Parramatta Shule stalwart remembered

Edward “Ted” Roberts – in Parramatta Synagogue president Michael Morris’s words “the last of the four forefathers of the shule” – has died in Sydney at the age of 96.

Roberts was farewelled at a funeral service led by Rabbi Roni Cohavi at Rookwood on June 24.

Born Eduard Robitschek in Vienna in May 1930, Roberts’ comfortable childhood was shattered by the 1938 Nazi annexation of Austria.

His family was stripped of its assets, and in 1939 they arrived in Sydney by boat as refugees.

When his father died in 1946, Roberts, then 16, worked at the family’s farm in Plumpton while attending Parramatta High – a burden he carried with a resilience that would shape his unwavering faith.