Chabad emissary Rabbi Eli Schlanger was among the first victims named after the shooting at Hanukkah celebrations at Bondi Beach, Australia, on Sunday.
Schlanger was at the Hanukkah event to mark the first night of Hanukkah, with over 2,000 in attendance, when two terrorists shot into the crowd, killing at least 10 and wounding dozens.
Schlanger's social media listed his education as Central Yeshiva Tomchei Tmimim Lubavitch and Yeshiva Brunoy, France.
A Torah scroll tied to the Schlanger's roots
An Australian Jewish News feature from January reported how a historically significant Torah scroll, originally owned by Holocaust survivor Adam (Avrum Leib) Szus and donated to the Sydney Jewish Museum, had been temporarily released so that Nossen Schlanger, son of Rabbi Schlanger, could read from it at his bar mitzvah.
The Torah scroll was intimately linked to the Schlanger family's past: Szus had been best friends with Rabbi Schlanger’s great-uncle, Nossen Nutte Schlanger, a brilliant young scholar murdered in the Holocaust. Rabbi Schlanger only learned of this relative in 2007 after Szus contacted him and shared previously unknown family history. That same year, Rabbi Schlanger traveled to Brzostek, Poland, and found archival documents that confirmed long-lost details of his family’s lineage.