Avraham Avinu of Australia

Moshe Feiglin was a motherless child of 13 when, in 1889. Moshe Feiglin and his young family set out on assisted migration tickets to start life afresh in Australia. There, this quietly-spoken chassid founded a Jewishly self-sufficient farming community, the continent's only Anatevka. Assimilation and intermarriage in Australia were spiralling, Jewish day-schools were hardly dreamed of, yet he and his wise helpmate maintained their cheerful serenity, undaunted. With an uncanny intuitive gift for parenting, they patiently educated their entire family in the spirit and practice of religious observance, and unobtrusively planted the seeds of many flourishing Jewish educational initiatives. This lively story is punctuated by a wealth of firsthand anecdotes, whether colorful, quotable, or amusing. Reb Moshe Feiglin was constantly inspired by his ongoing correspondence with the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, and after 1950, with his successor, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson. Several letters that reflect this warm relationship appear, some for the first time, in this volume.