Fran Hildebrandt, WLCJ International Vice President and Kehilah/Education Chair
At the time of my writing this, it’s 2:00 am ET. My husband and I have just returned from spending six weeks in Australia and New Zealand. We have been home approximately 58 hours, and I am still jet-lagged and sleepless. As it says in Lord of the Rings, we embarked on a grand adventure. Our goal was to “winter” in the Southern Hemisphere and avoid the brutal winter weather.
It was a strange time to be visiting Australia and New Zealand as Jews. Neither country was on my bucket list. But they satisfied my criteria: warm weather, English-speaking, Jewish community, and my husband could visit Hobbiton in New Zealand, famous from the Lord of the Rings films. What more could I ask for?
While our trip was very eventful with so many special moments, a few highlights stood out. We watched a televised memorial for the Bondi Beach Massacre that movingly ended with politicians dancing to Oseh Shalom, which was particularly special to me as that happens to be the current Torah Fund theme. We also toured Australia’s oldest continuously operating synagogue, where male convicts were historically counted in the minyan but denied an aliyah. Later, at Bondi Beach, we left stones and recited Kaddish at the large memorial menorah.
Among the many things I learned is that we can find community wherever we are. During our travels we experienced the kindness of strangers. We met people whom we connected with. Especially among fellow Jews. In every Jewish setting our conversations shifted from the impersonal to the personal. We were welcomed as members of their community. Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks (1948–2020), former Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom, once said, “We make a mistake when we think religion is only about believing. It’s also about belonging; and belonging is about community.”
We felt that sense of community at the two Masorti synagogues we attended. But it was Emanuel Synagogue in Sydney that emphasized that point. Part of it was the similarities, such as prayer books and melodies. Some of it was the members and Clergy who reached out to us and made us feel welcome. Rabbi Sam Zwarenstein, one of the Clergy at Emanuel Synagogue, had actually visited Detroit, which created another connection.
In many respects our trip reminds me of WLCJ and Convention. We bandy around the term “sisters,” which reflects that we truly are a family. We develop relationships. We create community on Zoom and in person. Convention is an opportunity for us to renew friendships and establish new ones with each other. I hope that I have a chance to see many of you at Convention 2026 and we can swap adventure stories. Or any stories. That is how we can build community story by story. As Gandalf, one of the protagonists of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring, once said, “All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
Shabbat Shalom,
Fran Hildebrandt
WLCJ International Vice President and Kehilah/Education Chair
fhildebrandt@wlcj.org
