New Jewish Community Center Dedicated in Melbourne

Around 200 members  and supporters of Melbourne’s Russian Jewish Community gathered on Sunday for the dedication of the Yehudah Dadon Synagogue.

The newly named synagogue is the result of the Jewish Russian Community Centre – Chabad on Carlisle undergoing an expansion and renovation.

The center has seen an expansion of activities, with Rabbi Yisroel Sufrin and his wife Rivka joining Rabbi Chaim Elozor Gorelik and his wife Reizl. The Centre offers weekly shiurim in Russian and English, bar and bat mitzvah classes, daily and Shabbat minyanim, Russian language classes, visits to hospitals and homes for the elderly, circumcisions, Jewish weddings, counselling and  Women’s circle to name a few.

Made possible by a grant from communal couple Albert and Debbie Dadon, the center was officially launched by Rabbi Gorelik during the ceremony, who thanked the Dadons for their contribution.

Speaking in English and Russian, Rabbi Gorelik likened the founding of a new spiritual home for his community to the surveying of the future land of Israel, referred to in last week’s parsha, Shelach.

The synagogue had its origins in a tiny room of the Yeshivah Centre in 1980, catering to the religious needs of their newly arrived fellow Soviet Jews, some of whom attended the opening activities with their children and grandchildren.

Rabbi Sufrin told the gathering: “Here we are, so many thousands of miles away (from the former Soviet Union) here in Australia, celebrating Yiddishkeit, circumcisions, redemption of first-born, bar and bat mitzvahs, weddings, and unfortunately the end of life, ending in a Jewish way as well.  This is what our Centre is based on-that call, that feeling for each and everyone of us”.

He said it was significant that the Centre was named after Albert Dadon’s father Leon Dadon.  Addressing the ceremony, Dadon paid tribute to his father and wished the new, enlarged synagogue a strong future.