CANBERRA, Australia — These aren’t easy times for Chabad to be opening new centers, but Australia’s capital city, Canberra, welcomed its first Chabad representatives this week. Rabbi Dan and Mrs. Naomi Avital moved into their new home Tuesday, after a pilot trip and meetings with the city’s lay leaders last month.
First Chabad Center Opens in Canberra, Australia
CANBERRA, Australia — These aren’t easy times for Chabad to be opening new centers, but Australia’s capital city, Canberra, welcomed its first Chabad representatives this week. Rabbi Dan and Mrs. Naomi Avital moved into their new home Tuesday, after a pilot trip and meetings with the city’s lay leaders last month.
This small Jewish community, numbering less than 1,000, is tight knit. All denominations gather for services and programs at Canberra’s Jewish Community Center. Chabad rabbis have visited the city on and off for years, but no rabbi has ever settled here permanently. In 2007, several local women approached Rabbi Ahron Serebransky of Melbourne, hoping he could help them construct a mikvah. Those Canberra women who currently use the mikvah travel six hours to the closest one in Sydney.
The Avital’s new home and Chabad Center was purchased a year ago with the intent of constructing a mikvah. When it became clear that such a project would need to be managed on the ground, and that Jewish life in general needed a boost, the Avitals responded to the call. “The new representatives will build a mikvah immediately,” said Serebryanski. “Together with the locals, they will create a real Jewish presence, a kosher community.”
Eliezer Kornhauser serves as Rabbi Serebryanski’s assistant and co-sponsored Canberra’s Chabad Center. “The new center is in a suburb roughly 20 minutes from the center of town,” he explains. “It is an up-and-coming neighborhood that is being gentrified and has affordable housing.” As the seat of Australia’s government, the city offers many jobs and living expenses are much lower here than in other cities around the country. In addition to the existing community, the Avitals hope to reach out to ambassadors from around the world and attract young families to the area.
Mrs. Avital has plans to open the first Jewish preschool here for the local children, along with a variety of adult educational program that she and her husband will lead.
“I see this city as a thriving Jewish community. I believe that the community will grow and become a place where it is accessible and enjoyable to lead a Jewish life. We will grow in quantity and quality,” Rabbi Avital told Lubavitch.com.
The Avitals ushered in their first Shabbat with a friend from Brisbane, who flew a Torah scroll to town. The couple has invited people to celebrate the holiday of Purim with them in two weeks.
Rabbi and Mrs. Avital will to start off on a sweet note with individual Shalach Manot packages for every single Jew in the city.
debbi
thank you america!!!
mentioning new shluchim to canberra and posting a picture of sydney will not do the trick…. it was a nice try though :-)
nevertheless we wish the shluchim much hatzlacha!!
Aussie
Arel Serebryanski???? Is this under the auspices of the Head Shliach Rabbi Chaim Tzvi Groner?
Anon
The picture you show is of Sydney a couple of hundred miles north of Canberra!
Canberra is a well planned urban city built around concentric circles.
shmuliT
Your pic is of the sydney opera house which is NOT in canbera!
Yakov
Great news but who is Rabbi Serabryanski to make these calls? We have a head Shliach, Rabbi Chaim Tzvi Groner as well as a Va’ad Haruchni, a bit of order please?
Chani Engel
Mazel Tov! Mazel Tov! May you continue to bring the light of Moshiach to all the Yidden in Canberra and around!!
Rabbi Yossi and Chani Engel
Adelaide, Australia
yakov
to ShmuliT: Genious!
Berl
Attention all you Auss’s: It seems that you are unaware but R’ Arel Serebransky is – and always has been – the official representative of “Merkos LInyany Chinuch” in Australia.
This is the way it has been the past 40 years.
Rabbi YD Groner OBM was the head Schliach of Melbourne.
Melbourne
They’re going under Reb Arel because Eliezer is paying for everything – EVERYTHING. Also mikvaos are Reb Arel’s thing.
Much hatzlocha!
Ferdy
Chaim Tzvi, head shliach? Since when? Rabbi Groner was never head shliach of Melbourne or of anywhere else either. He was sent to Australia to help Reb Zalman run the school, and nothing else. Reb Arel was sent to Australia by Merkos as its representative; that BY DEFINITION makes him the “head shliach” and gives him the right to appoint shluchim anywhere he likes.
Yakov
Rabbi Chaim Tzvi Groner, Head Shliach of Melbourne Australia should certainly be involved in these decisions. Reb Arel, with all due respect, cannot go on running things his own way, there was a Va’ad Haruchni set up for these issues. He’s not in it.
Blind Freddie-s dog
Reb Arel is the head of Merkos in Australia. Merkos is the body that sends shluchim. So why would he need to consult this va’ad? Who gave it any right to a say in the matter? Rabbi Groner put it in charge of the ruchnius at Yeshivah; let it stick to that. If Yeshivah wants to start a new branch somewhere, that’s the va’ad’s business. But shlichus in general is not under the auspices of the Yeshivah, so it’s none of the va’ad’s business.
Blind Freddie-s dog
Yakov, who made Chaim Tzvi the “Head Shliach of Melbourne”? And by what authority? Why should Reb Arel, who is Merkos’s representative in Australia, consult Chaim Tzvi or the va’ad ruchni of the Yeshivah? These shluchim are being sent by Merkos (as are all shluchim throughout the world), not by the Yeshivah, so how is it any of the va’ad’s business? The va’ad’s only function is to look after the ruchniyus of the Yeshivah, not to mix in to shlichus, which is the realm of Merkos.