Sydney Jewish Community Searching for Missing 11-Year-Old

A massive search is on for an 11-year-old Sydney girl who has been missing since Shabbos afternoon. Michelle Levy stormed out of her home following a family argument at 6:30pm and has not been seen or heard from since. Police, CSG, Hatzolah and volunteers have turned out in large numbers and are searching for the missing girl.

The public is asked to please say Tehillim for Michal Aviva bas Chana Rivka, kapitals 20, 121 and 130.

The Sydney Morning Herald reported:

A massive land and water search for an 11-year-old girl missing from her eastern suburbs home was still underway on Sunday evening, more than 24 hours after her sudden disappearance.

Up to a thousand members of the Bondi and Jewish communities combed the local area in search of the school student on Sunday night.

“Theres a sense of very clear purpose to help bring this nightmare for this family to an end,” said Jeremy Spinak, the President of the NSW Jewish board of deputies.

Police, NSW SES and volunteers also undertook an extensive search of Centennial park.

By late Sunday evening they had covered every patch of grass and found no evidence of the missing girl, a police spokesman said.

Year 5 student Michelle Levy left her home in North Bondi after a family argument at 6.30pm on Saturday.

Her distraught extended family and their friends spent Saturday night scouring the streets for the missing girl before calling in the police.

By Sunday morning, a police hunt was well underway with officers from the Police Rescue Team and SES personnel searching the local area, including the eastern beaches clifftops and waterways.

Her father Adam Levy said his anxiety was rising each minute his normally well-behaved but occasionally headstrong daughter remained unaccounted for.

“It’s a horrible feeling, not knowing where she is,” he said.

While declining to elaborate on what sparked Saturday’s dispute, he said when they fought in the past she would normally go to her grandparents’ house, also in North Bondi.

“If we fight she storms off and sulks like a normal 11-year-old girl but she normally doesn’t go very far, only around the corner to her grandparents house,” he said.

“She’s a chip off the old block, really, and sometimes we do have a personality clash.”

However he said it was very out of character for her to disappear for such a long period and begged her to contact the authorities or come home.

Mr Levy and other relatives spent a sleepless night on Saturday searching for Michelle, who left her Glenayr Avenue home wearing a short-sleeved party dress with black, orange and yellow flowers and a black sash. She did not have a mobile phone with her and is believed not to have any money.

A confirmed sighting came through on Sunday afternoon with the witness reporting she was seen on Saturday walking towards Centennial Park.

“She was heading there, we don’t know why,” Mr Levy said. “That was a long time ago.”

Police and volunteers from Sydney’s Jewish community descended on Centennial Park on Sunday afternoon, with officers broadcasting Michelle’s name and description from a helicopter above. A ground search was also undertaken with police searching under bushes and in heavily wooded areas.

The Australasian Union of Jewish Students posted an alert on its Facebook site, calling for volunteers to help with the hunt.

NSW Jewish Board of Deputies chief executive Vic Alhadeff extended his support to the Levy family, describing Michelle’s disappearance as “every parent’s worst nightmare.”

Detective Inspector Simon Glasser of the Eastern Suburbs Local Area Command said police are treating her disappearance as a missing person case rather than an abduction.

He said a large number of police door knocked the area surrounding Michelle’s home and officers were examining CCTV footage taken from local businesses.

Michelle is described as 150cm tall with a thin build, long red hair, blue eyes and freckles.