Following the trip, the Groners and their growing family moved to Buffalo to run the Chabad school there. While in Buffalo she was instrumental in building a women's mikvah—a project she spearheaded and raised significant funds for.
In 1954, the rabbi visited Australia a second time—this time as an emissary of the Seventh Rebbe—and the local community asked that he come back permanently. In 1958, the Groners moved to Australia for what was initially meant to be for three-to-five-years. Mrs. Groner waited behind, and then took her children by boat to join her husband.
They threw themselves into their work of bolstering the existing Jewish framework and building new institutions.
They ended up remaining for the rest of their lives devoted to their mission as emissaries of the Rebbe. Their home was an open one, and there were regular classes for men and women there both on Shabbat and on weekdays.
Under their stewardship, the cluster of schools they led grew to educate tens of thousands of Jewish children over the decades and Judaism flourished in Australia.
At the time of her husband’s passing in 2008, Isi Leibler, a former president of Australian Jewry, said: “History will record that Rabbi Yitzchok Groner was beyond a doubt the greatest Australian Jewish leader of the past century.”
While her husband built organizations and schools, she built people and families.
Even as their community grew, she remained involved in the lives hundreds of individuals, patiently listening and supporting with gentle advice and guidance. That same patience allowed her to teach many people who discovered Judaism late in life how to read Hebrew, supporting, encouraging and taking pride in their accomplishments.
Her Chassidic devotion and fervor never waned. She was scrupulous in her mitzvah observance, faithfully praying three times a day, and was particular that someone (often a doting grandchild) be present to say “Amen” after she said each of the morning blessings.
Like her father, she loved to sing, tell stories about her beloved and revered Rebbes, and share anecdotes from her storied and significant life. But most of all she loved to laugh. She saw the best in everyone and and everything.
In her early days in Melbourne, she struggled to light the fire in her home one chilly winter morning. In true Chassidic fashion, she saw it as a lesson in man’s service to G‑d. After she shared her insight with the Rebbe, she received a letter back encouraging her to publish her insights. The result was an article in the N’shei Chabad Newsletter (Purim , 1983) in which she compares the Rebbes to matches, the shluchim to twigs, and their communities to logs, all of which burn with a holy fire.
She is survived by her brother Rabbi Velvel Konikov, Brooklyn, N.Y. Children: Rabbi Sholom Ber Groner, Johannesburg, South Africa; Miriam Telsner, Melbourne; Shterna Zirkind, Brooklyn, N.Y.; Rabbi Yossi Groner, Melbourne; Chaya Haller, Johannesburg, South Africa; Rabbi Chaim Tzvi Groner, Melbourne; Rivkah Yurkowicz, Melbourne; Rabbi Mendy Groner, Melbourne; and many grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
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