At the Sydney Opera House on Thursday night, the sons of Rabbi Eli Schlanger, Reb Yaakov Levitan, Boris Tetleroyd, Alex Kleytman and Zev Weitzen — five of the 15 people killed by terrorists at a Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach in the Australian city in December — recited the Mourner’s Kaddish.

The event, titled “Light Will Win,” was organized by Chabad of Bondi to mark the shloshim of the victims, a 30-day milestone in the Jewish mourning cycle. The five mourners, spanning generations, were all dressed in black. They stood together onstage beside 15 candles symbolizing the victims: the oldest victim, Alexander Kleytman, was an 87-year-old Holocaust survivor; the youngest, Matilda, was just 10 years old. 

The gathering at the city’s iconic Opera House, which marked a national day of mourning in Australia, was attended by Australia’s highest-profile political officials, including Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who officially apologized to the Jewish community for the attack. 

“You came to celebrate a festival of light and freedom and you left with the violence of hatred. I am deeply and profoundly sorry that we could not protect your loved ones from this evil,” Albanese said. 

In the month since the attack, Chabad has fundraised for those impacted, raising some $6 million to date, according to Rabbi Mendy Kotlarsky, executive director at Chabad’s world headquarters in Brooklyn, N.Y. While the Australian government has covered most of the victims’ immediate expenses, such as hospital care, Kotlarsky is concerned about having enough to meet the victims’ long-term needs. 

“I’m a little surprised all the campaigns together did not really bring in the money that these people are going to need to live on,” he told eJewishPhilanthropy. “The $6 million that was raised is not going to be nearly enough.” 

For each of the young adults who lost parents in the attack, $36,000 has been put aside to be accessed on their wedding day. “The day they get married, normally, people would have parents to help them start off. These kids are not going to have that,” Kotlarsky told eJP. “They should be able to start their life and have the participation of their lost loved one at a time when they’re going to need to have a secure foundation.”

After losing Schlanger and Levitan in the attack, Chabad of Bondi has also needed additional support. “They were really responsible for the bulk of the operations and the fundraising and the donors. So there’s a whole institution that really is also hurting tremendously,” Kotlarsky said.

Rabbi Yehoram Ulman, the rabbi and head of Chabad of Bondi and head of the local beit din (rabbinical court), was also Rabbi Schlanger’s father-in-law. “[Ulman is] an internationally acclaimed rabbi — he’s an expert in many different fields and has people calling from all over the world; he probably deals with 50, 60, cases a day,” said Kotlarsky. “For somebody of that caliber to be able to continue to focus on what he’s focusing on, that institution has to be able to continue to operate and run. There’s a strong need for that deficit to be covered.” 

The attack also took place in December, when many institutions would typically be in the midst of their end-of-year fundraising push, he noted. Limited bandwidth and more pressing priorities in the wake of the attack left several local synagogues and Jewish institutions at a deficit, he said. Chabad will be giving between $25,000 and $100,000 to each of these synagogues, depending on the situation. “That’s a whole different element that people don’t even talk about, which is the impact that this has on the wider institutions in Sydney and how to navigate that,” he said. 

Ulman, who recently visited the United States, spoke at Thursday’s event about officiating at the funerals of his community members while also coping with the murder of a member of his own family. “The last 30 days, more, have been the most painful days of my life,” he said. “I have looked in the eyes of widows and orphans and parents who have lost a young child. I have seen the suffering of the wounded and the anguish of their families, I have buried dear friends and mourned the loss of my own son-in-law.”

Chabad, known both for providing Jewish infrastructure in far-flung parts of the world, which often makes it a visible target for antisemitic attacks, and for maintaining an optimistic worldview — has also made a point of spotlighting the heroism of those who were there during the attack: Leibel Lazaroff, a 20-year-old from Texas who was shot several times while aiding an injured police officer during the attack, performed a piece on the piano, hours after being released from the hospital. Chaya, a 14-year-old who was shot in the leg protecting two young children she did not know, addressed the crowd at the event, still limping from her injury, and described the experience of seeing them again after the attack to the audience. 

“It was just a reminder of… how the nation has just stood up from such a horrific event. When I saw them it wasn’t a flashback to all the traumatic times, it was like a little reminder that this is it, this is our strength,” she said. 

“I believe I speak for many when I say we have felt an emptiness so heavy, it could crush us. But in that void, something else appeared. Something miraculous,” Ulman said. “I have watched an Australia that did not just watch the news, but stood up to change the story.”

By the last night of Chanukah, Chabad of Bondi gathered again to mark the holiday. At the suggestion of Chabad, the Australian government recommended a list of 15 mitzvot for Australians to engage in to mark Thursday’s day of mourning. 

Two weeks ago, at an event in Manhattan, Rabbi Ulman’s first public appearance outside of his community since the attack, he appeared alongside Ahmed al-Ahmed, the Syrian-born shopkeeper who tackled and disarmed one of the attackers, likely saving many lives. Al-Ahmed was given a menorah inscribed with the phrase that was the theme of Thursday’s event in Sydney: Light will win.