About Us

Jewish Journeys is a Jewish outreach and educational organization.

We are a non-profit organization, a public corporation owned by its members, and governed by an elected board of directors. We are registered with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC).  We are also recognised and listed as a religious charity by the  Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC) and the Australian Taxation Office (ATO). 

We are headquartered on the Gold Coast, Queensland but our reach is regional and beyond.

We are not affiliated with any national or international Jewish movements.  The Judaism we teach and celebrate, needs no describing adjectives:  it is Judaism, period.  Jews – and non-Jews – sometimes seem obsessed with classifying Jews according to denominational orientation.  We do not believe that this is a necessary, or useful enterprise.  It is our belief that the various movements, or denominations in Jewish life (e.g., Orthodox, Conservative, Reform…) reflect institutional identities and loyalties far more than they point to specific ideological differences.  There are Jews who are more and less observant, and whose beliefs are more and less traditionalist.  We all take our unique individual places on the continuum of practice and belief, which is a better way of understanding Jews than by labelling them based on affiliation.

That said, people will want to think of us as Reform (or, as it’s called here in Australia, ‘Progressive’).  And that’s understandable in a way; we use some liturgical and educational resources that are produced in Reform Judaism.  However, we claim no affiliation with Reform, Progressive, or any other denomination in Judaism.

Our senior rabbi is Rabbi Don Levy, ordained in 1996 by Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion and a member of the Central Conference of American Rabbis. He served 12 years as a chaplain in the US Air Force and seven years as a congregational rabbi. He has taught as adjunct instructor of Jewish studies at Colorado College and of philosophy at the US Air Force Academy. He has served part-time in hospital and prison chaplaincies. He is excited about this new ‘out of the box’ opportunity to assist small congregations and groups aspiring to be congregations, as well as individuals who are not normally served by congregations.  His passion is to bring the beauty of Judaism, and the truth of Torah to all interested parties.

Rabbi Don maintains a blog of his random and not-so-random thoughts, which can be found at rabbidoninoz.blogspot.com.au

It is our prayer that, as we build Jewish Journeys and serve more clients, we would be able to add staff including additional rabbis, and other qualified teachers and professional staff.

Rabbi Don and Clara