BOMBSHELL LETTER 😱 Bondi Victim Rabbi Eli Schlanger Warned Albanese Government Not to ‘Betray’ Jewish Community

The rabbi is one of five people, directly impacted by the terror attack, who had been sounding the alarm on the Albanese government’s inaction on antisemitism, a new Sky News documentary, Bondi: A Timeline of Terror, has uncovered.

Mother-of-two, Sammy Kogan, whose eight-year-old son was hiding directly under the shooters on the bridge throughout the massacre, had also written to Mr Albanese, a year before the atrocity, on December 9th 2024, imploring him to act.

“I’d actually sent him a message a year ago and I begged with him,” she says in the documentary.

“I said: ‘We’re so scared. Whatever’s happening in the Middle East is one thing, but what’s happening here is affecting our lives and we’re scared for our own children’.”

A year later, her words would turn out to be scarily prophetic.

Sammy’s husband, Ranald, and eight-year-old son were walking across the bridge to leave the festival when the shooters arrived.

Her husband noticed a huge shotgun leaning against the bridge, grabbed his son and ran down the stairs of the bridge.

They sheltered on the side as the first gunshot rang out.

“We hit the ground when we heard the first shot, and then it was just nonstop after that, just shot after shot. My son, he was just shaking uncontrollably and I was whispering in his ear: ‘You’re so brave, you’re so brave. It’s going to be finished soon. It’s going to be over’,” he said.

Ranald then ran with his son under the bridge where they stayed until the shooting was over.

Sammy recalls how her son was still shaking for an hour after he got home from Bondi.

“On the night that it happened, I sent (Albanese) another message. I said to him: ‘My son was there and we feel like you failed us’.”

Sky News’ documentary, Bondi: A Timeline of Terror, delves into the warnings many at the Bondi Channukah festival had been giving on antisemitism and hostility toward Israel – warnings that were ignored prior to the day terror came to Bondi.

Rabbi Schlanger, who organised the Chanukah by the Sea event, wrote to Mr Albanese on 22nd September 2025 urging him to reverse the decision to recognise a Palestinian state.

“Dear Prime Minister Anthony Albanese,” he wrote.

“As a Rabbi in Sydney, I implore you not to betray the Jewish people and not to betray G-d himself.

“Throughout history, Jews have been torn from their land again and again by leaders who are now remembered with scorn in the pages of history.”

In the letter, he urged Mr Albanese to “stand on the side of truth and righteousness” and rescind “this act of betrayal”.

He urged him to have the “courage to do what is right and to stand firmly against this act of heresy”.

“Should you choose this path, you will be welcomed home with open arms and even a warm Shabbat meal,” he wrote.

In the aftermath of the terror attack, Mr Albanese had a private meeting with Rabbi Schlanger’s sister, Tzippy, brother-in-law Rabbi Mendel Kastel and their family.

Rabbi Schlanger’s niece asked him if he’d read her uncle’s letter from three months earlier. Mr Albanese said he had not.

She slid it across the table and asked him to read it out loud.

Mr Albanese read it quietly to himself.

Tzippy says her brother was “very worried” about antisemitism and wanted the Albanese government to do more.

“He was definitely expressive about his concerns. He didn’t keep it quiet,” she said.

Police allege that the shooters, Sajid and Naveed Akram, had recorded videos, in front of ISIS flags, condemning “Zionists” and explaining their motivation for the attack.

Matilda’s parents, Michael and Valentyna, had also been speaking out against antisemitism for many years, well before the post October 7 explosion.

Valentyna had posted a picture of herself and Matilda on Facebook with the tag “Together Against Antisemitism” in 2018.

Michael now is furious at the Albanese government’s apparent disregard for the rising racism against Jews.

“I personally feel that the government betrayed us. That’s what I think. They betrayed us, they betrayed Matilda,” he said.

“When Matilda was growing up, I was instilling love for this country, love for Australia, and I feel like the government betrayed her by letting terrorist lovers take over the country.

“First, they took over the Opera House, then they took over the Harbour Bridge.”

When asked, in the Sky News documentary, whether Michael holds the Albanese government partly responsible for what happened, he replies: “Not partly. They’re responsible.

“Those guys were the triggers, the idiots, the crazies, the nut jobs, but the government, they like to say dog whistle.”

The daughter of 87-year-old Bondi victim, Alex Kleytman, Sabina, had also been speaking out.

“People remind me that two years ago, I did a speech and I actually mentioned where is it leading? Somebody is going to get killed. Just two years ago. I didn’t know it would be my father,” she says in the Sky News documentary.

“It feels really hard to process with something I’ve been trying to campaign and do something about for all this time.

“Seeing what happened, and that in between things could have been prevented, things could have been done and were not. It’s very hard to accept.”

One of the slain heroes at Bondi, Reuven Morrison, had also been speaking out publicly about antisemitism.

Precisely one year before the attack, Morrison gave an interview to the ABC where he said he was shocked that antisemitism was unfolding in Sydney, Australia.

“There is a feeling of being scared, when people are taking their kids to kindergarten and school, they do not know what kind of events can take place. It is unpredictable,” Morrison told the ABC.

“They have not experienced this before.”

More than 57 witnesses, survivors and victims have been interviewed for the Sky News documentary.

The Sky News documentary, Bondi: A Timeline of Terror will air at 7:30pm, Tuesday, on Sky News Australia.