Yaakov Levitan was preparing a Chanukah celebration. Then the attack began.

(THE TIMES OF ISRAEL) “Yaakov was a quiet person,” Adina Levitan says. “But if something needed to be done – he was there. You didn’t have to worry. He would make sure everything worked.”

On the first night of Chanukah, December 14, 2025, Yaakov Levitan did what he had always done. He showed up early.

At Bondi Beach in Sydney, under the warm glow of summer, preparations were underway for “Chanukah on the Beach” – a community celebration meant to bring light into the darkness. As Chief Operating Officer of Chabad Bondi, Yaakov was at the centre of it all. Logistics, setup, coordination – if something needed to happen, it ran through him.

He was 39 years old. A husband. A father of four. A builder of community.

That night, he was also one of 15 people murdered in what became the deadliest antisemitic attack in Australia’s history.

The Man Behind the Scenes

To understand Yaakov Levitan is to understand a certain kind of leadership – one that does not seek the spotlight, but without which nothing can function.

Born in Johannesburg to Harris and Mireille Levitan, Yaakov grew up in a traditional Jewish home. He attended King David School and went to synagogue with his parents at Orange Grove. But something in him pushed further.

After high school, he came to Israel through a Masa program, enrolling at the Mayanot Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem. There, his character began to take shape in ways that would define the rest of his life.

Rabbi Kasriel Shemtov, Executive Director at Mayanot, said Levitan exemplified what the yeshivah hoped to cultivate. “Yaakov was a very kind person,” he said. “Anything that had to happen in yeshivah, he took charge. Mivtzoim, farbrengens. Every event he took charge and was never waiting for the thank you.” Students would arrive at all hours, even in the middle of the night. Yaakov would be there to greet them.

Rabbi Shloime Gestetner, dean of Mayanot, remembered Levitan’s defining quality: “He had a good heart. He was so easygoing. Got along with everyone, cared for everyone. It made sense his jobs were organising. He got along with everyone, and he embodied the Chassidic teaching that the action, the doing, that was the main thing.”

That ethos would follow him everywhere.

A Life Built Around Others

In 2008, during Yaakov’s time in Mayanot, something unexpected happened.

“I came to visit my sister for Shabbat,” Adina recalls. “My brother-in-law was teaching there. Yaakov was there too. It wasn’t planned at all.”

Their connection was immediate.

“My sister had to convince us to even meet,” she says. “Where we come from, you don’t date unless it’s serious. Yaakov was actually planning to go to America to continue learning.”

Instead, within a very short time, they were engaged. They married on Rosh Chodesh Elul.

“We had so much fun together,” she says. “I felt like I could completely be myself with him. He had a sense of humour – maybe a bit unusual – but I understood it. He wasn’t ‘cool’ in the way people sometimes think, but he was grounded, confident, and deeply principled. He knew what was right and what wasn’t.”

They began their life together in Jerusalem, but the global financial crisis forced difficult decisions. “I didn’t have a job, and I didn’t speak Hebrew,” Adina explains. “So, we decided to move to Australia.”

It was a decision that would shape not only their family – but an entire community.

The Infrastructure of a Community

In Sydney, Yaakov became something rare: the invisible backbone of Jewish communal life.

He joined BINA, where he managed the educational resource centre and library, overseeing budgets, programming, marketing, and daily operations. Under his leadership, BINA evolved from a concept into a thriving institution – moving online, launching podcasts and video content, and adapting rapidly during COVID.

But that was only part of the story.

He coordinated the city’s scribal services, connecting communities with Torah scrolls and Mezuzot, transforming what had once been an informal, home-based effort into a professional network that served tens of thousands.

He founded tapNgive, introducing contactless donation systems to nonprofits. He installed credit card systems for ritual spaces. He volunteered to manage the men’s mikveh. He coordinated Tefillin distribution across Sydney after October 7. He organised delegations to Israel. He handled fundraising campaigns, logistics, compliance, and everything in between.

