Didgeridoo Player Does a Mitzvah

Australian Jewish News

A Jewish-Aboriginal didgeridoo player was able to celebrate his bar mitzvah at Uluru recently thanks to the travelling rabbis of Chabad of Rural and Regional Australia (RARA).

Rabbis Yehezkel Tuvel and Eli Adelist made contact with 44-year-old Dwayne Phillis, the son of a Jewish mother and an Aboriginal father, last month during a tour of the Northern Territory.

Recent rabbinic graduates Tuvel and Adelist were travelling around the NT in one of RARA’s kosher-certified Winnebagos, which acts as a synagogue on wheels, searching for and supporting Jews living outside urban centres.

“We met Dwayne when we visited Uluru,” Tuvel told The AJN.

“He plays the didgeridoo in town every night for the tourists and only found out about his Jewish heritage from his mother later in life.”

Tuvel and Adelist had been on the look-out for Phillis after a rabbi had contacted RARA, requesting they contact him. “The rabbi heard about Dwayne from a Jewish woman who had heard Dwayne play,” Tuvel said.

“She and Dwayne were chatting after the show and he mentioned he had discovered he had Jewish blood.”

Curious about his Jewish roots and Jewish customs, Phillis was enthusiastic to speak with Tuvel and Adelist.

“My mother spoke about her Jewishness very rarely but I knew that you were considered Jewish if your mother was,” Phillis told them.

“I don’t know why, but the family’s Jewishness was always kept very secret. Because mum barely spoke about it, I don’t know much about my family history. I know the family came from France and they then fled to Australia, although I don’t know under what circumstances.”

Wishing to embrace both his Aboriginal and Jewish roots, Phillis celebrated his long-delayed bar mitzvah at Uluru with the help of the rabbis.

“Dwayne is a very spiritual man and really enjoyed discussing and learning about Jewish life, observance and culture, including the significance of tefillin and the importance of having a bar mitzvah,” Tuvel said.

“It was a very emotional and spiritually uplifting experience for all of us.”