Aussies urged to rally for Rella

FRIENDS are rallying to raise funds to help a popular Israeli fitness guru, who grew up in Australia, fight her personal battle against brain cancer.

Rella Itin, 37, who was born in Israel to Russian parents in Haifa, moved Down Under in 1981 when she was two years old.

Shira Agassy, a close friend in Israel, told The AJN that Itin grew up in Bondi, going to Yeshiva Primary School and Kambala School.

She finished high school with top marks and was accepted into the prestigious BIT scholarship program at UNSW. She did volunteer work at Sydney’s Royal Far West Children’s Home.

Itin was recognised with several achievement awards in computing and finance, including the Young Australian Achievement Award for Business Ideas and Innovation.

n 2003, taking a cue from her brother Eli who had made aliyah, she returned to Israel. Quitting a high-powered finance career, she followed her lifelong passion for athletics to become a fitness icon, famous for the six-week intensive “boot camps” she has conducted for the past seven years on the beach at Tel Aviv and also at Ra’anana.

However, in March this year, the mother of two young children received devastating news – she was diagnosed with inoperable brain ­cancer.

Read the full story by Peter Kohn in the Australian Jewish News