When Chabad Bondi completed its $30 million flagship building in 2024, there was only one person the rabbis turned to as Chief Operating Officer.

Yaakov.

“If there was a fundraising dinner – he organised it,” Adina says. “If there was a campaign – he ran it. If someone needed help – he connected them. He didn’t talk much about what he did. He just made things happen.”

The Night Everything Changed

“It was a normal Sunday,” Adina says. They spoke about their plans for the evening. Yaakov needed to be at the Chabad Hanukkah event. Adina wasn’t sure where she wanted to go.

“He suggested another Hanukkah event nearby,” she recalls. “He said, ‘Go there with the kids. I’ll meet you afterward.’”

He arrived early to help set up. At the other event, the music suddenly stopped.

“Messages started coming in,” she says. “People asking where others were hiding. People asking if anyone had seen their children.”

A cousin called. “She said, ‘I don’t want to scare you, but you should try to reach Yaakov.’ That’s when I understood something was wrong.”

The venue was locked down. She tried calling. Messaging. Waiting.

“Someone came up to me – I don’t even remember who – and said Yaakov had been shot. They said he was alive, but injured.”

She and her mother slipped out and drove toward the hospital.

“They told me he was in surgery,” she says. “I felt relief. I thought—okay, he’s injured, but he’s alive.”

What followed were hours of chaos: “People were coming in bleeding, their clothes torn. Everyone had this look on their face. No one knew anything. No one could tell us anything.”

After hours of waiting, a social worker approached her. Asked for a photo.

“They came back and said that the Yaakov in surgery doesn’t have a beard. It’s not him.”

From there, she was sent to the beach, where bodies were being identified. Then to more hospitals. Then back home.

“At 4 a.m., we went home and waited,” she says. “And suddenly I realised – we hadn’t lit the menorah. My son, who was in Israel, lit it before us.”

At 5 a.m., there was a knock at the door.

A Loss That Echoes Far Beyond

Yaakov Levitan was killed while preparing a Chanukah celebration – an act of bringing light, joy, and Jewish identity into public space.

“Even now, it’s hard to believe something like this could happen in Sydney,” Adina says. “We used to say nothing happens here. Antisemitism existed, but we didn’t think it could become this.”

And yet, it did.

What remains is both a profound absence, and an enduring presence.

“The community here is incredible,” she says. “The support – we feel it everywhere. In the schools, with the children. But there is a huge void. Only now do we realise how much he carried.”

She pauses.

“He was a man of community. But his children—they were always number one. Before everything.”

Together, We Remember

This year, Yaakov Levitan’s story will be told at the Masa Israel Journey Yom HaZikaron ceremony—the largest English-language memorial ceremony in the world for fallen soldiers and victims of terror from the Diaspora.

Each year, thousands gather at Latrun, while millions more watch from Jewish communities across more than 60 countries. The ceremony is translated into multiple languages, bridging continents, cultures, and experiences.

At its heart are stories like Yaakov’s.

Not statistics. Not headlines. Lives.

Lives that began in Johannesburg, or Connecticut, or Buenos Aires – and became part of a shared Jewish story that stretches across borders.

On Yom HaZikaron, we cannot remember all 25,000 names at once. It is impossible.

So we remember through stories.

And each story becomes a world.

What Remains

If Yaakov had survived, Adina says, he would not have spoken much about the attack.

“He would have just helped people,” she says. “That’s what he did. He would make sure everyone was okay.”

That instinct to act, to build, to care quietly and consistently – is what defined him. It is also what defines a people.

Yaakov Levitan came to Israel as a young man through Masa, searching for meaning. He built a life rooted in responsibility—to family, to community, to the Jewish people.

In many ways, his story is not only his own.

It is the story of a generation that refuses to remain indifferent.

The story of those who build, who connect, who show up early and stay late so that others can belong.

On Yom HaZikaron, as Jews across the world stand together in remembrance, Yaakov’s life reminds us what that togetherness truly means.

Not only to remember, but to carry forward. To build. To care. To continue.