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| THE
FIRST JEWS |
The
first Jews came to Australia literally on the first day of European settlement
on the continent – 26 January 1788.
Among
the 827 convicts on the English First Fleet who began Australia’s
European settlement was a small number of Jewish convicts, estimated
by historians at between eight and 14, transported from England
to Botany Bay, near Sydney, for relatively trivial crimes.
The
first free Jewish settler to arrive in Australia, however, came in 1816.
The
first Jewish religious society in Australia, a burial society, began in 1817 and the first Jewish religious service took place about the same time.
Organised
Jewish religious life in Australia began in the 1830s in Sydney,
with the formation of the first permanent congregation.
The
first synagogue, Beth Tephilah, was established in 1837. By
the mid-nineteenth century, an organised Jewish community existed in Sydney
and in several country towns in New South Wales. Communities also
developed contemporaneously in 1840 and, too, in the remaining colonies.
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| 19TH
CENTURY |
There
were 5,486 Jews in Australia in 1861 and 15,239 by 1901.
Most had come from Britain
(rather than Eastern Europe) and were thus English-speaking. In part
because of this, they knew little or no organised anti-Semitism or persecution.
Many of these Jews were merchants
or traders, although nearly all occupational backgrounds were to be found
among these early Jewish settlers. Many lived in country towns.
All Jewish religious worship
until the 1930s was according to the Orthodox rite, and followed
the Anglo-Orthodox tradition of British Jewry.
Although the Jewish community
may claim to be the earliest organised non-Anglo-Celtic community in Australia,
with its own synagogues and other institutions, pressures on it to assimilate
and merge by intermarriage with the majority population were considerable.
This
was particularly due to the lack of a Jewish day school system until the 1940s and because of a traditional Australian mistrust of non-British communities
until after World War II.
In
all likelihood, Jewish life in Australia would virtually have disappeared
by the 1980s without the arrival of Central and East European refugees
in the 1930s and 1940s and the creation of a distinctive
network of Jewish institutions, especially the Jewish day school system.
Nevertheless,
the Jewish community which existed here prior to the 1930s produced
a remarkable range of great men and women who contributed considerably
to the development of the Australian nation. |
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| POST-WAR
IMMIGRATION |
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| The
Australian Jewish community was transformed in the 1930s and 1940s by the arrival of approximately 8,000 Jewish refugees from Nazi
Germany Austria and Czechoslovakia and, slightly later, by approximately 35,000 East European survivors of the Holocaust.
(Melbourne’s Jewish community
is said to have the highest percentage of Holocaust survivors of any Jewish
community in the world.)
These
Central and East European Jews differed markedly in their outlook from
the largely Anglo-Jewish community which they found on their arrival.
Most spoke Yiddish, Polish, German or Hungarian.
In
contrast to many non-Zionist Australian Jews of British background, the
newcomers were keenly Zionist in orientation and strongly supported the
establishment of Israel in 1948 and since.
From
the 1940s, too, substantial numbers of Sephardi Jews, especially
from Egypt, have settled in Australia (particularly in Adelaide) as have,
more recently, thousands of Jews from Southern Africa and the former Soviet
Union. |
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| COMMUNAL
INSTITUTIONS |
As
a result, the Australian Jewish community grew markedly and developed a
flourishing range of communal institutions previously unknown.
Australian
synagogues grew in number from about a dozen in the 1930s to
over 80 today, representing nearly all streams in contemporary Jewish
religious life from Adass Yisroel and Chassidic to Progressive Judaism.
The
most important institution developed by the newcomers, however, has been
the network of Jewish day schools, now numbering about 20, which
in some respects is without parallel in the diaspora.
Over 75 percent of Melbourne’s Primary Jewish school children and over 50% of the city’s secondary school student, now attend a Jewish day school.
Melbourne’s Mount Scopus Memorial College, which takes students from pre-schoolers
to high school seniors, is one of the largest Jewish day schools in the
diaspora, with an enrolment of almost 2,000.
The estimated percentages
for the Sydney Jewish community is 60% for primary and 40% for secondary students.
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| POPULATION |
The
great majority of Australia’s Jewish population (approx. 100,000)
lives in Melbourne and Sydney, Australia’s two largest cities, with only
Western Australia of the other states having as many as about 8,000 Jews. (However, there are established Jewish communities in all major
cities in Australia.)
Jews
live mainly in the state capital cities, with only small numbers in the
smaller country towns. The only exceptions to this are in Queensland,
where there is a substantial, rapidly growing Jewish population in the
Gold Coast resort area, and in Tasmania.
As
noted, the two largest Jewish communities by far in Australia are in Melbourne
and Sydney.
