By: Nomi Kaltmann as seen in The Jewish Independent

27 November 2025

When Emma Rosenfeld McGrath held her son’s barmitzvah in Newcastle in October 2024, it was a rare and special moment for the synagogue, which is almost 100 years old. Emma, a Jewish doctor who moved to Newcastle in 2006, invited her family, friends, and the whole local Jewish community to join the celebration.

“All my family came, and all my husband’s family came. The Jewish community here was amazing. They came and were so kind. They even brought my son gifts. They want to support the younger generation,” she says.

For the Mcgrath family, celebrating locally was especially meaningful. Originally from Sydney, they had long assumed that study for her son’s barmitzvah would need to be in Sydney or even online. However, her son learned to read Hebrew locally, with Rabbi Yossi Rodal, the rabbi and director of Hunter Chabad, a Jewish outreach organisation serving people living in Newcastle, and Hunter Region.

“I had always imagined that I would have had to do some online thing,” McGrath says. “It was awesome to do it locally. It’s been really great to have that.”

In recent years, Newcastle and the wider Hunter Valley region have seen solid growth. Newcastle’s population has increased by about 10% since 2016 and  the Hunter Valley is forecast to grow by roughly 40% by 2046. Alongside this trend, Newcastle’s small Jewish community has also been steadily growing, with the 2021 census recording 254 Jewish residents, a 42 percent increase since 2016.

Although Newcastle’s synagogue services usually only run once a month on a Friday evening, the synagogue remains active, and the Jewish community in Newcastle celebrated its centenary in 2005, with the synagogue’s centenary due in 2027.

Newcastle has always had a Jewish community, with Jewish settlers being part of the region since the early 20th century, often working in coal mining, shipping, and merchant trades.

Rabbi looks for growth

Rabbi Yossi Rodal and his wife Malki serve as rabbi and Rebbetzin in Newcastle. When they arrived in 2020, they became the first permanent rabbinic couple in the city in 65 years. Before settling in Newcastle, they spent years leading Chabad activities across regional and rural Australia, visiting remote communities and making more than a dozen trips to Newcastle. They estimate they visited Newcastle more than 15 times before choosing to live there and serve the community.

“We had a few choices when we were deciding where to go, but we knew the potential of Newcastle, and the proximity to Sydney [was appealing]. If you run out of supplies, it’s only a 2.5-hour drive away. Plus, Newcastle also had a shule. No other place in Australia that we were looking at already had an active Shule. We had visited Newcastle so many times, we knew the community really well. Plus, we had discovered many new Jewish people,” says Rabbi Rodal.

Since moving there permanently, the Rodals have established new Jewish infrastructure in the city, including a Hebrew school and community events, and they help run services at the Newcastle Synagogue. Their responsibilities also extend to the wider Hunter Valley region including the Central Coast, Port Stephens, and Maitland.

Rabbi Rodal has great hopes and ambitions for the community. “We like the challenge of helping to build a community. The way we see it, in 30 years this will be a large-ish community. It is never going to be as big as big as Melbourne or Sydney but maybe Gold Coast standards. We just have to continue to build it up.”

It helps that Newcastle is gorgeous and growing. “It’s beautiful and not too busy, with amazing beaches and a great vibe. It’s a beach town with culture, family-friendly spaces, excellent schools, plenty of shopping, a strong university, and even a bit of nightlife,” Rabbi Rodal adds.

Three years ago, Jac Cohen, 40, who works in admin and is a mum of young children, moved from Sydney to Maitland, about a 30-minute drive from Newcastle, in part drawn by more affordable housing and a more comfortable and enjoyable lifestyle. “We really wanted to escape the rental market, buy a home and lay down roots” she says. The move was a success, and her family was able to buy a house on what she calls “a really nice suburban block”.

Cohen has been surprised at how many Jewish people she has met out in Maitland. “I have a really good Jewish radar. I think it’s a spiritual thing. I get little alarm bells. We are all family. I feel like you can just tell someone is family. I don’t know how else to describe it.”

