'Déjà vu': Rabbi who was victim of 2019 antisemitic shooting mourns family member killed in Sydney

Suhauna Hussain, Los Angeles Times on Dec 16, 2025

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It was late in the night when Yisroel Goldstein received a call from a relative notifying him of the shooting at Bondi Beach.

After that, the rabbi and former director of a suburban San Diego County synagogue was glued to his phone, filtering calls and messages for updates on his brother-in-law, his niece and other family members who participated in and helped to organize the Hanukkah festivities at Sydney's most famous beach each year.

Later, Goldstein learned his niece's husband, Rabbi Eli Schlanger, who was leading services at the event, was among the more than 15 people killed.

The shooting attack "was déjà vu," said Goldstein, who himself was struck by a bullet in a 2019 shooting at the Chabad of Poway, California. "It's been just absolutely heart-wrenching."

On that April day six years ago, a man armed with a semiautomatic rifle walked into Goldstein's synagogue and opened fire on the congregation, killing a woman and injuring three others, including Goldstein, in a hate-fueled attack.

About 100 people were inside the synagogue at the time celebrating the last day of Passover.

Goldstein lost his right index finger in the attack. And he has had multiple surgeries and physical therapy over the years to fix pain and other problems in his left index finger, which was also injured, shattered by a bullet fragment.

He wants his family and community, as they grapple with the beach massacre, to know that "when events like this happen, it doesn't dim or extinguish our lights."

Goldstein is close with his sister, as they are among the youngest of 10 siblings. His sister married a close friend and former school study partner of his, and her family is based in Sydney.

Each year on the first night of Hanukkah, Goldstein waits for a call from his brother-in-law where they wish each other well on the holiday and chat about their respective lighting ceremonies. Goldstein was waiting for that call when he learned of the beach shooting, he said.

Goldstein said his niece sustained a gunshot wound in the back during the shooting, but is recuperating. He said he planned to fly to Australia next week for a memorial service for Rabbi Schlanger.

"As a Jewish people, we've been through so much," he said, "and the lesson of Hanukkah ... is for the world to know and see that we have to create light where there's darkness."

Australian authorities have identified father-and-son gunmen as the suspects and labeled the shooting a terror attack. The elder gunman was shot and killed by police. His 24-year-old son was wounded and remains hospitalized, officials have said.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has called the shooting a "targeted attack on Jewish Australians on the first day of Hanukkah" and "an act of evil antisemitism."

The 19-year-old man responsible for the 2019 Poway synagogue shooting had posted a manifesto to the internet just before the attack referencing white supremacist ideology. In the missive, he made anti-Jewish and anti-Muslim statements, expressing a desire to kill people because of their Jewish faith and regret that he could not kill more. He praised the March 2019 mass shootings at two New Zealand mosques that left 51 people dead.

The gunman also admitted that, the month before attacking the synagogue, he attempted to set fire to the Dar-ul-Arqam mosque in Escondido.

In 2021, the gunman was sentenced to life in prison.

Goldstein was a founding member of the Poway synagogue in Rancho Bernardo, launching it in the 1980s. He became an international figure, speaking out against antisemitism, after the shooting.

Soon after the shooting, he retired from his position at the synagogue. One of his five sons, Rabbi Mendel Goldstein, assumed leadership of the synagogue and its school.

A year after the Poway attack, Goldstein claimed headlines again, as the perpetrator of a tax fraud scandal in his leadership role at the Chabad of Poway. He pleaded guilty to federal charges for a years-long, multimillion-dollar scheme in which he accepted phony contributions, taking a portion of the funds as commission and allowing the donors to claim major tax deductions but secretly refunding their money.

In 2022, he was ordered to pay restitution, and has since served out a prison term.

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