Pesach, matzah and Chabad RARA
MONDAY will be a very different night for many Jews around the country, as 12 remote Australian communities host Pesach seders.
MONDAY will be a very different night for many Jews around the country, as 12 remote Australian communities host Pesach seders.
Chabad of Rural and Regional Australia (RARA) is overseeing five seders in communities as far flung as Townsville and Toowoomba in Queensland, and Newcastle and Nowra in NSW.
More than 250 people in total are expected to turn out for the fully kosher seders, hosted either by groups of young yeshivah boys or young married couples.
“In most cases, these people would not be having a seder. Some would have some matzah and talk a bit about Pesach, but others, in communities such as Toowoomba, Townsville and Nowra, would have nothing,” Chabad RARA president Saul Spigler said.
While the organisation, which brings Judaism to Australia’s most remote communities, has hosted a seder in Townsville annually for the past decade, Pesach in Toowoomba will be a first.
“The seders will make a big impact in communities like Townsville and Toowoomba, the latter brought about after our team travelled to the area during the floods,” Spigler said.
Having travelled up north to deliver goods raised in The AJN’s Toys and Toiletries Appeal earlier this year, the Chabad RARA team met many isolated Jews who specifically requested a seder.
Spigler estimates a group of about 30 people will gather in the region over the two nights to share in the festivities.
Passover Australia, an initiative of the Rabbinical College of Australia and New Zealand, will also host six seders across the country.
From Byron Bay, Coffs Harbour and Cairns on the east coast, to Fremantle in the west and Darwin in the north, almost all corners of Australia will be covered.
Two local Tasmanian Chabad groups will also be hosting seders in Launceston and Hobart.
“To have 12 seders outside the main cities is very exciting,” Spigler said, adding that other communities will be added to the list in future years.
Chabad RARA was established in 2000 as a not-for-profit organisation to care for the needs of Jewish people outside the main cities more than 30 years after three young rabbis traversed Australia in a “mitzvah tank” caravan to reconnect Jews to their heritage.
DALIA SABLE
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