Community gathers to honour Rabbi Jeffrey Kamins
Rabbi Jeffrey Kamins’ 37-year influence on Sydney’s Emanuel Synagogue and the Australian Jewish community was reflected in a packed sanctuary on Sunday as more than 1,000 people gathered to farewell its much-loved senior rabbi.
Political, religious and community leaders joined former synagogue presidents, colleagues, friends and generations of congregants for an afternoon of speeches, prayer, music and personal memories celebrating his role in shaping Emanuel as an egalitarian, inclusive and post-denominational congregation.
Rabbi Kamins blessed by the congregation at his farewell
The function was led by Rabbi Jacqueline Ninio, who acted as master of ceremonies and has worked alongside Rabbi Kamins at Emanuel for 28 years.
On 1 July, Rabbi Ninio will become Emanuel’s first female senior rabbi, while Rabbi Kamins will step back from active congregational leadership and become the synagogue’s inaugural Rabbi Emeritus.
The event came only weeks after the death of Rabbi Kamins’ mother, Lorraine, aged 98.
Rabbi Ninio said Rabbi Kamins had selected each of the musical works performed during the afternoon and that they held deep personal meaning for him, particularly during his period of mourning.
The program opened with a prayer from the bedtime Shema, performed by Nadav Kahn and Jessica Chapnik Kahn.
Jessica Chapnik Kahn and Nadav Kahn sing at Rabbi Kamins’ farewell
Rabbi Ninio said Rabbi Kamins had sung the prayer to his grandchildren when they were young, later sang it to his great-grandchildren and had shared it with generations of children at Emanuel’s preschools.
Among those attending were NSW Governor Margaret Beazley AC KC, federal NDIS Minister Senator Jenny McAllister, Wentworth MP Allegra Spender, NSW Local Government Minister Ron Hoenig, representing Multiculturalism Minister Steve Kamper, NSW Opposition Leader Kellie Sloane, Coogee MP Dr Marjorie O’Neill, Berowra MP Julian Leeser, Woollahra Mayor Sarah Dixson, Waverley Mayor Will Nemesh and City of Sydney Councillor Yvonne Weldon.
Other guests included Australia’s Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism Jillian Segal AO, Acting Multicultural NSW CEO James Jegasothy, former ACT Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children and Young People Commissioner Vanessa Turnbull-Roberts and representatives of Jewish communal organisations.
They included ECAJ co-CEO Peter Wertheim, NSW Jewish Board of Deputies CEO Michele Goldman, NCJWA president Lynda Ben-Menashe, Sydney Jewish Museum president Greg Shand, retired judge Stephen Rothman and Rabbi Allison Conyer, chair of the Assembly of Rabbis and Cantors of Australia, New Zealand and Asia.
The event was sold out, with more than 100 on a waiting list. Many more people watched the function through Emanuel’s online service.
Event host, Rabbi Jacqueline Ninio
In an emotional tribute, Rabbi Ninio described Rabbi Kamins as her rabbi, teacher and friend.
“You have helped to shape who I am as a rabbi and as a human,” she said.
She asked people to raise their hands if Rabbi Kamins had stood beneath the chuppah at their wedding, celebrated the birth of their child, guided them through a bar or bat mitzvah, visited them in hospital, taught them or supported them during illness or bereavement.
Virtually every hand rose throughout the sanctuary in answer to each question.
“You have touched our lives, all of us, in the deepest of ways,” Rabbi Ninio said.
“You have walked the path of life beside us.”
She said Rabbi Kamins had helped create an inclusive, warm and welcoming congregation in which people could find a Jewish home without being constrained by labels.
He had often spoken about opening many doors so that each person could enter through the one that called to them.
Rabbi Ninio said Rabbi Kamins had also challenged the congregation to confront injustice and recognise the equal humanity of others.
His advocacy included support for refugees and asylum seekers, First Nations justice, environmental protection, marriage equality and interfaith and intercultural relations.
Rabbi Kamins officiated at Australia’s first religious same-sex marriage in May 2018, after marriage equality became law. Rabbi Kamins later recalled the ceremony as one of the significant social changes embraced by Emanuel during his time at the synagogue.
