An American citizen who recently studied in a Brooklyn yeshiva was among the dozens of people injured in the terrorist attack at a Hanukkah celebration in Australia’s Bondi Beach, his Crown Heights uncle told The Post.
Leibel Lazaroff, a 20-year-old who grew up on the Texas A&M college campus with his Chabad rabbi father, was shot in the abdomen and leg and remained in “critical but stable condition,” his uncle Zalman Lazaroff, 51, said.
“He still has shrapnel in his abdomen and right thigh, and is intubated and will need another surgery [Monday] to clean out the shrapnel. He lost a lot of blood,” his family was informed on a group chat on Whatsapp.
The young man recently spent a year in his mother’s native Brooklyn, studying in a Crown Heights yeshiva, and had moved to Sydney just about two months ago.
He was at the famous beach on Sunday when Naveed Akram, 24, and his 50-year-old father, Sajid, allegedly stormed a Hanukkah celebration armed with shotguns and a bolt-action rifle, killing at least 15 people and injuring another 40, including children.
Lazaroff, a “popular, smart and spunky kid,” embarked on the adventure of his life around the Jewish high holidays in October, his uncle said.
“He’s only been there for two months,” Zalman said of his nephew, a “talented” pianist and one of nine children.
“He’s an adventurous boy – and Australia was an adventure.”
Lazaroff’s aunt, Leah Loksen, a Crown Heights resident, said that she told her excited nephew that living in Australia was “a once in a lifetime opportunity.”
“He was so excited. He was thriving,” she said.
Going abroad is typical for a Chabad-Lubavitch student of Lazaroff’s age, Zalman explained.
“All the students go for a one or two year program – like an exchange student,” said Zalman, a 9/11 survivor and volunteer with the local rescue service Hatzalah.
“He’s very special – a very capable and sociable young man,” he said of Lazaroff, who enjoyed volunteering for events in Crown Heights and touching the lives of those around him with his “warmth.”
“He’s a young man committed to Jewishness,” his uncle said.
That spirit is what brought him to the Chabad “Chanukah by the Sea” celebration in Bondi Beach, helping one attack victim, Rabbi Eli Schlanger, and his father in law Rabbi Yehoram Ulman, with the event.
“He was there organizing and helping to create this very large, annual event,” said the devastated uncle. “He was doing what his DNA is wired for – spreading Judaism.”
The outraged uncle called the horrific massacre “an attack on Jews,” adding, “It’s not an attack on Israel or Zionism.”
“We live in very dangerous times,” Zalman said.
The defiant uncle insisted on “making Hanukkah even bigger,” despite the fears.
“The New York community is petrified we’re next. People are scared – and they should be.”
Still, he stressed the message of Lazaroff’s mom, Maya, who urged the Jewish community in her native New York City to stay undaunted.
One message from Lazaroff’s mother thanked people for their prayers and asked to “please add in music, light and joy this Chanukah in merit of complete recovery of all those injured in Sydney.”
Lazaroff’s “distraught” parents have also sent messages thanking God that he is “alive and post surgery in critical condition.”
“We have to double down and not retreat. We have to light up brighter,” Zalman said of his sister-in-law’s message.
The investigation into Sunday’s terror attack, the worst mass shooting in Australia in almost 30 years, remains ongoing.
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