Nikki was days from death when Rabbi Eli blew an ancient horn by her bedside

Sydney writer Nikki Goldstein was in a coma in St Vincent’s Hospital, her body succumbing to a life-threatening infection when Rabbi Eli Schlanger emerged outside her intensive care room.

Goldstein’s husband Rowan and daughter Liberty had moments earlier been told she had days to live as Schlanger, a deeply observant rabbi, arrived at the hospital as a chaplain to deliver last rites.

The rabbi asked a nurse if he could blow his shofar, an ancient ram’s horn sounded on special days to stir the soul. The nurse agreed, conceding it was unlikely to bother anyone. “Most of them are comatose,” the nurse said drily. Schlanger’s horn briefly silenced the machines of the ICU ward.

Twenty-four hours later, Goldstein’s lungs began to repair. Within days, instead of dying, she was moved to a general ward in the hospital, where she recovered. Schlanger popped by, surprised but thrilled to see Goldstein had survived.

He told her the shofar was a “spiritual defibrillator”. Doctors joked her survival was a miracle.

Three years later, it was Schlanger who would die, killed in the Bondi Beach massacre on the first night of Hanukkah on December 14, 2025. But in the time they knew each other, Goldstein and Schlanger forged a friendship and secured a book deal based on conversations between a questioning Jew and a guiding one.

That book, Conversations with My Rabbi, was launched on Tuesday at Chabad Bondi, where Schlanger served for 18 years as assistant rabbi. Schlanger’s good friend and prominent Jewish community leader Alex Ryvchin launched the book.

“Nikki has handed us a profound gift when we desperately need it,” Ryvchin told guests, including Premier Chris Minns, Opposition Leader Kellie Sloane and Liberal elder Philip Ruddock.

“All of us. His family and friends. His community. And the entire nation. A record of his most deeply held beliefs, a testament to the beauty of his soul.”

Minns said he had never met Schlanger but from what he had learnt about him since his death he was the “kind of man powered by optimism”.

“Eli’s death was an unforgivable crime, but I think it’s important for us to say this morning, it’s not the story of his life, nor will any criminal or any terrorist write the story of his life,” Minns said.

“One of the really wonderful things about this book is how it manages to bring Eli’s voice back to life, and you get this palpable, unmistakable sense of the man by reading the conversations.”

In the preface to the book, Goldstein wrote, “this book was not supposed to happen like this”.

“Eli was not supposed to die before we’d finished. I still had one more chapter to discuss with him, ironically chapter 7, ‘What Does Justice Look Like?’ ”

Goldstein completed the final chapter with the help of Schlanger’s wife Chaya and his father-in-law Rabbi Yehoram Ulman, the chief rabbi at the Bondi Chabad Centre.

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