For many bereaved families the holiday – which commemorates their ancestors’ liberation from slavery 3,000 years ago – is going to be ‘very, very confronting’
Rabbi Mendy Ulman’s family is one of a dozen who will be sitting down for the Jewish holiday of Passover for the first time since the massacre at Bondi beach without the loved ones they lost that day. When Ulman remembers his brother-in-law at previous celebrations – known as Pesach in Hebrew – he says simply: “He was life.”
Rabbi Eli Schlanger was always singing and initiating the traditional Jewish toast “l’chaim” (meaning “to life!”): “He’d make sure everyone’s spirits were high.”