Menachem Mendel (‘Max’) New, 97, Pioneer of Melbourne’s Jewish Community

by Moshe New – chabad.org

Max New wasn’t just my “Uncle Mendel.”

Growing up in Melbourne, Australia, there was a ritual I looked forward to every week: Every Shabbat morning, before we would even find our seats at the Yeshivah Centre shul, my father would take me and my brother to make the rounds visiting the elders, the pioneers who had built the Jewish community. We’d shake hands, exchange a “Good Shabbos” greeting—often receiving a candy in return—and then move on to the next. Only then did we sit down and join the minyan.

I made that procession every week for years, but my favorite stop was always Uncle Mendel. He would sit alongside his son, Chaim, on the left side of the sanctuary and mark our last stop before making our way to where my grandfather Leibel New—Mendel’s brother—sat a few seats further along.

Mendel New with his brother. Until Leibel’s passing in 2024, the brothers studied Torah together weekly, prayed side by side, and spoke every day.

Mendel and Leibel—Leibel the younger by a few years, taller by a few inches—were a fixture of Melbourne Jewish life so constant that to picture one was to picture the other. They prayed on the same row in shul. They spoke on the phone every single day. They were unmistakably cut from the same cloth, two brothers who had grown up seated around the same Shabbat table, in the same old Melbourne Jewish neighborhood. Leibel passed away in October 2024—16 months before his brother.

Uncle Mendel would take my hand, shake it and then squeeze. Hard. In my earlier years, I would cringe trying to pull free while his eyes sparkled with the challenge to squeeze harder. In later years, I could hold my own, but his strength still surprised me. It shouldn’t have. There was always more to him than met the eye.

Menachem Mendel (“Max”) New passed away on Monday, March 9—20th of Adar—at the age of 97. He passed with a shem-tov (lit. a ‘good name’), known as being fair, principled, original, and above all, a mentsch.

His passing marks the end of an era for a Jewish community he helped build from its earliest days.

Leibel, Yisroel, Myer, Rifka, and Mendel New. Their surname changed from Najgebirt when Mendel was five years old.

A Bridge to the Old World

Born in Melbourne on Sept. 20 (7 Tishrei), 1928, Mendel was the third child of four children born to Yisroel and Rifka Najgebirt (their last name changed to New when Mendel was five years old). The family had emigrated from Warsaw to Australia in 1926 following a family tragedy. Yisroel was a follower of the Gur Chassidic dynasty who had once been a Torah study partner with Rabbi Yisroel Alter, the fourth Rebbe of Gur, known by the title of his famed work, the Beis Yisroel.

The New household in the old Jewish neighborhood of Carlton, just north of downtown Melbourne, was one of radical generosity. Rifka would stand with her sons at the Melbourne docks—always wearing their Shabbat finest—to welcome Jewish refugees newly arrived from Europe, offering them a place to stay. Growing up, Mendel and his surviving brothers, Myer and Leibel, often went without a bed as a result.

Leibel, Yisroel, Myer, and Mendel New.

When a delegation of Chabad-Lubavitch Chassidim arrived in Carlton one day in 1949 to establish a yeshivah, Yisroel came home to his wife trembling with excitement.

“There are Lubavitchers who came and are starting a yeshivah! Melbourne is getting a yeshivah!” The visitor who had impressed Yisroel most was Rabbi Isser Kluwgant, one of the five Lubavitchers sent to Australia by the Sixth Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, of righteous memory, to strengthen Judaism in the land Down Under. Though the New brothers were too old by then to join the school, the family became some of the first and staunchest supporters of the fledgling Chabad activities in Melbourne.

Mendel came of age with an instinct for commerce. After working briefly in his father’s textile trade, he struck out on his own, traveling from factory to factory to purchase the fabric scraps left over from large industrial orders, then selling them to department stores. His first venture succeeded, and he built a successful business empire. As a textile wholesaler he earned the respect of Jews and non-Jews and his religious observance proved to never be an obstacle, but always an asset. Dozens of stories circulated about his integrity and how directly it translated into the trust of his customers and suppliers.

In 1952, he married Assia Kluwgant, the eldest daughter of Rabbi Isser and Chaya Kluwgant and, through her family, a relative of the Rebbe—Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory.

Writing to the parents of the bride ahead of the wedding, the Rebbe declared that this wedding was the “Shabbat Bereishit” of Chabad-Lubavitch in Australia. Shabbat Bereishit is the first Shabbat after the High Holiday season, and tradition teaches it sets the tone for the entire year ahead.

