SAN ANTONIO – The terrifying mass shooting at an Australian Hanukkah celebration is hitting close to home for two Texas rabbis, one of them in San Antonio.
Rabbi Menachem Lazaroff works at the Chabad Jewish Center at Texas A&M University. His 20-year-old brother, Leibel, helped organize the big Hanukkah event on Bondi Beach where two shooters opened fire into the crowd, killing at least 15 people and injuring dozens more.
“He was hit twice, once in the leg, once in the abdomen,” Lazaroff said. “He’s in the ICU, critical condition. He’s stable. The doctors are optimistic. He just had another surgery, removing more shrapnel. There’s damage to the liver and the ribs and different tissue around there.”
Lazaroff said the rabbi his brother was working for, Rabbi Eli Schlanger, was one of the people murdered at the event.
Rabbi Chaim Block with Chabad San Antonio has a niece who dodged bullets on Bondi Beach.
“She had to drop to the floor and cover her little infant baby who was there with other mothers, and it was just horrific and traumatic, and she’ll never be the same,” Block said.
In an email she sent to her family right after the shooting, she described the horrific scene:
“I am in shock, in disbelief. I want to vomit. I hear loud, pounding shooting all over the place. I am shoving my body over my baby. I said, ‘Let’s put these crates over our heads,’ as I try to move them, protecting my baby.
“And then we hear silence, and then chaos, and someone asking us if anyone is injured. We run down to the beach, collecting missing kids whose parents are not around. One is my friend’s sister-in-law who has a newborn baby. She has blood on her back. ‘It’s okay,’ she says, ‘I just got grazed.’
“I am so grateful for my life. Most importantly, my baby’s life. We still light the menorah tonight. We sang the songs.”
A holiday symbolizing love and light turned to darkness, but that darkness did not linger long.
“It only enhanced our Hanukkah celebration last night, where more people than usual joined and there was a sense of mindfulness, that we are not going to stay at home and cower,” Block said. “The political leadership, the religious leadership in San Antonio, has always been so welcoming, and we’re all working together with so much mutual respect.”
Lazaroff said the same thing about their special Hanukkah celebration that night.
“The president of the university, the interim president, came and spoke, which was very touching,” he said. “And people showed up from the Jewish community and from across our local Aggie community, and it was really heartening, really incredible to see just such an outpouring of love and support and spreading the light of Hanukkah.”
He echoed Block in saying hatred would not stoke fear, and he hopes to spread that message.
“If you’re Jewish out there, light your menorah, celebrate Hanukkah,” Lazaroff said. “It’s our holiday. It’s fun. We have pride in who we are, and you know, for everyone else, just thank you so much for all the support and love that we’ve been getting.”
As antisemitism rages across the world, Block’s message is clear: Your words matter.
“Words inflame. Words radicalize. And you don’t know what your words, how they’re resonating with some person who is maybe unstable or radicalized in a different way, and how that can have a direct result on someone else’s life,” Block said.
He and Lazaroff urge the world to act with more kindness and acceptance, and to help them spread the light.
In San Antonio, law enforcement was immediately made aware of the Australia Hanukkah shooting over the weekend.
On Monday, the San Antonio Police Department responded to KSAT’s request for a statement saying, “In response to recent events, SAPD has increased police presence around Jewish facilities throughout the city as a precautionary measure to ensure the safety of the community. As always, we want to remind the public that if they see something, say something.”
San Antonio organizations hold public events for all eight nights of Hanukkah, including a big event at Pearl, and the well-known “Chanukah on the River” celebration. The public is welcome to attend.
The Jewish Federation of San Antonio has a full list of Hanukkah events.
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