Rabbi Yitzchok Dovid Groner

18 April 1925 - 7 July 2008

In 1958 the Lubavitcher Rebbe sent a young chossid and his family to far off Australia, entrusting him as his personal emmissary to bring faith to a community struggling to establish itself in the shadows of the Holocaust.

Who would then have dared to dream that over the next 50 years that community would become a shining light in the Jewish diaspora.

Who could have ever foreseen that the community's pride would one day lie in its thousands of students attending Jewish day schools, its many Shules, Kollelim, mikvaos and youth movements.

The Lubavitcher Rebbe did. He had that clarity of vision and chose the young Rabbi Yitzchok Dovid Groner to carry it out.

Over the next fifty years, guided and mentored step by step by the Rebbe, Rabbi Groner set about building. He toiled hard and incessantly. He immediately began consolidating and expanding the Yeshivah Beth Rivkah Colleges, the educational institutions pioneered by the founding families of the then then small Lubavitch community. He soon established Ohel Chana, a tertiary college for women, with Kollel Menachem Lubavitch following not long after.

Today, thousands of men and women here and around the world, imbued with love and knowledge of their heritage, proudly count themselves as students of Rabbi Groner. His influence extended far beyond Melbourne, with communities throughout Australia seeking his counsel and guidance. He was Rabbi, teacher, adviser and friend to Jews in every corner of the community and in every sphere of endeavour.

To all, he was simply Rabbi Groner. The man who used his heart to talk to the soul.

The man who shared equally in the pains and joy of every person as he would a child.

The man whose care the Rebbe entrusted a community and who honoured that faith by bringing to fruition the vision of a dream.

We pray that the ultimate transformation of vision into reality, will soon be realised with peace in our Holy Land of Israel and the coming of Moshiach.