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Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty organ­i­sa­tions and lead­ers across Aus­tralia con­tin­ue their efforts to man­age the impact of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic on Jew­ish insti­tu­tions, fam­i­lies, indi­vid­u­als and, most espe­cial­ly, the elder­ly and vul­ner­a­ble.   We recog­nise with deep appre­ci­a­tion the con­tin­u­ing work being done by the Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty roof bod­ies in each State, the Cri­sis Man­age­ment Teams of the Com­mu­ni­ty Secu­ri­ty Groups, shules, the Day Schools, the aged care sec­tor, the wel­fare sec­tor and vol­un­teers, and com­mend them for the high sense of respon­si­bil­i­ty they have demon­strat­ed.

With the approach of Pesach, when fam­i­lies typ­i­cal­ly gath­er to cel­e­brate the Seder, many indi­vid­u­als and fam­i­lies will be feel­ing the effects of phys­i­cal iso­la­tion from rel­a­tives and friends.  Per­haps in the future we will look back upon these times and appre­ci­ate all the more the joy of being able to cel­e­brate Pesach with fam­i­ly and friends, and have all the more com­pas­sion for those who have nowhere to go on Seder night, and are all alone.

The fol­low­ing is an update from last week’s sum­ma­ry of the cur­rent sta­tus of Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty life in each State and Ter­ri­to­ry.

New South Wales

• Jew­ish Emer­gency Man­age­ment Plan (JEMP) oper­at­ed by CSG NSW has for­mal­ly opened its Emer­gency Oper­a­tions Cen­tre and is already field­ing enquires, coor­di­nat­ing respons­es and pro­vid­ing vol­un­teers. It is antic­i­pat­ing an increase in demand and efforts are being under­tak­en to cen­tralise the response by direct­ing the atten­tion of com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers to its web­site. A com­mu­ni­ty wide SMS and oth­er mech­a­nisms are being employ to achieve this.
• The med­ical sub-com­mit­tee con­tin­ues to active­ly plan and pre­pare for a poten­tial increase in spread of COVID-19 with­in the Syd­ney Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty.
• The finan­cial sub-com­mit­tee is work­ing on a num­ber of poten­tial finan­cial sce­nar­ios which will like­ly impact the oper­a­tions and well­be­ing of com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers and com­mu­ni­ty insti­tu­tions. It is work­ing in con­junc­tion with JCA to deliv­er finan­cial relief and assis­tance as and when it is required.
• Men­tal health experts have been tasked in antic­i­pa­tion of an increase in com­mu­ni­ty demand and a video has been released.
• https://www.csgnsw.org.au/alerts is the place to go to for reg­u­lar updates and infor­ma­tion rel­e­vant to the NSW Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty.

Vic­to­ria

• The COVID-19 Task­force is prepar­ing a Pesach com­mu­ni­ca­tion which will go out short­ly.
• Jew­ish Care Vic­to­ria announced they would make avail­able fur­ther inter­est- free loans of up to $2,500 each for imme­di­ate needs that are not cov­ered by gov­ern­ment or oth­er sources.  Jew­ish Care assigns a case work­er to each loan recip­i­ent to pro­vide non-finan­cial help as well as the loan.
• https://vic.thecsg.org.au/covid-19-community-information/ is the place to go to for reg­u­lar updates and infor­ma­tion rel­e­vant to the Vic­to­ri­an Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty.

West­ern Aus­tralia

• Mau­rice Zef­fert Home (MZH) in full lock­down from Sun­day, 29 March at 12.00 noon
• Carmel School clos­es today for the hol­i­days.
• Super­mar­ket and phar­ma­cy shop­ping door to door has been made avail­able to the com­mu­ni­ty
• Fly­er from The Black Dog Insti­tute has been send out to com­mu­ni­ty with some help­ful thoughts on get­ting our­selves and fam­i­lies through the present cri­sis
• Meno­ra Char­i­ty set­ting up a bud­dy sys­tem for the iso­lat­ed and lone­ly in the com­mu­ni­ty.  State­ment will be send out today

Queens­land

• No change since last week.

ACT

• Explor­ing options for deliv­ery of online class­es for Tues­day and Sun­day ched­er for Term 2;
• Kab­bal­at Shab­bat and Hav­dalah ser­vices now offered via zoom;
• All of the Rabbi’s class­es are now offered online;
• A team of com­mu­ni­ty vol­un­teers under the over­sight of Rab­bi Miller and ACTJC youth lead­er­ship employ­ee have been busy con­tact­ing, vis­it­ing, pur­chas­ing and deliv­er­ing shop­ping and meals to those in need.
• Rab­bi Robuck has been organ­is­ing an online pro­gram for the Pro­gres­sive Con­gre­ga­tion.

South Aus­tralia

• An email bul­letin was issued by the Jew­ish Com­mu­ni­ty Coun­cil of South Aus­tralia to all Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty insti­tu­tions in the State, with prac­ti­cal infor­ma­tion about the avail­abil­i­ty of in-home sup­port for the frail and elder­ly, options for shop­ping and home deliv­ery, and online com­mu­ni­ty gath­er­ings.

Tas­ma­nia 

• Hobart Hebrew Con­gre­ga­tion con­tin­ues to engage with the vul­ner­a­ble mem­bers of the Tas­man­ian Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty and for­tu­nate­ly they are doing well.
• With help from Sen. Eric Abetz and vol­un­teers in Mel­bourne, Chabad of Tas­ma­nia was able to nego­ti­ate the tight bor­der con­trols and col­lect and dis­trib­ute Kosher for Pesach items to the com­mu­ni­ty.

Please keep safe and keep those around you safe, by main­tain­ing phys­i­cal dis­tanc­ing require­ments and good hand hygiene, and exer­cis­ing every pre­cau­tion.

Shab­bat shalom, and wish­ing all a chag kash­er v’sameach for next week.

Con­tact
Peter Wertheim | Co-CEO
ph: 02 8353 8505 | m: 0408 160 904 | fax 02 9361 588
e: pwertheim@ecaj.org.au| www.ecaj.org.au