She loves being part of a community, especially in a world where antisemitism in rising. “After October 7, it’s nice to be with people who are with you,” she says. Cohen is involved in the Newcastle Jewish community and has never regretted her move. “There’s a whole world outside of a capital city, that’s so great and so liveable, and so friendly.

“And Newcastle is just that. A whole city smooshed into a small area, with heritage homes, and beaches that are beautiful and clean and swimmable. Plus, it’s much warmer than Melbourne. I think everyone should experience living outside a major city at least once in their life.”

50 paid members

Max Lenzer, a doctor born in Newcastle who has lived there almost all his life, has served as president of the Newcastle Synagogue for many years. Like most synagogues in Australia, membership and engaging the next generation has been an ongoing challenge.  At the last AGM, the synagogue had about 50 paid members, plus 10 non-Jewish who support the community as “Friends of Newcastle Synagogue,” who attend the synagogues social events and receive the synagogue’s newsletter.

“There are quite a few young families in Newcastle, but it’s been difficult to get them involved in the synagogue. The current board has been working hard for many years, but we really need new people if the synagogue is going to thrive,” Dr Lenzer says.

At 72 years old and still working as a GP, Dr Lenzer has seen the community’s ups and downs over the years. Dr Lenzer and Rabbi Rodal work very well together, and Rabbi Rodal holds an exclusive voluntary rabbinic contract with the Newcastle synagogue, although he does not receive a salary from the community.

However, in the past 12 months Rabbi Rodal moved away from the centre of Newcastle to a suburban area where he feels more of the Jewish community is located, away from the expensive area of Newcastle where the synagogue is located. This means Rabbi Rodal can no longer walk to the synagogue and makes it difficult for him to attend services on Shabbat and Jewish holidays.

“Since Rabbi Rodal and [his wife] Malki came to Newcastle, it has certainly revitalised the community as a whole and it’s been tremendous for Jewish life,” Lenzer says.  “But it’s difficult for Newcastle Synagogue at the moment. I’d just like to think that we can keep the synagogue going and still have services.”

David Gubbay has been on the board of the Newcastle Synagogue since 1983. At almost 80 years old, he feels deeply connected to the synagogue and has been involved for decades.

Special Yom Kippur service

This past Yom Kippur, for the first time in years, services were held at Rabbi Rodal’s home. While they were originally scheduled to be held at the synagogue, they were relocated at the last minute because Rabbi Rodal was recovering from surgery and undergoing treatment for a rare form of cancer.

Mr Gubbay, while deeply sympathetic to the rabbi’s illness, couldn’t bring himself to miss Yom Kippur in Newcastle synagogue, a place that has been so personal and important to him. He opened the doors and prayed alone on the bimah until two unexpected Jewish visitors from Melbourne walked in and assisted him with the service. In addition to David and the visitors, there was one non-Jewish person in the synagogue. The rest of Newcastle’s Jewish community was at Rabbi Rodal’s house.

“I believe that the congregation needs my support to help keep it running. When I first joined the congregation at the end of 1974, we had quite a healthy community. We had services every Friday night and every Saturday morning but as the years and decades have passed, a lot of the congregation has either moved away or passed away.”

He is wistful for the heyday of the community. “I’ve been told at the early in the 1900s if you didn’t get there early you wouldn’t have gotten a seat. We [estimate] that the capacity of our shule is 300. Although I’ve never seen it totally full.”

He knows that without enthusiastic new young members, Newcastle Synagogue is on the brink.

“We are trying very hard to hang on to the shule. Most of us don’t want to see it sold. But there are one or two board members who would like to sell it. That would be very sad,” Mr Gubbay says.

For now, Newcastle’s Jewish community continues to grow and thrive. When I asked Rabbi Rodal how many people came to his services over Rosh Hasnah and Yom Kippur, he estimated more than 150 over the two festivals, but cautioned me to reframe my thinking.

 “If you live in Melbourne, and 300 people come to an event you ran, if you thought about what percentage of the Jews in the area that would represent, I would estimate it would be like 2% or 3%. But, by us, 150 people is about 60-70% of the Jewish people that we know.

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