Kellie Sloane meets Bondi Beach survivors

Larisa Kleytman told a group of Bondi Beach terror attack survivors on Friday morning how she was alone in the immediate aftermath of the massacre when a stranger sat down beside her, took her hand and comforted her.

The woman helped her away from the scene and stayed with her until somebody came to collect her. Kleytman, whose husband Alex was murdered in the attack, did not realise at the time who the woman was.

She told the room at Central Synagogue she had later seen that woman on television and realised it was NSW Opposition Leader and member for Vaucluse Kellie Sloane. “This lady is here, and I want to thank you very, very much,” Kleytman said before the two embraced.

Friday morning’s gathering at which Sloane met with survivors was organised by Jewish House, whose head of Bondi crisis community and volunteers, Shoshana Eisner, opened the morning by asking those present to take a deep breath and recognise they were in a safe space.

“Every single person in this room is safe … nobody here has had the same experience, and everybody is at a different point in their journey of recovery,” Eisner said. “But there is something incredibly comforting about being in a room with people who just get it. You don’t have to explain that you’re fine one minute and suddenly fine, not fine the next.”

Eisner recounted how Sloane had not simply stood with the community after the attack but had “literally ran in”, providing first aid alongside Hatzolah’s Rabbi Mendy Litzman.

Sloane told those present she “raced down there because this is my community too”.

“I didn’t go as the Member for Vaucluse or the Leader of the Opposition. I went because people were in trouble, and I wanted to lend a hand,” she said. “And I have to say … in those moments, moments I will never forget, I felt quite helpless I have to say, and I still struggle with the fact that I wish I’d done more. It’s still hard for me to talk about it.

“I know that we hear the stories of so many people in the news stories and on the TV and the people who get the awards and the people who stand with our amazing surf lifesavers. But there are so many of you who are there also, who are still carrying that grief and that pain.

“I know it’s a journey that, while the shock sometimes can go away for people, the impact doesn’t. That you will feel this for a long time. To say a little bit, I understand because I was there. But there’s so much I will never understand about each and every one of your stories.”

Her role, she said, was first and foremost to be a friend to the community.

Jewish House CEO Rabbi Mendel Kastel marked Rosh Chodesh Elul and the approach of Rosh Hashanah.

“It’s crazy to believe that the whole year has sort of gone, on one hand so quickly, but at the same time so complicated,” he said. “We wish each other the coming year should be a Shana Tova U’metuka, good, healthy year, year of healing, a year of strength, safety, and we should be there for each other.”

The shofar was blown to close the official proceedings. Eisner spoke of the shofar being a call to action and a wake-up call, but also “a plea, a prayer, a cry that does not need words, a sound that rises to heaven and carries the things in our heart that perhaps we can’t even find the words ourselves”.