The history of the Jews in Australia dates back to 1788, when a number of Jews were among the convicts brought to the country aboard the First Fleet to establish the first European settlement on the continent, on the site of present-day Sydney. Today, an estimated 120,000 Jews live in Australia.[1] The majority are Ashkenazi Jews, many of them refugees and Holocaust survivors who arrived during and after World War II. There is also a significant Sephardic Jewish population.
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At least 15 Jews are known to have come to Australia as convicts on the First Fleet in 1788, 14 convicts and one "free" child,[2] though the actual number is uncertain. In 1828, there were 100 Jews in Australia, and that number increased to just over 1,000 in 1841. As a result of the Victorian gold rush, the number increased to 5,486 in 1861. In 1933, the combined Australian Jewish communities numbered 23,000, with most being from Anglo-Celtic backgrounds. Between 1933 and 1939, 8,000 Jews immigrated to the country; and between 1945 and 1955 another 27,000 immigrated, prominently Holocaust survivors of eastern Europe. The arriving post-War migrants were helped to settle by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, the Australian Jewish Welfare Societies and Australian Jewish Welfare and Relief Society. A majority of the migrants settled in Melbourne, particularly in Carlton, while others settled in Sydney in suburbs such as Kings Cross, Bondi and St. Ives. In recent years, significant numbers of Jews have immigrated from South Africa, the former Soviet Union and some from Israel. There has also been a significant immigration of Indian Jews, mostly from Bombay.
The Jewish population of Australia was 88,834 in the 2006 census. According to this census, the largest communities were in Melbourne (40,547) and Sydney (35,253) with smaller communities dispersed among the remaining capital cities and regional centres. The Jewish population has grown through migration from South Africa, New Zealand and the former Soviet Union. Although 88,834 people identified themselves as Jews, the census did not include Australian Jews living overseas and those who preferred not to disclose their religion. One estimate put the Jewish population at 120,000.[1] with 60,000 in Melbourne and 45,000 in Sydney.
A number of Jews are known to have come to Australia as convicts transported aboard the First Fleet in 1788 to Botany Bay.[3] Over time these convicts became freed men, and were sufficiently attached to their religion to form a chevra kadisha (burial society). In 1820, the Reverend Dr. Cowper allotted land for the establishment of a Jewish cemetery in the right-hand corner of the then Christian cemetery. The Jewish section was created to enable the burial of one Joel Joseph. During the next ten years there was no great increase in membership of the society; and its services were not called for more than once a year.
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In the same year, the first Jewish wedding in Australia was celebrated, the contracting parties being Moses Joseph and Rosetta Nathan.[4] Three years later a Mr. Rose came from England and acted as the chazzan, shochet, and mohel. He was succeeded by Jacob Isaacs. The condition of the Jewish community improved to such an extent that in 1844 the first synagogue was formed in York Street, Sydney using rented space,[5] which continued in use for more than thirty years.
The Great Synagogue, located on Elizabeth Street, opposite Hyde Park, was consecrated in 1878. In 1895, the first Jewish newspaper, called the Hebrew Standard of Australasia, was published in Sydney, and is the forerunner of the Australian Jewish News. There is a massive community of Jews in the Sydney suburb of Bondi.
Tasmania, being the second oldest settlement in Australia, is most likely the second Jewish settlement in Australia. The oldest surviving synagogue is the Egyptian Revival Hobart Synagogue in Hobart was consecrated on 4 July 1845. The largest numbers of Jews in Tasmania was recorded in 1848, when the census recorded 435 Jews in Tasmania.