It
is often said that the ambience of the two communities is different, with
the Melbourne community (approx. 50,000) primarily of Polish background,
being more conservative, and the Sydney community, with relatively more
Hungarian and German Jews, being more liberal. (This may reflect
the tone of the two cities as much as anything else.)
In both cities there are
distinctly Jewish areas where many (though certainly not all) Jews live
and where most Jewish synagogues and other institutions may be found.
In
Melbourne, about 75 percent of the Jewish community lives south
of the Yarra River in a belt running from South Yarra and Toorak to Moorabbin
and Glen Iris, and centering in Caulfield and St. Kilda.
The
‘main street’ of Melbourne Jewry is Carlisle Street, East St. Kilda, while
the well-known tourist district around St. Kilda’s Acland Street also has
a Jewish ambience.
Much of the Caulfield-St.
Kilda area is heavily and recognisably part of a ‘Jewish neighbourhood’,
with many Jewish interest shops, kosher restaurants, cafes, butcher shops,
and numerous Chassidic residents. About 20
percent of the community lives in a second belt of Jewish settlement
in north-eastern Melbourne, with synagogues and community centres in Doncaster
and Kew.
Before
the Second World War many Jewish migrants lived in Carlton, north of the
city centre, but Jewish settlement there has declined in recent decades.
Another
distinctive feature of Melbourne life (much more so than of other Jewish
communities) is the amount of Yiddish still spoken by the Jewish community.
Many older Jews still prefer to speak Yiddish. There is also a Yiddish
school and Yiddish theatre in Melbourne.
The
Jewish community of Sydney is more spread out than in Melbourne.
The
traditional centre of Jewish life in Sydney is in the eastern bay and beach
suburbs from Double Bay through Woollahra to Bondi, although these areas
are not as distinctively ‘Jewish’ as their equivalents in Melbourne.
Bondi contains a number of Jewish shops and the principally-Jewish Hakoah
Club.
Many
Jews also live in the northern suburbs to the north of Sydney Harbour,
known as the North Shore, which has a strong Southern African Jewish ex-patriate
presence.
There
are no distinctively Jewish areas in other Australian cities. However,
many Jews in Perth live in Yokine, Dianella West and Noranda which, like
Sydney’s North Shore and Melbourne’s Doncaster, is home to large numbers
of South African and Zimbabwean Jewish migrants.
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| COMMUNAL
BODIES |
The
Australian Jewish community has a well-organised system of communal self-government
which represents nearly all synagogues, schools, communal groups, and institutions
at both the national (federal) and state levels.
The national roof body of
the Australian Jewish community, which represents the Jewish community
at a national level to the Australian government, is known as the Executive
Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ).
As
in Britain, at the state level the roof body of the Jewish community is
often known as the Jewish Board of Deputies. Most Australian states
have such a Board – or an equivalent body. The Melbourne-based board
is the Jewish Community Council of Victoria (JCCV).
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| SYNAGOGUES |
There
are currently about 35 synagogues in Sydney and an equal or greater number
in Melbourne representing, in both cities, a variety of strands in religious
Jewish life – Sephardi and Ashkenazi Orthodoxy (middle-of-the-road, Chassidic,
etc.) and Progressive (Liberal/Reform) Judaism.
Most
are located in the major areas of Jewish settlement, but in both Sydney
and Melbourne there are architecturally distinguished and historically
important synagogues near the centre of each city and away from these areas,
viz. the Great Synagogue in Elizabeth Street, Sydney, the East Melbourne
Hebrew Congregation in Albert Street, East Melbourne, and the Melbourne
Hebrew Congregation in Toorak Road, South Yarra.
In
Perth, Adelaide, Brisbane and the Gold Coast (Queensland) there are synagogues
in each city, representing the Orthodox and Progressive communities.
Hobart,
Launceston, Newcastle and Ballarat each has a single Orthodox synagogue,
although the Hobart synagogue is today shared by the Orthodox and Reform
communities of that city.
Although
American Judaism is traditionally divided into Orthodox, Reform, Reconstructionist
and Conservative Judaism, the latter two movements have never really found
their place in Australian Jewish life.
Nevertheless, most Australian
Jews who are affiliated to synagogues would define themselves as traditional
– perhaps even ‘Conserv-adox’.
Furthermore, there have been
fledgling attempts in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane to establish Conservative
congregations in recent times. Reconstructionist Judaism, an exclusively
American Phenomenon, has not, however, made a mark on Australian Jewry,
which is still strongly attached to its European roots.
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| DAY
SCHOOLS |
Perhaps
the most notable and distinctive feature of Australian Jewish life is the
system of Jewish private day schools which now educate most Australian
Jewish children of school age.
