One victim of the Sydney mass shooting targeting a Jewish Hanukkah event survived the Soviet Union and the Holocaust under Adolf Hitler, only to be gunned down on the sunny beach of Bondi.
Fifteen victims and one gunman are confirmed dead, and over 40 were injured when a father-son duo opened fire on Dec. 14. The incident is arguably the country’s worst mass shooting in three decades since the 1996 Port Arthur Massacre.
The oldest victim has been identified as 87-year-old Holocaust survivor Alex Kleytman.
“He was an elderly man in his late 80s. He survived the Holocaust in the Soviet Union, and I would see him at communal events, and he would always make a beeline for me with a beaming face.
“He was a sharp, deeply engaged individual who lived a rich, rich history, who survived Soviet communism, the purges, World War Two, and the Nazi killing squads to come to this place, and be felled by the bullet of an assassin.”
The victim’s wife, Larisa Kleytman, also a Holocaust survivor, confirmed his death to The Australian newspaper, saying she heard loud “boom” sounds before she saw him fall to the ground.
“He came on Bondi Beach to celebrate Hanukkah; for us it was always a very, very good celebration, for many, many years,” Larisa Kleytman told the outlet.
The report recounted Alex’s memories of the “dreadful conditions in Siberia, where he, along with his mother and younger brother, struggled for survival.”
The past hardships and “scars” did not deter the couple from seeking a brighter future—they moved to Australia from Ukraine.
A Time for Mourning
Alex Ryvchin says the Australian Jewish community has been “shaken to its core”.“This is a scandal that should shake us all to our core, the fact that we’ve allowed this to happen.
“We’ve seen it as a Jewish people in generation after generation after generation when anti-Semitism takes root in a society. It’s not a passing hatred and idle bigotry. It becomes a quest, a mission. It becomes an obsession, which leads people to do the most inhuman acts.”
Ryvchin says the community will continue to mark Hanukkah, but it will not be a joyous occasion.
“Sadly, the Jewish people have ample experience in this. We don’t run from our pain. We confront it. We face it in order to be able to clearly process it and then move forward. And we will move forward.
“We will light the candles, as we’re obligated to do, to show the victory of light over darkness. But at the moment, it’s hollow to say that, because darkness has prevailed. The worlds of our community have been destroyed, but we have to rebuild.”
Ryvchin urged government action and individual responsibility against anti-Semitism, saying the country needs to change course.
“We have to ensure that anti-Semitism ceases to be an acceptable, plausible form of intolerance. It is not.”
