AJFN appeal to grow the next generation

The Australian Jewish Fertility Network (AJFN) has launched a community-wide fundraising campaign to support Jewish families facing fertility challenges, as the community contends with a declining birth rate.

The “Hope Begins Here” campaign aims to raise $400,000, made up of $200,000 from the community matched by majordonors. AJFN said the funding will enable it to support at least another 65 families.

The appeal comes as the number of Jewish children aged 0 to 4 in Australia has fallen by 1400 over the past decade, according to figures the organisation attributes to analysis of the 2021 census by the Jewish Communal Appeal (JCA).

Over the past financial year, AJFN supported 147 families, a 24 per cent increase on the previous year, and a record 27 babies were born, bringing the total number of AJFN babies to 124. It expects to support 169 families this financial year. The campaign will feature a live telethon running from 9am to 7pm on Thursday, August 20, staffed by volunteers across Sydney and Melbourne. A live-

streamed broadcast will feature interviews with families, doctors and spiritual leaders, a live donation tally and matching-gift moments.

AJFN supports families navigating the physical, emotional, financial and spiritual toll of infertility, providing IVF funding, access to fertility specialists, counselling, spiritual guidance and peer support.

Among those it has helped is Ebony Abramowitch, 30, who lives in Melbourne with her husband Aryn and is now 21 weeks pregnant with their first child. The couple began trying to conceive before their late-2024 wedding, and starting treatment so early left Ebony feeling her concerns were dismissed by those around her.

“It was dismissed by everybody else except for AJFN,” she said. “It was just a relief for me to feel understood and recognised in the emotions we were sitting in.”

AJFN connected her with a peer support companion who had been through IVF herself, and provided financial support that eased pressure on the couple and their families.

“We genuinely wouldn’t have this baby with us,” she said.

The organisation also introduced her to the mikvah, which became a source of comfort.

“When one woman is longing for their child, there are many others who are as well,” she said.

She and Aryn plan to run their own AJFN fundraiser on their baby’s first birthday.

AJFN CEO Justine Saidman said too many families were facing infertility alone.

“When we help one family become parents, we’re not just changing their story, we’re helping write the next chapter of Jewish life in Australia,” she said.

Board chair Kerry Gonski said fertility support was “core to who we are as a community”, warning that a declining birth rate meant “the ageing Jewish community is not replacing themselves, resulting in a shrinking community”.

Over the past five years, AJFN says it has supported more than 300 families and provided more than 400 grants totalling over $1 million.

More info/donate: ajfn.org.au