that a year before he was killed, Morrison warned the news outlet about the threat to Jews in the country.

“We came here with the view that Australia is the safest country in the world and the Jews would not be faced with such antisemitism in the future, where we can bring up our kids in a safe environment,” Morrison told ABC in an article published in December 2024 following the firebombing of a synagogue in Melbourne.

Morrison, an immigrant to Australia from the former Soviet Union, “discovered his Jewish identity in Sydney,” Chabad said, and remained deeply connected to the Jewish community there even after moving to Melbourne.

Morrison’s family relocated to Melbourne for his daughter’s schooling, Chabad said, but he continued to split his time between the two cities and worked primarily in Sydney.

Morrison was a “successful businessman,” Chabad recounted, and he donated generously to charitable causes, including Chabad of Bondi.

The COLlive site said Morrison moved to Sydney in the 1970s as a teenager, and “was known as a kind and generous activist and philanthropist.” He is survived by his wife, Leah, and daughter, Sheina Gutnick.

Rabbi Yaakov Levitan, 39

Rabbi Yaakov Halevi Levitan, 39, was a Chabad emissary and the secretary of the Sydney Beth Din religious court. He worked at the BINA Center, a Jewish educational institution in Sydney.

According to a Jewish news site, Levitan distributed tefillin to those committed to performing the Jewish rite. The Chabad movement said he was survived by his wife and their four children, aged six to 16.

The Chabad news site COLlive said that Levitan hailed from Johannesburg, South Africa, had a bachelor’s degree in business management from the University of South Africa, and also later studied at the Mayanot Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem.

He also founded a company called tapNgive, which provided donation kiosk solutions for charities and nonprofits, it said.

He was described on the site as “a dedicated, behind-the-scenes worker whose quiet professionalism and commitment were essential to the functioning of Sydney’s Jewish institutions.”

His friend Rabbi Dovid Vigler said the pair had grown up together in South Africa.

“We were childhood friends,” he told a local Florida news site. “We studied Torah together. We grew together spiritually. He grew to become a beautiful father, husband and community leader. I am so proud of him. My heart is broken.”

Dan Elkayam, 27

Dan Elkayam, 27, immigrated to Sydney from France last year for work.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot confirmed that Elkayam was among those killed, writing on X that the country felt “immense sadness” at the news, and was mourning “with his family and loved ones, with the Jewish community and the bereaved Australian people.”

Elkayam, a Paris native, moved to Australia last December, according to the Le Parisien newspaper. His LinkedIn account showed that he had been working as an IT analyst at NBCUniversal.

He was a voracious traveler and had posted hundreds of images and videos on his social media accounts of his travels, including a multi-day hike through Indonesia’s Sumatra jungle, a visit to temples in Kyoto, Japan, and an encounter with elephants at a sanctuary in Thailand.

“Dan was out celebrating Chanukah with his fellow Jews in Sydney when his promising young life was snuffed out,” wrote Chabad on X.

He played soccer with the Rockdale Ilinden Football Club premier league squad, where he was “an extremely talented and popular figure,” the club said on social media.

Rabbi Eli Schlanger, 41

Rabbi Eli Schlanger was the assistant rabbi at Chabad of Bondi in Sydney, Australia.

The 41-year-old rabbi was born in London and studied at Yeshiva Tomchei Tmimim in Brunoy, France, Chabad said. He received his rabbinic ordination at the central Lubavitch yeshiva in Crown Heights, New York City.

His cousin, Rabbi Zalman Lewis, told the BBC that Schlanger and his family moved to New York when he was a child, and that he relocated again after marrying an Australian woman.

He is survived by his wife and five children, the youngest of whom, a boy, was born just two months ago.

Schlanger was outspoken in the face of rising antisemitism in Australia. In an interview on the Chabad website in March, he encouraged Jews to stand proudly in the face of hatred.

“My car — emblazoned with mitzvah symbols — is a living example of pride and resilience,” he said then.

He encouraged others to embrace their Jewish identities more strongly as a response to growing hate.

“Be more Jewish, act more Jewish and appear more Jewish,” he said at the time.

Lewis described Schlanger to BBC News as “vivacious, energetic, full of life and a very warm outgoing person who loved to help people.”

He told the news outlet that his cousin’s answer to the Bondi Beach massacre would have been to tell people to “keep spreading light” and to do acts of charity.

“The world is a positive place and we need to show that and I know Eli would be saying that,” he said.

Alex Kleytman, 87

Alex Kleytman, an 87-year-old Ukrainian Holocaust survivor, was celebrating Hanukkah at Bondi Beach with his wife of 57 years, Larisa Kleytman, also a Holocaust survivor, when the attack began.

He was killed while shielding Larisa from the bullets with his own body, his wife told the Daily Mail.

“I think he was shot because he raised himself up to protect me, in the back of the head,” she said in brief remarks outside of St Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney.

She told The Australian news outlet that Alex, a retired civil engineer, was at the beach to celebrate Hanukkah, a holiday which she said “was always a very, very good celebration, for many, many years.”

“Today in the middle of the celebrations [there were] shots, and unfortunately my husband was killed,” she recounted. “We were standing and suddenly came the ‘boom boom,’ and everybody fell down. At 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.”

“His body is still there and I am sitting there and don’t know what I have to do,” she said, surrounded by family. “I have no husband. I don’t know… nobody can give me any answers.”

In its 2022-2023 annual report, Australia’s Jewish Care charity published a feature on Alex and Larisa, in which it recounted the “unspeakable terror of the Holocaust” that Alex had endured as a child in Siberia.

“He, along with his mother and younger brother, struggled for survival,” read the report. “The scars of the past, ­however, did not deter [Alex and Larisa] from seeking a brighter future. They later made the move to Australia, immigrating from Ukraine.”

Zev Stub and agencies contributed to this report.