‘Affordable luxury’: Inside a new outer suburban shtetl

In a quiet neighbourhood in Melbourne's outer west, a small group of Orthodox Jews are gathering inside a large, brand new, custom-built house to pray.

It is one of the first weekly Shabbat services for several families who now call the New Jewish Community of Fraser Rise home. For now, they make do with a home minyan but there are plans for a purpose-built synagogue.

Talks of creating a new home for the Jewish community away from the traditional and well-resourced Caulfield or St Kilda in Melbourne and Bondi in Sydney have circled for many years, but no attempt has yet been successful – until now.

The New Jewish Community (NJC) – set over five acres in Fraser Rise’s Westwood Walk estate, a developing area around 25 kilometers north-west of Melbourne’s CBD – aims to address Australia’s housing crisis by providing affordable and accessible housing while supporting an Orthodox Jewish lifestyle.

The idea for the new community first came to a group of Orthodox Jews in Melbournein 2021. Increasingly jaded by soaring house prices and craving more space during the COVID lockdowns, about 20 families bought cheap land together and mapped out a community in Fraser Rise. One month ago, the first of them moved into their newly built properties.

Residents say they are delighted with their new homes but they are also conscious of security in the current climate and none was prepared to be identified for this article.