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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.”


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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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War

Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa

Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.

Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.

“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”

GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’

Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.

“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.

“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.

“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.

After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”

RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL

Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”

Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.

“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.

She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”

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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests

A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco

Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.

People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.

“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”

Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.

On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.

Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.

On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.

“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.

Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.

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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan

Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas

Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.

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