A radically hopeful exploration of faith, identity, morality, and purpose grounded in timeless Jewish principles, captured in a series of profound conversations between Nikki Goldstein and the man who saved her life and became her spiritual mentor, Rabbi Eli Schlanger—whose teachings and wisdom endure beyond his tragic killing in the December 2025 Bondi Beach Chanukah terrorist attack in Sydney, Australia.
Conversations with My Rabbi is an unforgettable true story and a profound book of wisdom, offering timeless teachings for living well in an uncertain world.
In September 2022, Nikki Goldstein was comatose, near death in a Sydney ICU when her daughter spotted Rabbi Eli Schlanger in the hallway. Nikki’s husband asked the rabbi to come pray for her. Standing beside her bed, he blew the shofar and whispered ancient prayers over Nikki.
One day later, Nikki began recovering from the life-threatening infection. The doctors called it a miracle. As she regained her health, this secular Jewish woman and the devout rabbi formed an unlikely and beautiful friendship. Coming from profoundly different worlds—one grounded in religious tradition, the other in temporal modernity—they discovered they were seeking answers to the same essential questions.
Together, they turned to ancient Jewish teachings for guidance on living more ethically, compassionately, and spiritually. In January 2025, they began to record their conversations as a book. But just weeks before they were to write the final chapter, Eli was murdered on Sydney’s Bondi Beach in Australia’s second deadliest mass-casualty shooting. He died before lighting the menorah at his annual Chanukah by the Sea celebration, an event he’d run for eighteen years. Devastated by shock and grief, Nikki refused to be silenced by terror. She vowed that Eli’s legacy and his mission to bring light, love, and moral clarity to the world would not die, because his teachings were more necessary than ever.
Reflecting the dialogue-driven Jewish intellectual tradition, the question and answer format of Conversations with My Rabbi invites readers to ponder, to question, and to define their own beliefs as they follow Nikki and Eli’s real, raw, tender, sometimes funny, sometimes fierce, yet always deeply human conversations centered around the timeless ethical teachings known as the Noahide Laws, tied to the biblical Noah: universal principles rooted in Jewish wisdom that speak to all who seek meaning, moral clarity, and hope in their lives. Questions include:
- Tell Me Why I Should Believe in God?
- Why Are We So Afraid to Talk About God?
- What If People Are Just . . . Terrible?
- Do Animals Have Souls?
- Is Stealing Really That Bad?
- What’s So Scary About Sex?
- What Does Justice Look Like?
Conversations with My Rabbi is a repudiation of the madness we are experiencing today. It is Rabbi Eli’s eternal gift—a guide for all, regardless of faith, who struggle to live with integrity, compassion, and courage in a divided and uncertain world.
Rabbi Eli Schlanger was the Assistant Rabbi at Chabad Bondi, a role he had held for eighteen years. He was also a Chaplain for NSW Corrections and a Chaplain at St. Vincent’s Hospital, Darlinghurst, in Sydney. He was also the Rabbi for Community Engagement at Friends of Refugees of Eastern Europe for eighteen years. He was educated at the Central Yeshiva Tomchei Tmimim and the Lubavitch Yeshiva, Brunoy, France. Rabbi Schlanger oversaw the development and building of the Bondi Chabad and was an active and passionate community rabbi. He was the Founder of Project Noah, an educational initiative that brings the timeless values of the 7 Noahide Laws to young people through engaging, interactive programs. He is survived by his wife, Chaya, and their five children.
Nikki Goldstein is an internationally recognised bestselling author of sixteen books―including GirlForce, a teen girl self-empowerment series that was converted into a brand of yoga wear, cosmetics and stationery for Target―and an award-winning copywriter and journalist. She began her career at Vogue and went on to senior editorial positions at Elle, Marie Claire and the Australian Financial Review Magazine. Nikki is married to Rowan and mother to Liberty, and when she’s not working feverishly on her fledgling publishing business Go2Guru, she attends to her two needy dachshunds.
