Back From Bondi: Leibel Lazaroff Returns Home to Texas

By COLlive reporter

Houston, we have a hero.

A full entourage waited at the George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, Texas, on Thursday morning to give a hero’s welcome to a returning native: Leibel Lazaroff.

Lazaroff, 20, walked off the airplane with the help of a cane, having miraculously survived the antisemitic terror attack on Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia on Chanukah.

During those harrowing moments, Lazaroff bravely put himself in harm’s way to protect the lives of others. He rushed to the aid of a wounded police officer and was shot multiple times in the process.

His recovery was a long and difficult ordeal. He has undergone 11 surgeries and spent more than 6 weeks hospitalized in Sydney, including time in intensive care.

“The hardest part has to be the element of thinking about people who lost loved ones and the community that is forever changed,” Lazaroff said. “They lost their rabbi and so much more, and there’s not much that I can do currently to help try to fill that void.”

His return to Houston comes after doctors determined he was stable enough to continue his recovery closer to home.

He was accompanied by his parents Rabbi Yossi and Manya Lazaroff, Shluchim and directors of Chabad at Texas A&M University. They rushed to Australia after the attack to be with their son and have built deep bonds with the local community along the way.

Waiting for them at the Houston Airport were family members and close friends. Among them were his grandparents, the Head Shluchim of Texas, Rabbi Shimon and Chiena Lazaroff, who emotionally embraced their grandson.

Following his arrival, Lazaroff was transported by Hatzalah of Houston to a nearby hospital, where he will continue treatment and begin an intensive course of physical rehabilitation.

Family members said that being back in Houston represents an important emotional and physical step forward in his healing process.

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