The campaign · Open now
770 → 788
Save the outpost of Jewish life
at the end of the world.
788 Remuera Road is for sale. It is the one building in Auckland where Shabbat, Hebrew school, classes, festivals and hospitality all happen under a single roof. Chabad New Zealand is raising the funds to buy it — so this address stays Jewish for good.
NZ$890 raised toward NZ$800,000
788 Remuera Road, Auckland · Scroll
770 → 788
Some addresses become more than addresses.
A story about a woman, a library, a Jewish community at the edge of the world — and what happens next.
NZ$890 raised toward NZ$800,000
Contents
Six chapters.
One address.
There is a seventh chapter. It has no page, because it hasn't been written yet.
770
For generations of Chabad Jews, three numbers have meant more than a street address. 770 Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn became a home, a meeting place, and a point from which Jewish life travelled outward across the world.
At almost the other end of the world
788
A different address. A much smaller building. A remarkably similar idea.
At 788 Remuera Road in Auckland, Jewish life has quietly accumulated for more than twenty years. Not because the building is monumental. Because of what happens inside.
What happens inside
Pray.
A minyan comes together on a Tuesday morning because somebody has yahrzeit.
Learn.
A child learns her first Hebrew letters here.
Eat.
Someone collects challah before Shabbat here.
Celebrate.
Simchat Torah, and nobody sitting down.
Welcome.
Someone visiting New Zealand finds a Shabbat table here.
Belong.
Someone walks in knowing nobody — and leaves knowing somebody.
This is what 788 actually contains.
Not bricks. Life.
It was just a building.
The structure at 788 Remuera Road is not a grand architectural monument. It was already standing long before it became the Raye Freedman Library. That makes its story more interesting, not less.
A place does not become important because an architect declares it important. Sometimes people make it important simply by returning to it — week after week, year after year, generation after generation.
“A building becomes important because of what happens inside it.”
Property value
- Land
- Square metres
- Zoning
- Development potential
Community value
- Children
- Books
- Shabbat
- Memory
- Belonging
- Continuity
Both are real. Only one appears on a property valuation.
Raye
Raye Freedman · Teacher · Speech therapist · Businesswoman · Philanthropist
Raye began life far from New Zealand. Born Rachel Ginsberg in Winnipeg, she trained as a speech therapist and eventually came to New Zealand during the extraordinary upheaval of the Second World War.
She married Ernst Blumenthal, a Czech Jewish refugee who had escaped Europe. She worked. She taught. She built a life.
After Ernst died, Raye entered property development and property management — a field then dominated overwhelmingly by men. She succeeded.
And then she did something important with that success. She gave. She supported Jewish education, children, and the arts. She supported Kadimah. She helped create the Raye Freedman Arts Centre at Epsom Girls Grammar. She supported organisations across New Zealand Jewish life.
And in Remuera, she created something unusually personal: a library.
Raye understood property. But she also understood that property could become something more.
The Raye Freedman Library became a place for Jewish education, conversation, worship and community. It housed thousands of books. But the books were only the beginning.
Raye had no children of her own. Historical accounts say she sometimes worried that her name might one day be forgotten.
Twenty years later, children still walk through Raye's door.
Perhaps this is what legacy looks like. Not a name on a wall. Something still alive.
Read Raye's full storyBefore it was Chabad's home, it was already a Jewish home.
The Raye Freedman Library served Jewish organisations and individuals across Auckland. Historical records show communal meetings, educational talks and activities involving organisations including the Auckland Jewish Council, the Auckland Hebrew Congregation, Hadassah and others.
The building developed as a place where Jewish Auckland could gather. Eventually Chabad New Zealand became its principal day-to-day community presence. Today Chabad carries much of the life inside 788. But the story of 788 is bigger than any single organisation.
Places survive when generations agree to carry them forward.
On the Raye Freedman Trust
The Raye Freedman Trust has carried Raye's philanthropic legacy for decades, supporting organisations across Jewish, educational and cultural life. This campaign is not about undoing that legacy. It is about asking whether one part of it can continue in the place where it grew.
Jewish life here has always needed a place.
New Zealand's Jewish story is small in numbers. It is not small in determination.
Jewish settlers were present in New Zealand from the earliest decades of European settlement. In early Auckland there was no synagogue. So people prayed where they could.
One of the earliest Jewish prayer gatherings took place above David Nathan's store in Shortland Street. A loft became a synagogue because there was nowhere else.
Then the community built institutions. Synagogues. Schools. Cemeteries. Community organisations. Places to gather.
