Bondi in focus as rabbis gather in New Jersey

Nossen Schlanger, the son of Bondi terror attack victim Rabbi Eli Schlanger, addressed about 6500 Chabad emissaries at the closing gala of the International Conference of Chabad-Lubavitch Emissaries on Sunday.

He was joined on stage in New Jersey by his grandfather, Chabad of Bondi’s Rabbi Yehoram Ulman, who lost his son-in-law and longtime assistant rabbi in the December 14 attack. The hall stood as they embraced.

Before Nossen spoke, Rabbi Ulman addressed the gathering about the year since the attack and the loss of Rabbi Schlanger, who served the Bondi community for 18 years.

A film then showed Nossen continuing many of the routines he once shared with his father, and recalled Rabbi Schlanger’s insistence that antisemitism should never cause Jews to become less visible.

“When they attack us, be more Jewish, act more Jewish and appear more Jewish,” his father would say.

In the film, Nosson described his routine at yeshiva, and the Fridays he spent with his father visiting offices and businesses, helping people put on tefillin and do mitzvahs. “As I got older and with so many different people to visit, my father handed over his Friday route to me. He told me that it was now my responsibility,” he said. “He didn’t just want to do mivtzoim himself; he wanted me to love doing it too, and I did.”

He recalled that for his bar mitzvah, his father took him to the Kinus Hashluchim, the same conference. “I remember seeing so many shluchim together, and how excited my father was to be here,” he said.

“My father had true simcha. He brought smiles and laughter to everyone around him … But the biggest thing I learnt from my father is how much happiness there is in being the Rebbe’s shliach.”

The five-day conference brings together Chabad emissaries serving Jewish communities in more than 100 countries, who gather once a year to compare experiences, share ideas and plan responses to challenges facing their communities.

Rabbi Mendy Kotlarsky, who oversees Chabad’s international networks and the conference, flew to Sydney immediately after the attack. “I cancelled our family plans and flew out,” he said. “I went to Sydney discouraged. I came back devastated yet optimistic.”

He went from the airport to funerals, then spent days visiting families, survivors and the wounded. Two months later he returned to Chabad of Bondi for a regional gathering of rabbis from Australia and New Zealand, held under the theme “From Pain to Purpose”.

“What I saw in Sydney has stayed with me every day since,” Rabbi Kotlarsky said. “A community had suffered an unimaginable loss, but it refused to disappear, retreat or allow terror to decide its future. To see Sydney represented so powerfully at this gathering, surrounded by thousands of Jewish leaders from around the world, was deeply personal. The message to Australia is simple: you are not standing alone.”

On Saturday night, the conference heard from Rabbi Yossi Lazaroff, whose son, Rabbi Leibel Lazaroff, was shot during the Bondi attack while serving in Sydney.

He described how rabbis and families in Sydney arranged housing, meals, transport to hospital and childcare as his son underwent multiple surgeries. When Rabbi Lazaroff’s younger children needed to travel from Texas to Australia so the family could stay together, colleagues helped make it possible.

“I can’t thank my family of shluchim enough for all of their support, love, and carrying us through a very, very difficult time in our family’s life,” Rabbi Lazaroff said.

Australia was also represented in the conference’s sessions. Caulfield North’s Rabbi Menachem Aron presented at a session on artificial intelligence and children, part of a broader discussion on how technology is changing education, communication and community life. “The problem with AI is just that: it sounds real,” Rabbi Aron said, urging parents and educators to think carefully about children forming habits of communicating with machines rather than people.

The closing program announced 12 new initiatives addressing challenges in Jewish communities worldwide.

Among them is the international expansion of Project Noah, founded by Rabbi Schlanger, which develops tools for teaching the Seven Noahide Laws, Judaism’s universal ethical principles, to the wider public.

The other initiatives include a fund to help families afford Jewish day school, dedicated spaces for the CTeen youth movement, additional CKids summer camps, grants for communities building permanent Jewish centres, expanded access to Torah scrolls and mikvahs, and a global community for seniors.

The Sydney community’s connection to the global Chabad network was also highlighted earlier this year, when the Chabad Young Professionals International “Encounter” summit linked live with the Sydney community after the attack.

“It has given us strength beyond words,” Chabad of Bondi’s Rabbi Mendy Ulman said at the time. “In the past, our young community might have felt a little far away because of the physical distance. But this moment we shared is so powerful, we feel closer than ever.”