Reuven Morrison didn’t have to confront the terrorists at Bondi Beach, Australia, on December 14, 2025. He could have stayed on the ground, covering his head like the three police officers assigned that first night of Chanukah. When Morrison saw that something needed to be done, and nobody else was doing it, he did it, said his daughter, Sheina Gutnick, at Chabad of Forest Hills North on Father’s Day, June 21.
Morrison got between one of the shooters and a mother covering her two children on the ground, distracting him as he aimed his gun at them. Ahmed Al Ahmed tackled one of the terrorists and threw the terrorist’s gun behind a tree. Morrison picked up the gun and shot at the father-son terrorists on the bridge but dropped the weapon after getting shot in the wrist. He then threw a brick at the terrorist despite having two gunshots in his leg and one in his arm. As he turned to run away, he was shot dead. Morrison suffered 11 gunshot wounds in total.
Sheina’s husband got a call from his sister when the shooting started at 6:47 p.m. Sheina called her father at 6:48 p.m., and her mother picked up. “I hear screaming. I hear gunshots.” “The terrorists were using exploding bullets,” said Sheina. It took 11 minutes before police responded to take out the father-son gunmen. Lifeguards having a holiday party next door were the first to respond, using their surfboards as gurneys and applying CPR. Fifteen people were killed, and more than 40 people were injured. One of the two gunmen, the father, was killed by police.
Sheina said Australian Jews were not surprised after being unable to practice Judaism openly and enduring verbal and physical attacks. On October 9, 2023, two days after the Hamas massacres in Israel, “mobs of angry pro-Palestinian protesters filled the streets of Sydney, screaming, ‘Gas the Jews. Where are the Jews? F--- the Jews.’” The only person arrested that day was a man carrying an Israeli flag for inciting violence.
One time, a person pointed at Sheina’s Star of David necklace and called her a terrorist. Another time, a person in a passing car yelled at her, “Free Palestine,” and “[Expletive] the Jews.”
Sheina’s father loved practicing Judaism openly and loved “the idea of mateship” when he came to Australia in 1977. Born in Kyiv, Ukraine, in 1963, he regularly heard classmates and teachers say anti-Semitic things. Morrison and his brother got into frequent fights in the playground. Any display of religion meant jail in the Communist Soviet Union.
Morrison met his wife on Bondi Beach when he was 17 and she was 16. They married two years later, and Sheina is their only child. Morrison worked in the locksmith business, fixed fax and printing machines, and owned a gas station. Morrison and another person bought the property where Chabad of Bondi was built and opened in 2024.
Sheina asked for a Royal Commission from the government to investigate why this happened, but the Prime Minister refused. Sheina wrote a letter that all of the families of the victims signed. Tens of thousands of Australians went to Bondi Beach for the last night of Chanukah in 2025. Sheina met personally with the Prime Minister, who finally agreed to the Royal Commission investigation. Sheina is also now the Public Affairs Advocate for Australia in the Combat Anti-Semitism Movement.
“We don’t want to just suffer and despair. We want to pick ourselves up with acts of goodness and kindness.”
“On the Australian government website, people can write “mitzvah notes” of what they have decided to do and take on.” The New South Wales government started a One Mitzvah Bondi Campaign. “Mitzvah ultimately means connection,” said Sheina, not only to Hashem, but also to the person for whom we are doing the good deed. “That’s ultimately the purpose for all on earth, Jewish and non-Jewish life. We are here to make the world a better place.”
Sheina reminded those in attendance that Jews have faced difficult times in the past. “We have a Torah and a moral code. It’s relevant. That’s what’s going to keep us going.”
“Anti-Semitism is a global issue. There’s no place safe… We have to celebrate Judaism. Live it openly and proudly.” Sheina asked those in attendance to think about how they are going to be Jewish today. How are they going to say brachos and give charity? “Hashem gave us a special purpose in life: to make the world a better place, not to be apologetic or defensive of who we are.”
Rabbi Mendy Hecht of Chabad of Forest Hills North noted that the program took place near the 32nd yahrzeit of Rabbi Menachem Schneerson, the Rebbe, “whose teachings focused on finding light within darkness and transforming pain into positive action.”
Rebbetzin Chaya Hecht’s cousin, Rabbi Eli Schlanger, was also murdered that day. He was Assistant Rabbi at Chabad Bondi. Rebbetzin Chaya Hecht reflected, “The Rebbe taught us that education is the greatest tool for changing the world. Sheina embodies this ideal by courageously sharing her story and inspiring others through it.”
Rabbi Schlanger was working on a book about the Noachide Laws with journalist and author Nikki Goldstein when he was killed. They were about to write the last chapter of the book, about the mitzvah of creating courts of justice. Goldstein finished the book, Conversations with My Rabbi: Timeless Teachings for a Fractured World.
Rabbi Hecht led the responsive reading of “The Rebbe’s T’hilim,” chapter 125, and T’hilim for the Jewish people and the Israeli Army, chapter 20, at the start of the evening.
Chabad of Forest Hills North presented the program in partnership with the Queens Jewish Community Council.
By David Schneier