Shule which weds couples “regardless” gets JCCV membership
Shtiebel admitted after founder Gersh Lazarow says his community places no definition on who is Jewish
An unaffiliated Melbourne community whose founding rabbi will officiate at Jewish weddings for couples regardless of whether both partners are Jewish has joined the Jewish Community Council of Victoria.
Shtiebel, which is unaffiliated to any stream of Judaism, was admitted at the JCCV plenum on Monday, August 17.
Addressing delegates, founder and executive director Rabbi Gersh Lazarow said he believed he was “the only rabbi in Melbourne who will officiate at Jewish weddings for couples, regardless of whether they both identify or [are] recognised as being Jewish”.
He said many Jewish couples who had grown up through Jewish day schools, youth movements and communal organisations did not wish to say the words of the traditional marriage formula, k’dat Moshe v’Yisrael, because they were not theists.
“If we weren’t here doing the work that we were doing, then they would have to have a civil wedding when what they want is a Jewish wedding,” he said.
Asked at the plenum whether Shtiebel’s b’nei mitzvah programs were for those who are halachically Jewish or open generally, Rabbi Lazarow said the organisation did not apply a definition.
“We are a Jewish organisation trying to serve the Jewish community. What we don’t do is place definition about that,” he said, and agreed when the questioner put to him that Shtiebel does not define who is and is not Jewish.
The overwhelming majority of participants had grown up in the community and identified as Jewish, he said, but there were also non-Jews who were “proudly part of Jewish families”. In those cases Shtiebel wanted to support the education and experience of children who “may not be halachically Jewish but Jewish identified”, along with the whole family.
Rabbi Lazarow told the plenum the community’s motto was “Jewish your way always”, and that the answer to people walking into its office “will always be yes”.
“We put belonging before obligation,” he said. “We believe that community can be built through relationships and not through requirements, whether they be financial or religious.”
Shtiebel’s admission returns Rabbi Lazarow to the formal communal structure after a period out of it.
He was senior rabbi of Temple Beth Israel from 2013, left TBI early in 2022 under a separation agreement.
Rabbi Lazarow told the plenum Shtiebel had marked simchas and lifecycle events with 72 individuals, families and couples. Friday night services draw between 20 and 40 people, and the space itself seats about 120 and regularly fills for private simchas.
Almost 1,000 people attended its High Holy Day services last year at the Malvern Town Hall.
He said a beit midrash is at the core of the organisation’s work, open to community members, friends and a growing group of non-Jewish grandparents of Jewish children.
Shtiebel also houses an independent Jewish high school.
“We seek admission tonight into the JCCV because we see the work that we’re doing as core to community,” Rabbi Lazarow told delegates. “We believe a different kind of Jewish space is not only possible, but it is needed.”
In a statement, he said the admission recognised “that there is room within our communal landscape for new models and new expressions of Jewish life, working alongside established institutions”.
“Jewish Victoria is strongest when there are many doors through which people can enter,” he said.