New Chabad center deploys at site of Bondi terror attack, dispensing acts of kindness

A new Chabad center has been set up on Sydney’s Bondi Beach at the site of the Hanukkah terror attack earlier this month, from which the Hasidic group specializing in Jewish outreach seeks to share acts of kindness with passersby.

The center is being called “Ohel Eli and Yaakov” in memory of Rabbi Eli Schlanger and Rabbi Yaakov Levitan, two Chabad emissaries killed in the December 14 attack in which 15 people were murdered and dozens injured.

“It’s not really a full Chabad house,” said Rabbi Noach Koncepolski, the project’s founder. “It’s more like an expanded kiosk where we hand out food and help Jews put on tefillin [phylacteries]. The idea is to have a point of connection to share some kindness, to have a moment of sweetness, with anyone passing by.”

“We’re calling it a ‘mitzvah house,'” he added, using the Hebrew word for good deeds.

The morning after the attack, Koncepolski and some friends headed over to the Bondi Pavilion site and started offering to help people put on the phylacteries used in Jewish prayers.

“It just blew up immediately,” Koncepolski recalled, saying his group put tefillin on 1,500 people a day that week. “After that, we started handing out Shabbat candles and handing out food. During Hanukkah, we gave out thousands of doughnuts to Jews and non-Jews alike.”

Now, he added, the team still puts tefillin on “hundreds” of people each day, and hands out pastries and candies to passersby.

At the site of the Bondi massacre, a memorial has been installed staffed by Chabad representatives. At the new Mitzvah House, the thousands who come to Bondi Beach to pay their respects are given the opportunity to do a mitzvah and live openly and proudly as Jews in memory of… pic.twitter.com/FFf1AsoPii

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Following the Bondi Beach attack, Sydney residents of all stripes have worked to promote unity and fight hatred through projects and tributes, including public swims, communal counseling, memorial rallies and countless vigils.

A new project launched by the New South Wales government, spearheaded by Chabad rabbis, encourages locals to unite with acts of kindness in memory of the victims of the attack. A website calls on people “of all faiths and all communities” to do “One Mitzvah for Bondi.”

Koncepolski said the new center focuses on engaging non-Jews, in line with the work of Schlanger, one of the rabbis for whom it is named.

“Eli was a humanist who engaged with everyone and fought to make this world better. We tried to make this project an encapsulation of his work and values,” he said.

So far, Koncepolski and his team have been operating out of two shipping containers that have been repurposed to serve as their base.

“This was the best we could do before everything shut down for Christmas over here,” Koncepolski said. “We’re hoping to get something a bit nicer once things open up again after New Year’s.”

Koncepolski said he has so far funded the project through his own funds and through a mobile Jewish outreach center and library he runs in the Sydney area. He has also received some support from the local government council, he added.

“Being part of Chabad means we don’t start with financial projections,” he said. “We start doing the things that are needed, and hopefully, with God’s help, things work out afterwards.”