A forthcoming book offers insights into the spiritual advice Chabad Rabbi Eli Schlanger — who was killed in the Bondi Beach Hanukkah terrorist attack in Sydney, Australia in December — imparted to a secular Jewish woman during her own near-death experience. 

In September 2022, Nikki Goldstein lay comatose, fighting for her life in a Sydney hospital. Her daughter spotted Schlanger, the Chabad emissary to Bondi, in the ICU halls and Goldstein’s husband desperately requested he pray for her. Schlanger blew the shofar beside her hospital bed and prayed for her recovery. One day later, Goldstein began recuperating from a life-threatening infection.

As Goldstein, a best-selling author of more than a dozen books, regained her health, her bond with Schlanger grew and the duo decided to co-author a book. In January 2025, they began recording their conversations. 

Conversations With My Rabbi: Timeless Teachings for a Fractured World will be published in May — allowing Schlanger’s legacy to live on after he and 14 others were killed in December in a targeted terror attack on Sydney’s Jewish community.

Goldstein said that as “devastated, shocked and grieving” as she was after Schlanger’s death, she knew he would want her to finish the book. “Eli saved my life those years ago, and it’s my honor and privilege to ensure that his voice, memory and mission are not silenced by terror and continue to work miracles,” she said in a statement. 

Conversations With My Rabbi, which includes an epilogue by Rabbi Yehoram Ulman, founder of Chabad of Bondi and Schlanger’s father-in-law, will be published by HarperCollins in the U.S., U.K. and Australia.