JewishCare to help ACT community

JEWISHCARE in Sydney and the ACT Jewish Community are in talks to foster closer ties.

JewishCare chief executive Claire Vernon (pictured) was in Canberra last week for meetings with ACT Jewish Community president Robert Cussel, the board and key members of the community.

This follows a visit by Cussel to JewishCare’s headquarters in Sydney a few weeks earlier.

“The ACT Jewish Community takes its links with other Jewish organisations very seriously and reaches out to cooperate,” Cussel told The AJN.

“We have been enhancing our links with the Jewish Communal Appeal (JCA), and now I’d like us to have much closer links with JewishCare in Sydney.”

Vernon told The AJN that a deal with the ACT Jewish Community would benefit both organisations.

“This would enable people in Canberra to have access to our support and services when needed because we have professional staff here, and a wide range of support and services that ACT just cannot ever have because of the size of the community and the resources that they have,” Vernon said.

She said if JewishCare is running workshops or programs in Sydney then people from the ACT Jewish Community would be welcome to attend.

“We can provide information and support for people.

“It’s a great thing for us to be able to extend a hand to another Jewish community that will be able to ­benefit.”

Both JewishCare and the small ACT Jewish Community are constituent members of the JCA.

A gala JCA fundraising evening was held recently in Canberra with JCA president Peter Philippsohn as guest speaker.

Philippsohn told The AJN this week he’s happy the two organisations are planning on working together.

“We’ve facilitated various communal organisations working together for the good of the entire Jewish community in NSW and the ACT,” Philippsohn said.

SYLVIA DEUTSCH

JewishCare CEO Claire Vernon.