Rabbi Eli Schlanger was passionate about the Noahide Laws because he saw them as an enduring symbol of civility, morality, ethics, and connection to G‑d. It was also part of his mission as handed down by his spiritual teacher, the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneersohn, of righteous memory.

Read: The Rebbe’s Social Teachings

Nikki Goldstein doesn’t remember her first meeting with Rabbi Eli because she was in a coma. Pneumonia had overwhelmed her lungs, and her family were at her hospital bedside preparing for the worst. Then they spotted a bearded, bespectacled man, not too tall, not too short, quick of step, firm of purpose, bright of eye—a rabbi. Nikki soon made a recovery that the doctors called miraculous, and the rabbi and the writer became part of one another's lives. As they explored and blurred the lines between tradition and modernity, they realized they shared the same fundamental goals: To do good. To serve. To uplift.

But their conversations were unfinished when the unthinkable happened. On December 14, 2025, the first night of Chanukah, the festival of light, Rabbi Eli Schlanger was orchestrating the eighteenth annual candle lighting ceremony on Sydney’s Bondi Beach. At 6:41 p.m., two gunmen opened fire. Eli had just had his photo taken helping someone perform the mitzvah of tefillin. A minute or so later, he was dead.

Devastated by shock and grief, Nikki refused to be silenced by terror. She vowed that Rabbi Eli’s legacy and his mission to bring light, love, and moral clarity to the world would not die, because the teachings he personified are more necessary than ever. This book is Rabbi Eli’s eternal gift—a guide for all who struggle to live with integrity, compassion, and courage in a divided and uncertain world.

New Book By Rabbi Eli Schlanger, Slain in Bondi Beach Attack, Announced by Major Publisher