2 months ago
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When a police officer began yelling, “I got shot, I got shot”, Rabbi Leibel Lazaroff did not hesitate.
Amid gunfire at Bondi Beach’s festival of lights celebration on Sunday, the young Texan removed his shirt and wrapped it around the officer’s shoulder in a bid to save him.
Leibel (left) with his father, Yossi.
His father, Rabbi Yossi Lazaroff, says Leibel told the officer, “Don’t worry, you got shot in your shoulder. You are going to be OK.”
The 20-year-old, who was helping Rabbi Eli Schlanger with the Hanukkah event and has held a gun licence since he was 18, pleaded with the officer to give him his weapon. “I can get him; let me do it. Please let me save some people,” Yossi said of his son’s actions.
But seconds later, a bullet went through his own left side and out his back, moments before he saw Schlanger, his mentor, colleague and friend fatally shot in the chest.
A talented pianist, singer and artist, Leibel received his rabbinical ordination last year. Yossi says his son runs events, and had travelled to Sydney in September to learn from Schlanger and help with the long-running Hanukkah by the Sea celebration.
“He came here alone, without any friends, without any companionship, for Rabbi Eli.
“He would have taken a bullet for Rabbi Eli, he wanted to save lives, he knew in the process of saving lives he was putting himself at risk, he would have done it for anyone.”
It was 3.45am when Yossi was woken.
Leibel Lazaroff remains in hospital after Sunday’s Bondi shooting.
“I was sleeping, not thinking there was going to be a terrorist attack in Sydney and my son was going to be shot,” he said.
Already, Leibel has had three life-saving surgeries to treat the bullet wounds he sustained to his abdomen and thigh. His ribs are damaged and breathing hurts, and he is still too unwell to walk, or move. Doctors estimate he will be in hospital for at least another fortnight, but it’s hard to know.
Yossi, who is now in Sydney and at his son’s bedside with his wife Manya, says people took shifts to be with Leibel until he arrived, and have returned each night to give him respite.
“My son has had an amazing community and friendships in the last two or three months. He hasn’t been left alone since they found him.”
The funeral for Schlanger, who was one of 15 victims who died on Sunday’s attack, was held on Wednesday. Yossi attended the service for a person they lovingly described as “a giant” of the community and as a man “who believed in my son perhaps more than himself”, while Manya stayed by their son’s bedside.
Liebel believes the police officer he ran towards may have been Constable Scott Dyson, who had been eastern suburbs police area command for 18 months. Dyson was shot in the shoulder and abdomen and is in a serious but stable condition in hospital.
NSW Police could not confirm the account, but in a statement they hailed Dyson and officer Jack Hibbert, who was also shot on Sunday, saying they ran towards the gunmen.
A photo provided by the family of NSW Police Constable Scott Dyson, who remains in hospital.Credit: Dyson family
“He does not regret trying to save a police officer’s life,” Yossi says of his son’s bravery. “He just says he wishes he could have done more. I hope the Australian government appreciates that, appreciates him.”
Yossi says that after he was shot, Leibel felt like he was dying and worried he would bleed to death. But “he wants to live. He says, ‘People need me. I need to help the community because Rabbi Eli’s not there to do it. I have to step up.’ He’s unbelievable.”
Recovery will be a long journey, but Yossi is glad he’s not burying his son.
‘When he opens his eyes he is with us. When he closes them, then he is back at the Bondi terror attack.’
Rabbi Yossi Lazaroff speaking about his son Leibel“When he opens his eyes he is with us. When he closes them, then he is back at the Bondi terror attack,” he said. “He’s lucky to be alive.”
Yossi works at Texas A&M University as a rabbi and growing up, his children had always seen their father care for, feed, and help students on a daily basis. They have been raised to be “givers and doers”.
“My son was raised in that environment since he was born. The irony,” Yossi says sadly, “for a father and son duo to proudly go and hunt Jews down from an ideology of hate, to infuse terror and take lives.”
He said planning an attack on the Jewish people on Hannukah, “one of the first places to light the candles of religious freedom, of light over darkness, good over evil, to infuse not just terror on the people of Australia, but Jews around the world”.
While he never expected a terror attack in Sydney, he said, “we can’t be naive. We have to root it out. We can’t have antisemitism, Jew hatred, left unchecked; this is what happens. This emboldens people.”
“Unfortunately, if you continue the way it is now, it’s not going to get better. It can’t be the status quo, it will get worse.”
He also feels there should have been better training for a terror attack.
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“A gunman walking around freely, not even hiding, standing there in the open hunting Jews down makes no sense,” he said. “He had the ability to do it in broad daylight, unabashed, unafraid. It’s inexcusable.”
Yossi and Mayna left their eight children, including an 18-month-old, a two-year-old and a four-year-old, to be by their son’s bedside. The financial strain, as well as uncertainty is tough.
A GoFundMe page set up for the Lazaroff family has already raised over $65,000.
To the Jewish Australian community, Yossi said their family felt their pain.
“We understand the suffering. We are focusing on our son because that’s our responsibility, but if we could be there to comfort the other families, we would.”
Leibel, in Yiddish, means lion. It’s what Yossi says his son is.
“He’s a brave boy,” he said.
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