Emotional scenes unfolded at the funeral for 10-year-old Matilda, the youngest of the 15 people killed.
A woman cloaked in the Australian and Israeli flags has declared outside the funeral for the Bondi shooting’s youngest victim that the Prime Minister has “blood on his hands”.
Anthony Albanese “must resign”, according to Chana Friedman, who burst into tears when speaking about 10-year-old Matilda, who was gunned down in Sunday’s attack at a Chanukah event in Bondi.
“He has that girl’s blood on his hands,” she said when asked if there was a place for the Prime Minister at the funeral.
“You’re all going to celebrate Christmas very soon, right? Jesus was a Jew. He would have looked like a rabbi that was killed last week.”
Friedman sobbed as she spoke about Matilda and the funeral.
“Oh, Matilda … we have all failed her. She’s this ray of sunshine,” she said.
“Her friends describe her as the most friendly, most beautiful, happy child.”
Heartbroken family members cried out at her funeral, their sobs piercing the air at Sydney’s Chevra Kadisha.
A father, who wished to be identified only as Wayne, openly wept outside the service as he spoke about the shooting, where he put his life on the line to save his child.
“It’s a horror show, an absolute horror show … do you know what it’s like to lie down on top of a daughter, shots and bullets going off and people dying around you?” he said through tears.
He too turned on the Prime Minister.
“Albanese is weak, he doesn’t listen … he’s a politician that wants votes. He is not a leader,” Wayne said.
“He wants votes. He doesn’t want safety.
“He doesn’t care about people.”
Inside the building, the grief over Matilda’s death was palpable as loved ones gathered to farewell the girl who would never make it to her 11th birthday.
“The tragic, totally cruel, unfathomable murder of young Matilda is something that is so painful to us, like our own daughter was taken from us,” the rabbi holding the service said.
“A parent losing a child is the greatest pain a parent can go through.”
The rabbi said Matilda would “continue to inspire” other children after her death.
He said her Hebrew name meant “righteous woman”, which was reflected in the “sweet, kind girl”.
“We have to make sure that she doesn’t just remain in our hearts and minds and memories, but she needs to remain alive in our deeds, in how we live our lives,” he said.
New South Wales Premier Chris Minns took to the stage at the service to read a poem written in Matilda’s honour.
“A child of celebration was lost to terror’s night, yet in the hush of sorrow her memory will shine,” he said to those gathered.
“A beacon of her love, though her earthly light has gone. She bore the name Matilda to honour this great land, Australia’s heart and spirit, forever hand-in-hand.”
Hundreds of people gathered around the hearse holding the child-sized coffin. Mourners embraced and wept in each other’s arms as they said their final goodbyes to the young girl.
Opposition leaders from the state and federal governments arrived at the funeral.
Sussan Ley appeared to get emotional as she approached the synagogue with Julian Leeser.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will not be in attendance.
Emotional scenes were also witnessed at the funeral of Holocaust survivor Alex Kleytman, 87, as mourners wept and embraced while his coffin was brought out.
Matilda’s parents have spoken multiple times at the informal memorial at Bondi Pavilion about the anguish they’ve faced after losing their daughter.
“It wasn’t just a bullet from a stray, it wasn’t an accident. It was a bullet that was fired on her,” her father Michael said.
“We came here from Ukraine … and I named her Matilda because she was our firstborn in Australia. And I thought that Matilda was the most Australian name that could ever exist.
“So just remember … remember her name.”
Matilda had been separated from her parents when gunshots rang out, as she was playing with animals at a petting zoo, her father revealed to Sky News.
“While the shooting was still going on, I saw Matilda. She ran to where we were. I saw her go down and I crawled to her,” he said.
“I took my shirt off and stuck it on her wound.
“I was talking to her. She was in shock, telling me, ‘It’s hard to breathe’.
“I was holding her, saying, ‘calm down’.”
She died in front of her 6-year-old sister.
Matilda’s mother, Valentyna, has also spoken about the moment her daughter was killed.
“I can’t imagine what monster stands on that bridge, and seeing a little girl running for her father, to hide with him, and he just pulled his trigger on her,” she said.
The first of the funerals for the 15 victims of the terror attack, during which two gunmen opened fire on crowds celebrating a Chanukah event in Bondi, began on Wednesday with an emotional ceremony for Rabbi Eli Schlanger.
Before the service began, the rabbi’s wife, Chayale, wept as she and other family members threw themselves on the coffin.
Her father and Rabbi Eli’s father-in-law, Rabbi Yehoram Ulman, shook with grief as he took to the stage, pausing to lay his hand on the coffin.
“Whatever I say today will be such an understatement to what you meant to everyone and to your family and to me, personally,” he said.
“Eli, from the moment you married Chayale, you became a son to us, as much as she is our daughter, and you became everything to me.”
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