Israeli Backpacker Among Dead in Earthquake that Rocked New Zealand

By JTA February 23, 2011

An Israeli backpacker is believed to be among the 65 people killed in the earthquake that shook New Zealand, and the destruction in Christchurch on the country’s South Island included the city’s Chabad house.

Another Christchurch synagogue reportedly suffered damage but was not destroyed.

The Israeli, who was not immediately named by Israeli Embassy officials, was in a car with three other Israelis when a building collapsed on them during the 6.3-magnitude earthquake that ripped through the city around lunchtime on February 22, according to Rabbi Shmuel Friedman, a Chabad rabbi in Christchurch.

New Zealand Prime Minister John Key, the son of a Jewish refugee who escaped Europe to England on the eve of the Holocaust, said the quake could turn out to be his nation’s “darkest day.”

Israel offered to send food and medicine to help. With hundreds of Israeli backpackers visiting New Zealand each year, the Israeli foreign ministry said there could be up to 150 Israelis in Christchurch.

With phone lines down and power lines cut, communications have been limited. Wellington-based David Zwartz, a former president of the New Zealand Jewish Council, said he received a text message from Bettina Wallace, the immediate past president of Canterbury Hebrew Congregation, the main synagogue in the region.

The text message read: “Shul damaged but fixable.”

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

The coming year promises to be filled with more complex and historic developments. We are entering an era where independent, fact-based Jewish journalism will be more important than ever. We need to be ready for whatever 2025 will bring, and with your help, we can be.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO