NAOMI LEVIN

NEW Chabad Campus director Rabbi Daniel Rabin knows the difference a rabbi can make to a university student — he heard about it from his father.

Rabbi Rabin’s father was a medical student in South Africa when he encountered a Chabad rabbi at university. He had come from a traditional Jewish home, but Rabbi Rabin said the encounter had sparked a new desire in his father.

“By the time I was born, my father had become religious,” he said.

South African-born and educated, Rabbi Rabin had hoped to follow in his father’s footsteps and become a doctor too. But a year at a yeshivah after school saw him reconsider his career choices, and a few years later he earned his smichah in Pretoria.

“I then moved on to the States to work as a student rabbi. I was doing adult education and youth programs in Atlanta, Georgia,” he said.

It was there he met his wife, Sarah, and together they travelled to New York, back to South Africa for a year, on to California where Sarah’s father was a rabbi and eventually to Australia.

“I was in Australia about six years ago and met Moshe [Kahn, the director of Chabad Youth],” Rabbi Rabin said. “When this job came up, I thought it is really up my alley.”

Chabad Campus is a new initiative of Chabad Youth. It will work closely with the Australasian Union of Jewish Students and enhance the existing work carried out by Rabbi Yankel Rapp’s Merkos on Campus, which is also a Chabad-based organisation.

“Our aim is to cater for those who are not necessarily comfortable going to a shiur on a parsha, they might not event know what a parsha is,” Rabbi Rabin said. “We just want to create a place where people feel comfortable being Jewish.”

Rabbi Rabin’s wife Sarah is also involved in campus visits, particularly engaging with female students.

Chabad Campus held its first event last week on Tisha b’Av at the Jewish Holocaust Centre.

Its next big function will be Shabbat 500 — a Friday night dinner at Caulfield Hebrew Congregation for university-aged young people. Guest speaker will be Western Bulldogs Football Club president and philanthropist David Smorgon.

Shabbat 500 is on August 14 at Caulfield Hebrew Congregation at 7pm, tickets $20. Bookings (03) 9522 8259 or daniel@chabadcampus.org.au.