Mendel (R) with Assia at their engagement party. Mendel’s brother Leibel poses alongside the couple.

‘A Chassid Says It as it Is’

Together, Mendel and Assia became central to the life of Melbourne’s Chabad community. With the arrival of Rabbi Yitzchak Dovid Groner, Mendel became his indispensable right-hand man as the rabbi turbocharged the growth of Chabad activities in the city. In fact, many decades later, when Rabbi Groner lay bedridden with his final illness, it was Mendel whom he asked to ensure his wife was cared for after his passing.

Being Australian-born, Mendel was fluent in both Yiddish and English and was—at his father’s behest—asked to “take minutes” at the inaugural Yeshivah Centre meetings. This turned into a role where he served on the executive committee of the Yeshivah Centre for over forty years, and was an inaugural board member of Yeshivah College. So involved was he in ensuring the success of community institutions that his home on the leafy Lumeah Avenue temporarily housed the yeshivah for several months until a permanent location was found. He also served on the board of the Montefiore Home for the Aged.

The News’ home was famous for its open door and its welcoming table. With the wave of Jewish immigration from the Soviet Union that began in the 1980s, the couple turned their energy toward helping newcomers find their footing, with Assia’s childhood in Leningrad helping her communicate with them. She was a central figure in the local N’shei Chabad, the official women’s organization of the Chabad community. Assia also helped raise funds for the Children of Chernobyl project, for which the Rebbe personally expressed his encouragement. Mendel supported Assia’s every initiative, and ensured that the stream of fundraisers who made their way to his home and business were received with dignity and sent away generously.

When a cousin passed away, leaving significant debts and no children, Mendel stepped in to manage the estate and cover the funeral. Sorting through his belongings, they discovered a tightly bound wad of $20,000. Rather than apply it to the funeral expenses, Mendel immediately dispatched it to charity. “Let him leave this world with that mitzvah,” he said.

Mendel and Assia New. The couple were stalwarts of the Melbourne Chabad community for over 70 years.

His relationship with the Rebbe was one of the anchors of his life. As a young man he had already received personal letters of blessing and encouragement, the Rebbe linking his material success to his communal activism.

In 1991, during the Gulf War, Mendel and Assia were booked to travel to Israel via Singapore for a family wedding. Mendel was concerned by the war and might have canceled immediately were it not for one thing: The Rebbe was telling people who asked that they should not alter their plans to visit the Land of Israel. He was still nervous though.

Mendel sat down and wrote to the Rebbe laying out his fears plainly, explained that the only reason he was still considering going was because the Rebbe was advising people to travel there, and said that if the Rebbe told him not to go, he would donate the entire cost of the trip to charity. If the Rebbe told him to go, he wrote, he would do so besimchah uvetuv levav—“with joy and a full heart.”

He sent the fax and immediately chastised himself. Who was he to issue ultimatums to the Rebbe, he thought. He called Rabbi Leibel Groner, one of the Rebbe’s secretaries, hoping to intercept the letter before it reached the Rebbe’s desk.

Rabbi Groner stopped him. “You think your letter is written not like a Chassid? This is written exactly like a Chassid. A Chassid says it as it is.” In his succinct reply, the Rebbe underlined the lines where Mendel had pledged to go with a full heart and joy several times. Mendel’s fears dissolved, and off they flew to the wedding.

Mendel served on the executive committee of the Yeshivah Center for over forty years, and was an inaugural board member of Yeshivah College.

The Later Years

In shul, Mendel prayed with the same earnestness he brought to everything. He always arrived early, and in his older years made a point of positioning himself as close as possible to the prayer leader during the service so he could hear every word. He greeted every congregant, regardless of background or appearance, with a warm “Good Shabbos.”

He loved a good l’chaim. For years, fancying himself something of a conductor, he was a joyous presence at weddings, taking the stage with a silver baton to lead the band and bring smiles to everyone in the room. Uncle Mendel truly set the tone.

In his wife’s later years, as she faced serious health challenges, Mendel devoted himself to her care with the same love and wonder he had carried throughout their marriage. She passed away in 2023.

Predeceased by his son Chaim, in 2016, he is survived by his children and their spouses: Stera (Rabbi Yosef Y.) Gutnick of Melbourne, Australia; Rabbi Moishe (Nechama) New, Montreal, Canada; Rabbi Yossi (Dassi) New, Atlanta; Sheiny (Chaim) New, and Rabbi Ruvi (Ahuva) New, Boca Raton, Fla. He is also survived by grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren spread across the world.