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How roving rabbis help the few Jews of rural Australia celebrate Rosh Hashanah
MELBOURNE (JTA) — Ruth Hannah has lived in the Australian coastal town of Mallacoota for more than 30 years. The 72-year-old daughter of Holocaust survivors knows of only one other Jewish person in her town, which has a population of 1,183 people.
Known for its beautiful beaches and wildlife, Mallacoota is located near the middle of a 650-mile coastal route from Melbourne to Sydney. Along that route, there is not a single city with more than 50,000 people within a 5-hour drive. Unsurprisingly, preparing for Jewish festivals in the region can be challenging.
“Mallacoota is one of the most remote towns in [the state of] Victoria, so we don’t have a shul,” or synagogue, said Hannah.
Since the 1980s, the Chabad-Lubavitch movement — a Hasidic sect that focuses on outreach to Jews in countries around the world — has filled the void for Hannah and thousands of other Jews scattered across the less populated areas of the outback. Most Chabad emissaries focus on Jewish life in one locale, but Rabbi Menachem Aron and his wife, Rebbetzin Shevi Aron, who are based in Melbourne, coordinate the Chabad of RARA — short for Regional and Rural Australia.
“People want connection. You see how much they need it and appreciate it. It’s really rewarding,” Rabbi Aron told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “You see on their faces. Living in these places is not just far away from a Jewish community, it’s also isolating. People don’t have access to the most basic things…like groceries or healthcare. You can wait eight weeks to see a [doctor]. So, it’s quite challenging for anyone.”
Rabbi Mendel Zarchi helps Howard Rother lay tefillin at his cotton farm in Cecil Plains, in the Australian state of Queensland. (Courtesy of Rabbi Menachem Aron)
Like other Chabad chapters around the world, the RARA branch often sends Jews care packages with food and materials to use in celebrating holidays. For Rosh Hashanah, Jews like Hannah will receive honey cookies and shofars.
But Chabad of RARA also sends out groups of roving rabbis to drive thousands of miles across Australia’s outback to visit Jews and deliver supplies in person. The Arons coordinate groups of young Chabad students from yeshivas around the world who come to Australia for the Northern Hemisphere summer, to conduct visits to Jews living across Australia in some of the least inhabited places on earth.
Young Rabbis Menachem Manssouri and Mendel Junik from Los Angeles flew to Australia in early June for a month, for example, to conduct a 2,500-mile road trip to find Jews to connect with. The trip began in Darwin — one of Australia’s most remote capital cities, which has no existing Jewish infrastructure, and according to the 2021 Australian census, a total of 91 Jews.
“We started in Darwin where we had a list [of Jewish people]. In Darwin, we probably met up with 40 Jews,” Manssouri said.
From Darwin, Manssouri and Junik flew to Broome in Western Australia and drove thousands of miles up the coast.
The RARA Mitzvah Mobile makes its way to Esperance, a rural town of 13,000 people in western Australia. (Courtesy of Rabbi Menachem Aron)
“We did something very unique compared to other RARA trips. We went to a lot of towns. South Hedland. Roebourne. Monkey Mia. Deham. Exmouth. No one had ever done those areas,” Manssouri said.
When asked how he located Jews in towns where there are no existing contacts, Manssouri was full of practical advice. “We go to the police station. The hospital. We walk around town to all the stores trying to get leads. We were pretty successful with that,” he said.
Manssouri is awed by the way he connected with Jews in the most unexpected places — including at one of Australia’s most remote gas stations, in Karratha, a city in the sparsely-populated Pilbara region. Manssouri talked to Jews who were waiting to fill up their RV with gas and who lived a more than 15-hour drive to the nearest synagogue.
“When you look back at it, it blows you away,” he said. “People think that they get inspired by the rabbis, but really, the rabbis get inspired by the people. It’s a two-way connection.”
Around 7 million people, or 28% of the Australian population, live in remote or rural areas, according to the country’s government. According to Aron, there are about 10,000 Jewish people living in regional and remote Australia, and he said personally keeps in contact with approximately 4,000 of them. (There are approximately 120,000 Jews in all of Australia.)
The Chabad movement is constantly extending its global footprint; in the past years emissaries have established a presence in places from Zambia to Costa Rica to the Canary Islands. Their methods of growing communities in certain countries can be contentious and cause friction with existing communities.
