To the world, 10-year-old Matilda was the youngest victim of Australia’s deadliest terrorist attack, but to her father, she was simply “Bee”. It’s her middle name, and the symbol he’s asking a grieving nation to remember her by.
Across Sydney’s eastern suburbs, mourners have heeded his call. The Bondi pavilion flower memorial – a sprawling tribute to the 15 lives lost at the Bondi beach massacre on 14 December – is filling with bees. They appear in plush form, tucked beside lilies; as illustrations on flickering candles; and as cartoon stickers on lapels.
There’s also a poster on the pavilion’s walls reading “Waltzing Matilda,” a poignant nod to her Ukrainian parents’ decision to give her the most Australian name they could find – a name that symbolised the lucky country they had chosen.
And at Thursday’s funeral for Matilda, who was killed in Sunday’s Bondi attacks, the bee motif was everywhere.
Mourners were handed stickers bearing her name in purple – her favourite colour – above the image of that small, defiant bee.
Inside Sydney’s Chevra Kadisha funeral home in Woollahra, tearful mourners described a friendly, beautiful, happy child. She loved maths and wanted to be a teacher. One eulogiser recalled how, just a week ago, at her school presentation day marking the end of the school year, she clutched her best friend’s hand in excitement, believing that the other child was about to receive an award. Instead it was Matilda’s name that was read out.
So many mourners came to honour Matilda that the funeral house was not big enough to hold them, and people spilled out on to the park at the entrance. The federal opposition leader, Sussan Ley; federal Coalition frontbencher Julian Leeser; and the New South Wales premier, Chris Minns, were among those who attended.
The horror of Matilda being taken so young was not lost on anyone. And as the small, white coffin was carried out, the profound grief of the service spilled into the street,. Her family clutched each other crying, and the hearse struggled to move off through the crowds.
Speaking outside, Rabbi Dovid Slavin said Jewish funerals were always very uniform.
“However, today is very, very different on so many levels – a child who passes away young, even due to illness, is a huge tragedy because they never got the opportunity to live out their lives and to be what they were, what they could have been,” he said.
“Matilda’s only crime was trying to come to one of the most iconic places in this country and perhaps around the world, for an event that wasn’t an extreme sport of some sort, but this is a family get-together in the most pristine, beautiful, loving, inclusive way, and for it to finish this way – heartbreaking, the family, beyond words,” he said.
Slavin said every adult in the country has stopped since the Bondi attack to ask: “Is this the Australia I want to live in?”
Slavin recalled how Matilda’s parents were forced to hide their Jewish identity living in the Soviet Union. Both Ukraine immigrants, Valentyna arrived with her young son and lived in Melbourne for four years. They moved to Sydney after she met Michael.
The couple were delighted that in Australia, they could marry in a religious ceremony, as well as a civil one, he said.
And then, a decade later, a surprise ray of sunshine came into their lives.
Such was their joy at Matilda’s birth that they decided to have another child. Now Matilda’s younger sister Summer – who was also at the Hanukah celebrations with her family on Sunday – is left in a house that has suddenly gone dark.
The physical presence of vibrant little Matilda is gone, the rabbi said, but her spirit remains an active obligation for the living.
“We see things that we can touch, feel, weigh, but there’s much more that doesn’t meet the eye,” he said. “And the spirit is here and stays here and will never be taken away. It becomes the obligation of each of us who have been touched by Matilda, to see how can we allow her life to be lived and not allow those who robbed her of that.”
Matilda’s funeral was the second at Chevra Kadisha on Thursday. Earlier in the day the funeral home filled with mourners for Alex Kleytman, a man who survived the Holocaust in Ukraine, but not Sunday’s travesty in Australia.
Many of the mourners at Matilda’s service were preparing to attend another service at Chabad of Bondi in the afternoon – that of 78-year-old great-grandfather Tibor Weitzen, who was also killed in the attack.
In Melbourne, funeral for another victim of the attack, Reuven Morrison, took place on Thursday evening. His daughter, Sheina Gutnick, had earlier identified him as the man seen in widely circulated footage throwing a brick at one of the gunman.
Morrison was remembered as a devout man who was “masterful” with language and devoted to the Russian Jewish community, and his daughter and his grandchildren, from whom he experienced “unparalleled” joy.
He was also remembered for his courage in his final moments.
“The lion has nothing to fear, so the lion can afford to be brave,” Rabbi Moshe Gutnick said.
“Real bravery is when a person is scared, when the odds are against you, when there are obstacles before you, and you nevertheless get up and you lunge forward, and you do the incredible things that we all saw on video.”
Four more of Sunday’s victims will be buried on Friday: Boris and Sofia Gurman, who lost their lives trying to stop one of the gunmen, Boris Tetleroyd and Edith Brutman.
– additional reporting: Stephanie Convery