- 1830sEarly Jewish settlers
- 1840sJewish prayer in early Auckland
- 1885Princes Street Synagogue
- 20th centurySchools · Synagogues · Organisations · Immigration
- Early 2000sRaye Freedman Library
- Today788 Remuera Road
For nearly two centuries, Jewish life in New Zealand has survived because somebody made room for it.
A loft. A synagogue. A school. A library. A home.
Now our generation has an address. 788.
Jewish life at the edge of the world.
Jewish life is dense in some places and thin in others. Auckland sits at the far end of every one of these lines.
Equirectangular projection · 110m coastlines
In New York, Melbourne, Sydney or Jerusalem, Jewish infrastructure can feel permanent. In New Zealand, the community is small. There are only a limited number of places where Jewish life can happen physically. That changes the meaning of losing one.
We are not saying Jewish life disappears if one building is sold. But when a small community loses a permanent place, rebuilding that infrastructure can take years — sometimes generations. That is why 788 matters.
The door is open today.
Today, Chabad New Zealand operates from the Raye Freedman Library. From this modest building, Jewish life reaches far beyond Remuera.
01
Hebrew School
Children learning Hebrew, Torah, Jewish history, customs and holidays.
02
Shabbat
Services, meals, locals, visitors and travellers.
03
Torah study
Weekly learning and adult education.
04
Bar & Bat Mitzvah
Young people preparing for Jewish adulthood.
05
Holidays
Chanukah on the deck, Purim, the High Holidays — the Jewish year, kept in one place.
06
Kosher New Zealand
Kosher food, challah, Judaica and Jewish supplies serving Auckland and beyond.
07
JewQ
Children in New Zealand connecting into a wider Australian and international Jewish learning network.
08
Travellers
Jewish visitors to one of the world's most geographically isolated Jewish communities finding a familiar door.
Now 788 is being sold.
For the first time in a generation, the future of this place is uncertain. Chabad New Zealand has an opportunity to acquire 788 Remuera Road and preserve it as a permanent home for Jewish life.
The property has value as real estate. But the Jewish community has an opportunity to give it another kind of value: continuity.
This is where the story stops being history.
What happens next is up to us.
Imagine 788 in 2050.
Imagine a child walking through the same door Raye once opened. Another generation learning Hebrew here. Another Shabbat table. Another traveller arriving from the other side of the world. Another Purim. Another conversation between two people who did not know each other yesterday.
Another generation saying: “This is where we come.”
That future does not require us to invent a new place. It asks us to preserve the one we already have.
We can keep 788.
Campaign target
$800,000
Raised
$890
Remaining
$799,110
NZ$890 raised toward NZ$800,000
Write the next chapter.
Raye created a place. Auckland's Jewish community filled it with life. Now another generation has the chance to keep its door open.
Your donation supports Chabad New Zealand's campaign to secure 788 Remuera Road as a permanent home for Jewish life. Tax treatment differs by country; jurisdiction-specific information will be published once confirmed.
Ways to give
- $180Keep the door openChai, eighteen times ten.
- $770From 770Brooklyn, where the idea travelled from.
- $788To 788Remuera Road, where it landed.
- $1,800Build the next generationToward Hebrew School and learning.
- $7,880Founding supporterNamed in the campaign record.
- $18,000Guardian of 788Speak with the campaign team.
Suggested amounts are indicative and editable. No amount purchases a specific asset.
Why 770 → 788?
770 Eastern Parkway became synonymous with Chabad and Jewish outreach around the world. 788 Remuera Road is the address of the Raye Freedman Library in Auckland.
770 → 788 expresses something simple: Jewish life travels. It takes root wherever somebody makes a place for it. This is Auckland's place.
Explore how 770 reached New ZealandFootnote: the original 770 complex itself eventually expanded into neighbouring buildings, including 784–788 Eastern Parkway. An interesting coincidence — nothing more than that.
Transparency
The plan
Property
788 Remuera Road, Auckland, New Zealand
Current home of
Raye Freedman Library / Chabad New Zealand activities
Campaign organisation
Chabad New Zealand Hebrew Charitable Trust
Objective
Acquire the property and secure it as a permanent home for Jewish life in Auckland.
Purchase / campaign target
$800,000
Timeline
The property is being sold. The campaign is open now.
Funds
Every gift is received by Chabad New Zealand Hebrew Charitable Trust toward the purchase of 788.
If the target is not reached
Every gift still goes to securing a permanent home for Jewish life in Auckland.
Contact
Chabad New Zealand · office@chabad.nz · +64 22 350 6622
Raye once worried that because she had no children, her name might eventually disappear.
But legacy does not always travel through descendants. Sometimes it travels through what we leave behind.