Rabbi Mendel Zarchi in conversation with Gordon Graham in Toowoomba, Queensland. (Courtesy of Rabbi Menachem Aron)
But their track record of growth is undeniable. Around 100 Jews lived in Cairns, Australia, for example — a small city in the Queensland state that’s over 1,000 miles from Brisbane, the state’s largest city — before the COVID-19 pandemic. Today, the city boasts closer to 500 Jews and what is likely the largest communal Passover seder in all of Australia, drawing over 130 people in 2021. It’s one of the Chabad centers connected to the RARA branch.
Aron nominated Groote Eylandt, an island in the Gulf of Carpentaria — which, on the northern coast of Australia is not far from Papua New Guinea — as the most exotic location he sent a shofar to in 2022. A Jewish woman working there in manganese ore mines had specifically requested one.
“Australia is four-fifths the size of the United States of America. It’s a massive country with not a lot of people in it, just 25 million,” said Aron. “There are more Jews in Boca Raton than the entire Australia. You can drive for 27 hours and still be in the same state, but we don’t let that be a barrier to connecting with others and sharing a Jewish connection.”
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The post How roving rabbis help the few Jews of rural Australia celebrate Rosh Hashanah appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Trump Eyes Bringing Azerbaijan, Central Asian Nations into Abraham Accords, Sources Say
US President Donald Trump points a finger as he delivers remarks in the Roosevelt Room at the White House in Washington, DC, US, July 31, 2025. Photo: Kent Nishimura via Reuters Connect
President Donald Trump’s administration is actively discussing with Azerbaijan the possibility of bringing that nation and some Central Asian allies into the Abraham Accords, hoping to deepen their existing ties with Israel, according to five sources with knowledge of the matter.
As part of the Abraham Accords, inked in 2020 and 2021 during Trump’s first term in office, four Muslim-majority countries agreed to normalize diplomatic relations with Israel after US mediation.
Azerbaijan and every country in Central Asia, by contrast, already have longstanding relations with Israel, meaning that an expansion of the accords to include them would largely be symbolic, focusing on strengthening ties in areas like trade and military cooperation, said the sources, who requested anonymity to discuss private conversations.
Such an expansion would reflect Trump’s openness to pacts that are less ambitious than his administration’s goal to convince regional heavyweight Saudi Arabia to restore ties with Israel while war rages in Gaza.
The kingdom has repeatedly said it would not recognize Israel without steps towards Israeli recognition of a Palestinian state.
Another key sticking point is Azerbaijan’s conflict with its neighbor Armenia, since the Trump administration considers a peace deal between the two Caucasus nations as a precondition to join the Abraham Accords, three sources said.
While Trump officials have publicly floated several potential entrants into the accords, the talks centered on Azerbaijan are among the most structured and serious, the sources said. Two of the sources argued a deal could be reached within months or even weeks.
Trump’s special envoy for peace missions, Steve Witkoff, traveled to Azerbaijan’s capital, Baku, in March to meet with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev. Aryeh Lightstone, a key Witkoff aide, met Aliyev later in the spring in part to discuss the Abraham Accords, three of the sources said.
As part of the discussions, Azerbaijani officials have contacted officials in Central Asian nations, including in nearby Kazakhstan, to gauge their interest in a broader Abraham Accords expansion, those sources said. It was not clear which other countries in Central Asia – which includes Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan – were contacted.
The State Department, asked for comment, did not discuss specific countries, but said expanding the accords has been one of the key objectives of Trump. “We are working to get more countries to join,” said a US official.
The Azerbaijani government declined to comment.
The White House, the Israeli foreign ministry and the Kazakhstani embassy in Washington did not respond to requests for comment.
Any new accords would not modify the previous Abraham Accords deals signed by Israel.
OBSTACLES REMAIN
The original Abraham Accords – inked between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan – were centered on restoration of ties. The second round of expansion appears to be morphing into a broader mechanism designed to expand US and Israeli soft power.
Wedged between Russia to the north and Iran to the south, Azerbaijan occupies a critical link in trade flows between Central Asia and the West. The Caucasus and Central Asia are also rich in natural resources, including oil and gas, prompting various major powers to compete for influence in the region.
Expanding the accords to nations that already have diplomatic relations with Israel may also be a means of delivering symbolic wins to a president who is known to talk up even relatively small victories.
Two sources described the discussions involving Central Asia as embryonic – but the discussions with Azerbaijan as relatively advanced.
But challenges remain and there is no guarantee a deal will be reached, particularly with slow progress in talks between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
The two countries, which both won independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, have been at loggerheads since the late 1980s when Nagorno-Karabakh – an Azerbaijani region that had a mostly ethnic-Armenian population – broke away from Azerbaijan with support from Armenia.
In 2023, Azerbaijan retook Karabakh, prompting about 100,000 ethnic Armenians to flee to Armenia. Both sides have since said they want to sign a treaty on a formal end to the conflict.
Primarily Christian Armenia and the US have close ties, and the Trump administration is wary of taking action that could upset authorities in Yerevan.
Still, US officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Trump himself, have argued that a peace deal between those two nations is near.
“Armenia and Azerbaijan, we worked magic there,” Trump told reporters earlier in July. “And it’s pretty close.”
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Trump Reaffirms Support for Morocco’s Sovereignty Over Western Sahara
A Polisario fighter sits on a rock at a forward base, on the outskirts of Tifariti, Western Sahara, Sept. 9, 2016. Photo: Reuters / Zohra Bensemra / File.
US President Donald Trump has reaffirmed support for Morocco’s sovereignty over Western Sahara, saying a Moroccan autonomy plan for the territory was the sole solution to the disputed region, state news agency MAP said on Saturday.
The long-frozen conflict pits Morocco, which considers the territory as its own, against the Algeria-backed Polisario Front, which seeks an independent state there.
Trump at the end of his first term in office recognized the Moroccan claims to Western Sahara, which has phosphate reserves and rich fishing grounds, as part of a deal under which Morocco agreed to normalize its relations with Israel.
His secretary of state, Marco Rubio, made clear in April that support for Morocco on the issue remained US policy, but these were Trump’s first quoted remarks on the dispute during his second term.
“I also reiterate that the United States recognizes Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara and supports Morocco’s serious, credible and realistic autonomy proposal as the only basis for a just and lasting solution to the dispute,” MAP quoted Trump as saying in a message to Morocco’s King Mohammed VI.
“Together we are advancing shared priorities for peace and security in the region, including by building on the Abraham Accords, combating terrorism and expanding commercial cooperation,” Trump said.
As part of the Abraham Accords signed during Trump’s first term, four Muslim-majority countries agreed to normalize diplomatic relations with Israel after US mediation.
In June this year, Britain became the third permanent member of the U.N. Security Council to back an autonomy plan under Moroccan sovereignty for the territory after the U.S. and France.
Algeria, which has recognized the self-declared Sahrawi Republic, has refused to take part in roundtables convened by the U.N. envoy to Western Sahara and insists on holding a referendum with independence as an option.
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Israel Says Its Missions in UAE Remain Open Despite Reported Security Threats
President Isaac Herzog meets on Dec. 5, 2022, with UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan in Abu Dhabi. Photo: GPO/Amos Ben Gershom
i24 News – Israel’s Foreign Ministry said on Friday that its missions to the United Arab Emirates are open on Friday and representatives continue to operate at the embassy in Abu Dhabi and the consulate in Dubai in cooperation with local authorities.
This includes, the statement underlined, ensuring the protection of Israeli diplomats.
On Thursday, reports appeared in Israeli media that Israel was evacuating most of its diplomatic staff in the UAE after the National Security Council heightened its travel warning for Israelis staying in the Gulf country for fear of an Iranian or Iran-sponsored attacks.
“We are emphasizing this travel warning given our understanding that terrorist organizations (the Iranians, Hamas, Hezbollah and Global Jihad) are increasing their efforts to harm Israel,” the NSC said in a statement.
After signing the Abraham Accords with Israel in 2020, the UAE has been among the closest regional allies of the Jewish state.
Israel is concerned about its citizens and diplomats being targeted in retaliatory attacks following its 12-day war against Iran last month.
Earlier this year, the UAE sentenced three citizens of Uzbekistan to death for last year’s murder of Israeli-Moldovan rabbi Zvi Cohen.