RARA in the Media

"Nobody," says Rabbi Oliver. "We came because we heard there was a Jew in Woodend and we wanted to meet you."

Ron eventually agrees to come into the tank for a proper chat.

He is softly spoken and deeply thoughtful, gradually opening up about his remarkable past spent travelling the world, before coming to settle In rural Victoria. Ron grew up in suburban Melbourne, but his artistic yearnings led him to look elsewhere, including Israel.

He tells of an evening in Jerusalem,where he was drawn to a mysterious door by the ornate red light hanging outside. He slipped through to find a small, deserted synagogue.

"I left feeling, for the first time, a real Jewish connection," Ron says.

Although not co… Read More »

From Cairns to Caboolture, Darwin to Deniliquin, there are few places that Chabad of Rural and Regional Australia hasn't visited. Bram Presser spent two days in rural Victoria with the outreach organisation, where he discovered Jewish life in the unlikeliest of places. 

In the summer of 1977, three Monash University students, barely a year out of Yeshivah, hired an old campervan and embarked on a jour-ney that would inspire a revolution in Chabad's outreach philosophy. Led by Saul Spigler, the boys spent two months shlepping through the Outback, finding Jews in remote cor-ners of the country and helping them reconnect with their Judaism. It was a unique, albeit short-lived project, which was put on ice for 20 years, except… Read More »