This weekend's mass shooting at a Hanukkah event in Australia hit particularly hard for Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein of Chabad of Poway, whose nephew, Rabbi Eli Schlanger, was leading the festive holiday event before he and more than a dozen others were killed, Goldstein told City News Service.
Goldstein himself was shot and seriously wounded in an antisemitic attack at the Chabad of Poway synagogue in 2019 that killed a woman who was standing in front of him.
He told CNS on Sunday that he had been up all night after getting a phone call from a relative in Sydney, Australia, about Schlanger, his youngest sister's son-in-law, who was one of at least 15 people killed.
The Hanukkah attack took place at Sydney's Bondi Beach as hundreds of Jews gathered to mark the first day of the eight-day holiday. Authorities there described it as a targeted antisemitic attack.
"Every time there is a mass shooting, it just brings it back up to the front," Goldstein said, recalling the 2019 attack. "That trauma never leaves you."
Goldstein urged the entire Poway community not be deterred and to attend his Hanukkah event Sunday at Old Poway Park to show solidarity. He also said there will be a strong security presence at another event he is hosting at North County Mall on Monday evening.
"Nothing that anyone does will never dim our lights," Goldstein said.
"A little bit of light will push away the darkness with random acts of goodness and kindness. We will recover from this stronger and brighter and greater."
Schlanger, 41 and a father of five, was the head of the Chabad mission in Bondi and had served the Jewish community there for over 18 years.
Goldstein lost his right index finger in the April 27, 2019, attack, which occurred on the last day of Passover and killed Lori Gilbert-Kaye.
John Earnest of Rancho Penasquitos carried out the shooting. He was later sentenced to life in prison. Prosecutors said he authored racist and antisemitic writings and committed the attack out of hatred.
