From Big Apple to Apple Isle
CHABAD is taking a bigger bite out of the Apple Isle, with an expansion of outreach and support services and the appointment of a New York-based rabbi to Tasmania.
CHABAD is taking a bigger bite out of the Apple Isle, with an expansion of outreach and support services and the appointment of a New York-based rabbi to Tasmania.
Rabbi Yochanan Gordon, who had completed his Kollel study in Crown Heights, New York, and specialises in outreach work, has arrived in Australia with his wife, Rochel, and son, Sholom, to take up the Launceston posting.
The shluchim (emissaries) will build on the work of Gershon Goldstein, who has retired after 25 years of outreach activity for Chabad in northern Tasmania.
The New York-educated, Australian-born rabbi told The AJN he was looking forward to his Tasmanian role, particularly with Jewish tourists. “We’re planning to extend Chabad’s presence and to reach out to everyone we can find who comes through, to give them a home away from home.”
Rabbi Gordon will work closely with volunteers David and Pnina Clark, who run Chabad activities in Hobart. As well as heading Launceston’s Chabad House, he will conduct shiurim for children and adults.
Although there are more Jews in Hobart than other Tasmanian centres, there has recently been an increasing number of Chabad activities in Launceston, and a Chabad presence in Burnie and Devonport.
Rabbi Yossi Gordon, of Chabad in Melbourne, father of Yochanan Gordon, who is in charge of outreach programs, told The AJN his son would work with a small number of Jewish locals but mainly with Tasmania’s relatively larger population of tourists from the mainland and overseas.
Rabbi Yossi Gordon has been involved in Tasmanian outreach for Chabad since 1984 and is a regular visitor to the state. He oversaw the establishment of the Chabad House in Launceston in 1986, after the property was purchased for Chabad by Rabbi Joseph Gutnick.
“We have about eight to 10 Shabbatons a year, with a minyan at each one for the past few years. There are 12 children in Launceston now, so there’s a keen interest in regular Jewish education. Tasmania is [geographically] bigger than Israel and there are Jews scattered all over.
“There are many tourists who changed their life and committed themselves to Torah life after a visit to Tasmania. And living in Tasmania a year or two has changed even more lives,” Rabbi Yossi Gordon said.
PETER KOHN
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