The daughter of Bondi terror attack victim, Reuven Morrison, has identified her father as the man seen in footage hurling an object at gunman Sajid Akram after he had been disarmed by Ahmed al-Ahmed.
Sheina Gutnick told CBS News on Tuesday her father had “jumped up the second the shooting started”.
“He managed to throw bricks, he was screaming … and protecting his community, he was shot dead,” Gutnick said.
“If there was one way for him to go on this earth, it would be fighting a terrorist. There was no other way he would be taken from us. He went down fighting, protecting the people he loved most.”
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Asked what Gutnick thought when she saw the footage of her father, she said: “That’s him. That’s my dad. As I called him, my Tati, in Yiddish.
“Everyone [who] knew him knew the incredible man that was just too big for this world. The light that he added, his absolute immense and endless generosity, his sense of humour. He was just the most incredible person.”
The footage of Morrison has been widely circulated on social media, with Ahmed, who is seen disarming the gunman earlier in the same video, praised by the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, and US president, Donald Trump, for running towards Akram, leaping on to him and wrestling the gun from his hands.
Ahmed remains in a critical but stable condition at St George hospital in Sydney after he was shot four to five times in his shoulder during the altercation, according to his parents.
Sajid Akram was shot dead by police.
Until now, the other man seen in the footage throwing objects at Akram had not been identified.
Also known as Rueben, Morrison emigrated from the former Soviet Union to Australia in the 1970s. Chabad.org reported he divided his time between Sydney and Melbourne, and was a “successful businessman whose main goal was to give away his earnings to charities dear to his heart”.
In a 2024 interview with the ABC, Morrison said he had experienced persecution as a Jewish person in the Soviet Union but didn’t expect it to be happening in Australia.
“We came here with the view that Australia is the safest country in the world and the Jews would not be faced with such antisemitism in the future, where we can bring up our kids in a safe environment,” he said.
His daughter blamed the Australian government for his death, telling CBS: “They have had the warning signs for so long. The Jewish community has been begging and begging and begging and we have fallen on deaf ears.”
