‘As if our own daughter were taken from us’: Matilda farewelled in funeral for ‘little ray of sunshine’

2 months ago 26

“There is no because. We cannot answer,” said Rabbi Yehoram Ulman. “Everybody thinks it will never happen to me. It will happen to someone else. The tragic, cruel, unfathomable murder of young Matilda is as painful as if our own daughter were taken from us.”

Ulman buried his own son-in-law, Rabbi Eli Schlanger, on Wednesday. The father of five was mowed down by Sajid and Naveed Akram metres from Matilda. On Thursday, Ulman gave his second eulogy in as many days for a family who had just lost their daughter.

In their unimaginable grief, Matilda’s parents did not hide away. They came to him to see if he was OK.

“They had enough in their heart to go and think about another person going through the same thing as them,” Ulman said. “You gave me strength at the time when you needed strength yourselves.”

Her classmates at La Perouse Public said Matilda was just like her parents. Kind, compassionate and caring. “Matilda has an incredible gift for bringing joy to those around her,” they said.

“We have to make sure that it doesn’t just remain in our hearts,” said Rabbi Ulman. “She has to remain alive in our deeds and in how we live our lives.”

As in life, her death was filled with bears, flowers and bumblebees. Matilda was not just Matilda; she was Matilda Bee.

Her image of innocence was printed on stickers worn by every mourner, now spreading throughout the world as an antidote to the darkness that had engulfed Bondi.

Balloons arrive for the funeral of 10-year-old Matilda at Sydney Chevra Kadisha.

“Matilda was a bright and loving soul who taught us that true goodness is in the love and compassion we share,” her teacher, Irina Goodhew, said. “Her memory reminds us to carry kindness in our hearts and spread it to the world.”

In her arms, she held a menorah, a Jewish candle lit for every day of Hanukkah. Matilda only saw the first this year, before she collapsed in her father’s arms, telling him she was struggling to breathe.

“They brought her to a safe place, a safe celebration. What could be safer than Bondi Beach?” said Rabbi Dr Dovid Slavin.

Matilda’s family travelled with her to Botany cemetery, her hearse followed by NSW Premier Chris Minns, Opposition Leader Sussan Ley, state Liberal leader Kellie Sloane and Jewish leaders, as it made its way from Chevra Kadisha Memorial Hall down Oxford Street.

Matilda’s grandmother arrives at the funeral.

“We have failed this baby, and we have failed all children,” mother of five Chana Friedman whispered as the hearse drove away.

In Botany, more than 100 friends and family watched as the coffin of a child was lowered into the ground. Mourners took turns shovelling dirt over Matilda’s coffin; the sounds of heartbreak and keening were at times temporarily replaced by a stunned silence.

Just two hours earlier, hundreds of mourners had piled out of the same hall to pay their respects to Alex Kleytman, who fled from the Nazis in the Soviet Union as a toddler, only to be gunned down more than eight decades later on Bondi Beach as he celebrated Hanukkah with his wife, Larisa.

The couple’s daughter, Sabina Kleytman, told The Washington Post that her father died doing what he loved most.

“Protecting my mother – he probably saved her life – and standing up and being a proud Jew,” she said.

The casket of Bondi massacre victim Alex Kleytman is carried from Sydney Chevra Kadisha where the funeral was held.

Funeral after funeral now proceeds along the streets of Sydney’s east. At least two more will be held tomorrow.

Up to a dozen will have made the journey to Rookwood, Botany, North Ryde cemetery by the time the Jewish community begins its next Sabbath on Friday, without the children, the mothers and fathers that filled their dining tables on the eve of Hanukkah only six days ago.

Each is marked by the same dark sorrow and anger. Anger at politicians for not doing enough, anger at police for not being prepared, and anger at the world, which cannot seem to find a safe place for Jews to mourn.

Instead, dozens of police searched under cars for bombs at a funeral for a 10-year-old in Sydney’s east on Thursday.

“It is a despicable way we are being forced to exist,” the co-chief executive of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, Alex Ryvchin, told ABC Radio.

“That fact is, to bury our dead and mourn, we have to have upgraded levels of security. It just shows the appalling state we have allowed our country to get to. That is, leaving aside 15 people were murdered like livestock at a family event to mark a religious holiday at Bondi Beach.”