Melbourne’s
Mount Scopus Memorial College, the first such school to make a real impact
on the Jewish community, was founded in 1947. In the years
since, 19 other Jewish day schools have been established in Australia.
There
are ten such schools in Melbourne. Others include the Adass Israel
School, Yeshiva College and Beth Rivkah Ladies’ College, representing Chassidic
or strictly Orthodox Judaism, Leibler-Yavneh College, connected with the
Mizrachi movement (modern Orthodox/Zionist), The King David School, established
by the Progressive (Liberal) stream, Bialik College, a Zionist school,
and Sholem Aleichem College, emphasising Yiddish language and culture.
In Sydney there are six Jewish day schools.
Moriah War Memorial College,
the largest, has over 1,500 students and is a traditional community school,
located in Sydney’s eastern suburbs.
Masada College (enrolment
- approximately 800 pupils) located on the North Shore and Mount Sinai
College, are also traditional schools. Yeshiva Girls’ High School
and Yeshiva College (for boys) are strictly Orthodox, while The Emmanuel
School represents Progressive Jewry. There
are also Jewish day schools in Perth (approx. 850 pupils), Adelaide (for
elementary grades only), Brisbane and the Gold Coast.
Additionally, there are numerous
Jewish Sunday Schools (part-time Jewish education for Jewish students who
attend non-Jewish schools) and many Jewish youth movements, representing
a wide range of religious and secular movements in the community. |
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| TERTIARY |
There
are numerous Jewish courses available at many of Australia’s universities
and at some Colleges of Advanced Education.
Shalom
College, a residential house at the University of New South Wales in Sydney,
provides kosher facilities.
There
is a large and well-established Australasian Union of Jewish Students as
well as Jewish student bodies at most universities and other tertiary institutions.
The Chassidic movement maintains
a rabbinical training institution in Melbourne. And there are kollelim
in both Melbourne and Sydney. |
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| WELFARE |
The
Jewish community has a long-established and highly regarded welfare and
relief system providing, especially, assistance for newly-arrived immigrants
in need, for children and teenagers in financial or emotional difficulty
and for the handicapped and the aged.
The
Montefiore Homes in Melbourne and Sydney are impressive residences for
the aged. A wide variety of other Jewish welfare organizations exist
in all Jewish communities. |
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| ORGANISATIONS |
There
is, especially in Melbourne and Sydney, a rich variety of Jewish organizations,
clubs and societies of every description relating to women’s, sporting,
political, cultural, and veterans’ activities, inter alia.
The
B’nai B’rith, the first Australian branch of which was founded in 1945,
is an important part of the Australian Jewish scene.
Additionally, there are
numerous societies of Holocaust survivors and former anti-Nazi resistance
fighters and important Yiddish cultural activities, especially those associated
with the Kadimah Jewish Cultural Centre and National Library. |
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PUBLICATIONS,
PRESS AND RADIO |
There
is a national English-language weekly newspaper, The Australian Jewish
News, serving the Australian Jewish community.
There
are also several other Jewish publications, including AIJAC, which carries
news of the Middle East and surveys extreme right – and left-wing anti-Semitism,
and the Melbourne Chronicle, a Yiddish-interest literary magazine which
is published several times a year.
Most
synagogues and Jewish societies publish regular journals. There are
several hours of weekly Jewish broadcasting on the ‘ethnic’ radio stations
in Sydney and Melbourne which carry Jewish-interest broadcasts in English,
Hebrew and Yiddish. These programs are advertised in the press.
Local Jewish internet sites also abound. |
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| CULTURE |
A
number of excellent Jewish museums exist in Australia, together
with Holocaust Museums and resource centres.
There is also a well-established
Australian Jewish Historical Society with branches in Sydney and Melbourne.
It publishes an important Journal and has collected a plethora of historical
and genealogical material relating to Australian Jewry. |
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| ISRAEL |
Like
all other Jewish communities worldwide, the Australian Jewish community
strongly supports the State of Israel, and many of its public activities
are directed toward assisting it and demonstrating support for its continuing
progress.
Education
about Israel is an important part of the curricula of the overwhelming
majority of the Jewish day schools, and many organizations exist specifically
to support Israel or to assist Australia-Israel friendship and trade.
There
are numerous bodies in the Jewish community which work directly to support
the State of Israel.
The most important is the
Zionist Federation of Australia, with branches in all states.
Many other organizations,
such as the Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce and Industry, exist whose
aim is to promote Australia-Israel contact.
Communal Yom Yerushalayim,
Yom Ha’atzmaut, and other celebrations, and Yom Hazikaron and Yom Hashoah
commemorations, are attended by thousands of community members. |
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| In sum, Jewish life in
Australia is vibrant, and the community has much of which to be proud. |
