Rabbi killed in Australian Hanukkah shooting was nephew of rabbi injured in Poway synagogue attack

By Miriam Raftery

File photo: Rabbi Ysroel Godstein of Poway

December 15, 2025 (Poway) – Rabbi Eli Schlanger, the nephew of Chabad Poway’s founding Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein, as among 16 people murdered in a mass shooting yesterday during a Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia. Goldstein was injured during the April 2019 shooting at Chabad Poway, when he lost a finger and was credited with leading children to safety. 

“Every time there is a mass shooting, it just brings it back up to the front. The trauma never leaves you,” Goldstein said after learning of his nephew’s death.  He told City News Service that he was up all night after receiving a phone call from a relative in Sydney informing him that his niece’s husband was among those fatally shot.  More than two dozen others were injured.

Rabbi Schlanger, a father of five, was the head of the Chabad mission in Bondi, where he has served for 18 years.

After the 2019 Poway shooting, which killed a woman, Rabbi Goldstein said, “We cannot control what others do, but we can control how we react. The way we react is with light.”

The Poway Rabbi has urged local Jews to attend a Sunday Hanukkah event at Old Poway Park and another at North County Mall Monday evening.

The Sheriff’s office and San Diego Police have both said that while there are no known threats locally, they will be providing extra patrols near synagogues and community Hanukkah events. Both agencies urge the public to report any suspicious activity by calling 9-1-1 or local law enforcement.

The Sydney shooting, conducted by two individuals, might have claimed even more lives if not for the heroic intervention of Ahmed Al Ahmed, a Muslim merchant shown on video tackling a gunman from behind and wrestling the gun away from him.  One of the Sydney shooters is dead and the other reportedly hospitalized with serious injuries.

The shooter in the Chabad Poway shooting was sentenced to life in prison for what prosecutors described as a hate crime based on antisemitism.