Rabbi Ninio said his vision of a post-denominational Judaism had allowed Emanuel to bring together Progressive, Masorti and other forms of Jewish worship while respecting the differences between them.
“You see what could be, not only what is,” she said.
Rabbi Kamins speaking at his farewell
His influence could also be seen in the physical development of the Woollahra campus, including the Millie Phillips Building, multiple prayer spaces and parallel services, the restoration of the Heritage Sanctuary and plans to renew the Neuweg Centre.
“You speak of the synagogue as our home,” Rabbi Ninio said.
“It is a home that you have built, both spiritually and physically.”
One of the afternoon’s highlights was the premiere of Souvenir, a film by Kate Vinen documenting the creation of a large portrait of Emanuel’s five rabbis by internationally recognised artist Ralph Heimans.
The project was conceived by the synagogue board with former Emanuel president Grant McCorquodale, who was overseas but addressed the gathering in a recorded video message.
McCorquodale said the idea began after he visited an exhibition of Heimans’ work at the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra and learnt that the artist was a longtime Emanuel member and friend of Rabbi Kamins.
He believed a portrait by Heimans would provide a lasting recognition of Rabbi Kamins’ contribution to Emanuel and Australian Jewish life.
Rabbi Kamins was reluctant to be painted alone and agreed to the proposal only on the condition that the work include the entire clergy team.
The completed portrait shows Rabbi Kamins with Rabbis Jacqueline Ninio, George Mordecai, Rafi Kaiserblueth and Sam Zwarenstein during Havdalah at the end of Yom Kippur, the ceremony marking the separation between sacred time and the ordinary week.
Ralph Heimans with his portrait of Rabbi Kamins and other clergy members
Rabbi Ninio holds the Havdalah candle, symbolising the transfer of leadership from Rabbi Kamins to his successor.
McCorquodale said the work was intended to honour Rabbi Kamins while also representing the clergy’s shared leadership and the congregation’s future.
The portrait was supported by members and donors and took about 18 months to complete. It will hang permanently in the synagogue building, while Rabbi Kamins will receive a personal study of the work.
Heimans, one of the world’s leading portrait painters, whose subjects have included Queen Elizabeth II, King Charles III and other prominent international figures, said the commission carried deep personal meaning.
He grew up at Emanuel, met his wife through its youth group, Netzer, and formed friendships there that have lasted more than 40 years.
Heimans also said his father was a Holocaust survivor and that he had not previously completed a major work on a Jewish subject.
“Every portrait painter is a storyteller,” he said in the film.
“Portraits are stories that we carry with us throughout history.”
Heimans said the idea for the final composition emerged when he saw Emanuel’s rabbis gathered around the Havdalah candle at the conclusion of Yom Kippur.
He said the light provided both the artistic focus and a Jewish symbol of truth, spirituality and the divine presence.
The Havdalah setting also reflected the way Rabbi Kamins’ wisdom and presence remained with people as they returned to everyday life.
Rabbi Kamins is blessed by the other rabbis and cantors
Synagogue president Ian Rathmell announced the establishment of the Rabbi Jeffrey B. Kamins OAM Endowment Fund to support Emanuel’s clergy, educational programs and communal spaces.
Rathmell said the fund would help carry Rabbi Kamins’ vision into Emanuel’s second century by investing in the people and programs that sustained the congregation as a pluralistic, egalitarian and inclusive Jewish home.
He recalled that Rabbi Kamins had recently blessed him and his partner ahead of their marriage, speaking about their ability to carry their love through the generations while living as their full and authentic selves.
Rathmell said the blessing reflected the type of community Rabbi Kamins had helped create, “a place which aims for unity, not always uniformity”.
Lior performs a tribute to Rabbi Kamins
In his response, Rabbi Kamins reflected on his family history, his secular Californian upbringing and his unexpected path from law to the rabbinate.
“As I step down from active service after 37 years as rabbi of this wonderful Emanuel Synagogue, I want to express these things to you the best I can: my gratitude, my calling and my love,” he said.
Born in Los Angeles, Rabbi Kamins studied English literature at Stanford University and law at the University of California, Berkeley.
