Your Promise, Our Promise
A strong, vibrant community with a spiritual heart embracing Jewish life and its diversity
Brief History of Beth Shalom
The story of Beth Shalom is a story of passion and commitment, at first shared by a few families in their homes; later in the community’s first premises in 1956 steadily growing to a community of over 200 families whose primary facility is now our home in Manukau Road.
It is perhaps to those families, whose vision over 50 years ago planted the seed of today’s community, which we should look back to as we each consider how we can shape and contribute to the future. Families such as Pezaro and Stern whose foundation gifts and foresight established a spiritual home for their children and their children’s children into the future. We too can be a part of these unbroken commitments to the future of our community.
Beth Shalom is the biggest Progressive community in NZ, and the 3rd biggest Burial and Benevolent Society and numerous Beth Shalom specialist sub-committees who facilitate a range of T’zedakah, Education, Care and other services for our community and beyond. in the region. We boast a skilled group of lay leaders, a flourishing Hebrew School and the services of regular Rabbinic leadership.
Although in New Zealand we are amongst the most remote communities in terms of geography, we are strongly linked to our sister communities in Australia and beyond, under the auspices of the Australasian Union for Progressive Judaism.