September 23, 2005
FEATURE
The Jewish buzz about
Byron
DAWN COHEN
ONE morning five years ago,
Susi Edwards woke to discover she needed to move to Byron Bay. “My friends
thought I was crazy. I had never even been to Byron Bay,” laughs the 52-year-old
single mother. “The eastern suburbs Jewish community was my whole security, but
Sydney was becoming too expensive.”
Within two weeks she had bought a
house in Byron Hills and moved in. Now she is the secretary of Rainbow Kehilah,
the umbrella organisation of the Northern Rivers Jewish community which was
founded in January 2000.
“ I love the extended family community. Byron is
still doing wonders for my wellbeing,” she says.
The co-president of
Rainbow Kehilah, Julie Nathan, estimates there are about 1000 Jews in Byron
Shire’s population of 30,000. Jake Rozental remembers only two Jewish families
when he arrived in the late 1970s. Today, however, the Jewish presence is
spiralling, fuelled by urbanites who have made the sea change, as well as
Israeli migrants, who are drawn by the relaxed lifestyle, pristine beaches and
small-business opportunities. As a result, Academy BJE now offers Jewish classes
at three state schools in the shire.
David and Tal Levine, their son
Yosi, then eight, and daughter Rachel, six, abandoned a rich Jewish life in
Sydney’s Maroubra for Ewingsdale, an inland Byron suburb, in 1998.
“
David was miserable sitting in Sydney traffic every day,” recalls Levine.
“Day-to-day living was a big fight. There was no air. We wanted more than
material things. It is healthier for kids here, and they meet people from all
different walks of society.”
Yosi’s bar mitzvah, two years ago, is
believed to be a first for Byron Bay. While Rainbow Kehilah has a donated Torah,
there are few Jewish venues and no kosher food, synagogues, mikvahs or
rabbis.
The service itself was held on the Gold Coast.
A family
acquaintance tutored Yosi for a year over the phone. Local Israelis catered for
a reception held in a Bangalow hall decorated by family and friends.
Half
the guests were enthralled non-Jews. “It was special because everybody had a
hand in creating it,” recalls Levine.
“ Some of Yosi’s friends wanted to
convert so they could have a bar mitzvah too.”
Living away from a Jewish
hub compelled finance journalist Morris Kaplan to seek out Jewish education for
his 10-year-old daughter Naomi, and kabbalah seminars for himself.
“ In
Coogee, we had a huge mortgage, and a magnificent beach-front apartment, but we
rarely had the time to enjoy the view,” says Kaplan, who is married to acclaimed
columnist and author Ruth Ostrow.
“ Coming to Byron Bay is like an
aliyah. Like in Israel, almost everybody has intentionally chosen to live
here.”
HOWEVER, those types of personalities are unlikely to create
conventional Jewish structures, says Chabad of Gold Coast & Northern Rivers’
Rabbi Mosheh Serberyanski, who runs occasional services in Byron Bay.
“
Most don’t want a synagogue, but they do want a connection with their Jewishness
and other Jewish people.”
Although Rainbow Kehilah, forced to search for
a new venue each Jewish holiday, would love a synagogue, Byron Bay’s most famous
Jew, Greens Senator Ian Cohen, does not.
“ I would be disappointed if
there was a synagogue, because it would break down the unique aspect of Byron
Bay’s call to a universal spirituality,” he says.
Universality does not
mean kowtowing to antisemitism, he says. Verbally assaulted for being a Jew by a
drunk in a Byron Bay street, Cohen politely but forthrightly identified the
attack as racist, drawing an apology from the drunk. Antisemitism is rare in
Byron Bay, according to Cohen. Indeed, Nirit Feinstein, the Israeli owner of
Ocean Shores restaurant Pizzami, found the Byron Shire Council actively
affirming her Jewishness when they employed her to provide Jewish education to
local kindergartens.
However, in the letters pages of the Echo, Byron
Bay’s local newspaper, George Franco, 82, who identifies as a Zionist and an
atheist, is one of a handful of Jews battling perceived antisemitic attitudes
disguised as anti-Zionism.
“ Jews have to defend themselves,” says
Franco, who followed his children and grandchildren to Byron. “I miss the
intellectual and cultural activities in the city, but I love how quiet and
beautiful it is.”
Jews contribute disproportionately to Byron Bay’s
fierce protection of its environment. Two of Byron Shire’s eight councillors are
Jewish, as is the Byron Ballina Greens coordinator Sandra Heilpern.
Last
year, Greens Councillor John Lazarus achieved folk-hero status as a Byron Bay
David battling a Goliath in the form of developers when, barefoot and fearless,
he stood up to “Byron on Byron” resort owner Gerry Harvey after the retail-store
magnate attacked his dress in the national media.
Like Senator Ian Cohen,
many of Byron Bay’s Jews appreciate their Jewishness, but prioritise a
more-universal human identification common in alternative circles.
Yeshiva-educated Jake Rosental carries that philosophy into the Mullumbimby
Pesach seders he initiated in the 1980s.
“ The message of Pesach is that
we were all slaves and we were redeemed. All of us, not just Jews,” he says. “So
my seders were open to everybody.” A decade later, Jewish activist Lyndall Katz
launched the area’s first Jewish group, which organised discussions, rituals and
social gatherings embracing the full gamut of spiritual and secular
perspectives.
“ It was wonderful,” she says. “But I moved back to Sydney
because I wanted to attend a Jewish function I didn’t have to organise
first.”
Today, Rainbow Kehilah focuses primarily on services, supporting
a Chabad-run Pesach seder on first night, and a more Progressive seder on second
night. Some Jews complain Chabad’s presence splits a community too small to
sustain two events, but Julie Nathan argues the services complement each other.
“It’s hard but we have to acknowledge everybody’s needs.”
Inevitably,
there are gaps living away from large Jewish communities. While Tal Levine longs
for the social gatherings and discussion nights that Lyndall Katz used to
organise, David Levine hungers for stronger connections with Orthodoxy. But the
cost is worth it. “I miss the family and the Shabbats, but every day we wake up
in heaven, or close to it,” says Tal.
“ There is a feeling here I have
had in very few places. I don’t know how to describe it,” adds David, scanning
the sea after his daily run from the beach to the Byron Bay lighthouse. “I feel
at home.”
Dawn Cohen, formerly of Sydney, is
a Byron Bay journalist and an AJN correspondent.
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