He briefly practised law before beginning rabbinic studies and was ordained by Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion.
He arrived at Emanuel in 1989 for what became his first and only rabbinic appointment and was installed as senior rabbi in 1999.
Rabbi Kamins said his great-grandparents had left Eastern Europe during the pogroms of the late 19th century and settled in the United States.
That decision allowed later generations of his family to grow up with peace, freedom, education and security.
His parents had raised him with strong humanitarian values and taught him to oppose racism and inequality, although the family had little spiritual inclination.
He said that in his mid-20s he began to recognise that Judaism provided a foundation for the ethical values with which he had been raised and a language for his sense of the divine.
“My yearning turned to learning,” he said.
He recalled telling the congregation at his induction in August 1989 that the strength of Progressive Judaism was its openness to difficult questions rather than an insistence on certainty.
Rabbi Kamins said Emanuel had since welcomed women into religious leadership, supported refugees and vulnerable people, stood alongside First Nations communities, worked with other faith and cultural groups and championed marriage equality.
“We have taken the courage to risk, to reach out to the other, both our fellow Jew and our fellow human being,” he said.
He linked those commitments to Jewish teachings about the equal worth of every person, justice for the citizen and stranger, peace, compassion and care for the Earth.
Rabbi Kamins thanked the congregation, its staff, board, past presidents and clergy, as well as the mentors, colleagues and family members who had supported him.
He paid particular tribute to Rabbi Ninio, describing her as his “fabulous successor” and noting that she had led beside him for 28 years.
He said he looked forward to the creative ways in which she would lead Emanuel and welcomed the perspective she would bring as a woman.
Rabbi Kamins said he would remain part of Emanuel in his emeritus role while having more time for his family, travel, teaching and wider communal service.
“Now is the time for me to share these blessings more widely in this beautiful country,” he said.
He said he would continue to pray, teach and learn at Emanuel while watching Rabbi Ninio and the clergy team lead the congregation.
Rabbi Kamins also spoke of his mother, saying he knew how proud she would have been had she lived a few more weeks to attend the function.
He said he hoped Emanuel would continue to uphold diversity, equality and inclusion as it approached its second century.
“Blessed is the presence of God in its place, and its place is in each and every one of you who have made this journey all so worthwhile, all so meaningful and also filled with faith and love,” he said.
His address was followed with a performance of Nick Cave’s “There Is a Kingdom” by Ilan Kidron, Simon Tedeschi and Jonathan Zwartz.
Rabbis Mordecai, Kaiserblueth and Zwarenstein then offered personal blessings, each drawing on one line of the priestly blessing.
Rabbis and cantors from across the community gathered on the bimah and held a tallit above Rabbi Kamins as the blessings were delivered.
Singer-songwriter Lior then made a surprise appearance.
He spoke of his longstanding friendship with Rabbi Kamins, who had officiated at important events in his life and provided guidance at significant moments.
As Lior performed, photographs of Rabbi Kamins throughout his life, including his childhood, family and decades at Emanuel, were projected onto a large screen.
People gather in the synagogue garden after the event
The NSW Jewish Board of Deputies had also paid tribute when Rabbi Kamins announced his retirement in August 2025.
“For nearly four decades Rabbi Kamins has been a pillar of our community,” NSWJBD president David Ossip said at the time.
“His leadership has been defined by his profound vision, a deep commitment to serving our community and an unwavering commitment to egalitarian Jewish values.”
Ossip said Rabbi Kamins’ influence extended far beyond Emanuel and that he would leave “a legacy of integrity, warmth and service”.
Rabbi Ninio closed the formal proceedings by recalling Rabbi Kamins’ habit of telephoning congregants on their birthdays and at important moments in their lives.
A telephone had been installed in the courtyard so guests could record personal messages for him, which would be compiled for him to hear later. Attendees could also write messages in a tribute book.
After the function, the synagogue’s courtyard filled with congregants sharing champagne and hors d’oeuvres as the celebration continued.
“We will miss your senior ‘rabbiness’,” Rabbi Ninio told Rabbi Kamins, “but we will embrace your Rabbi Emeritus.”
All photos by Rob Klein