Jews also began to assemble in Victoria in the 1840s. The Melbourne Hebrew Congregation, Melbourne, formed in 1841, and the first synagogue building opened in 1847, at 472 Bourke Street, with a seating capacity of 100.[6] With the arrival of large numbers of immigrants in the 1850s, the need for a larger synagogue was felt. Construction of a larger 600 seat synagogue at South Yarra commenced in March 1855. This was followed by St Kilda, Geelong, Bendigo, and Ballarat (1853). By the 1850s, during the time of the Victorian Gold Rush, Melbourne had become the largest Jewish settlement in the country. The East Melbourne Hebrew Congregation split from the Bourke St congregation in 1857. A religious court (Beth Din) was set up in Melbourne in 1866. The St Kilda Hebrew Congregation was formed in 1871, with the first services held in St Kilda Town Hall and the building of a permanent building in Charnwood Road commencing in 1872.[7]
Jews settled in South Australia from 1836, arriving in the ships at Holdfast Bay among the first free-settler colonists from England. A group of the male Jewish colonists met in Emanuel Solomon's Temple Tavern in Adelaide in 1848 to form the Adelaide Hebrew Congregation and raise funds to build a synagogue. The first synagogue was consecrated in Adelaide in 1850 followed by an attached larger synagogue consecrated in 1870. The city synagogue was the longest continuously used synagogue in the southern hemisphere until the congregation moved in 1990 to a larger synagogue built at Glenside. The need to move was due to an influx of South African Jewish families in the 1980s as well as the difficulty in finding family homes near the city synagogue. Portions of the original 1850 synagogue had also been listed as a heritage building which made adaptation to accommodate an influx of migrants difficult. The Jewish population has fluctuated with waves of migration, varying between 1,000 and 2,000 over the last century. Apart from the early settlement of Jews from England (many of whom were originally from Poland, Russia or other Ashkenazi communities), there were consecutive waves from Europe, Britain, Egypt, Russia, South Africa and more recently, Israel. The Jews who arrived from Egypt from 1947 to 1956 were mostly Sephardim and numbered many hundreds, and the Adelaide Jewish community continues to be unique in this regard. The wave of post-World-War-II Jewish migration from Europe led to a population peak; their children were also among the 'baby-boomer' peak but their grand-children left in large numbers for Melbourne or Sydney to seek marriage partners after completing their tertiary education. Of around 60-70 South African Jewish families who came in the 1980s, the majority moved after several years to large South African Jewish communities, mostly in Perth or Sydney. The Jews from the USSR in the 1990s came with little involvement in Jewish life. The Israeli migrants arriving in recent years have formed a Tarbut Society for Hebrew speakers to preserve their cultural identity. Four decades after a Jewish day-school was established by the congregation, the decline in enrolments resulted in the closure of Massada College (Adelaide) in 2011 and the return to synagogue cheder classes for education of the children of the community.
Somewhat later than the southern States, the Brisbane (Queensland) congregation took form. Services were held in the Masonic Hall for more than twenty years (1865–1886), after which a synagogue with a seating capacity of 400 was built in Margaret Street. The youngest of the Australian communities is that of Perth, Western Australia. It was formed in 1892 as a result of the great influx of people into the western colony after the discovery of gold in the 1890s. The Jewish congregation grew rapidly, with the Brisbane Street synagogue being built and consecrated five years after the first minyan.
Each of the colonies has witnessed the rise and decline of a congregation. In New South Wales there was at one time a flourishing community in Maitland. A synagogue was built there in 1879; but owing to adverse circumstances most of the Jews left for other parts. The same fate befell the congregation of Toowoomba, Queensland, where in 1879 the Jews built a beautiful house of worship on their own ground, and under such favourable conditions that within a few years the synagogue was entirely free from debt. It was used only on the High Holidays by the few living at Toowoomba. Rockhampton, also in Queensland, has suffered similarly.
Perhaps the shortest career was that of the Coolgardie community in Western Australia. In 1896 a number of Jews, attracted by the rich gold-fields, were in that city. They at once obtained a grant of land from the government, collected subscriptions, and forthwith proceeded to build a synagogue. Within three years, however, such a thinning-out had taken place that the remaining members were unable to pay the debt on the synagogue; and the building was sold by the creditors to a Masonic body and converted into a Masonic hall.
JewishCare is among Australia's largest and oldest Jewish aid organisations, started in 1935 to assist with Jewish migration from Nazi Germany. It is still engaged in assisting migrants and other services.[8]
Jews have been mayors of nearly all the capital cities of Australia, as well as of many smaller towns. Numerous Jews have sat in the State and Commonwealth parliaments; and, in proportion to the population, a large percentage have held ministerial portfolios. The first Jew appointed to the Colonial Parliament of New South Wales' Legislative Council in 1854 was prominent merchant, Sir Saul Samuel, who subsequently became a member of the Legislative Assembly and Treasurer and the first Jew to become a minister of the Crown.[9]
Several Jews have served as State Governors and as Chief Justices of particular states. Sir Julian Salomons was Chief Justice of New South Wales for a fortnight in 1886; the position of Chief Justice of NSW was held by James Spigelman from 19 May 1998 until 31 May 2011. Mahla Pearlman was Chief Judge of the NSW Land and Environment Court from 1992 to 2003, and she was the first woman chief judge in any (State) jurisdiction in Australia. Jews are especially prominent in the legal profession; for example, in Melbourne alone, the Hon. Michael Rozenes sits as Chief Judge of the County Court of Victoria, Justice Redlich sits on the Court of Appeal, while Justices Raymond Finkelstein, Alan Goldberg, Mark Weinberg and Ron Merkel have all sat in recent years on the Federal Court of Australia.
In 1931, Sir Isaac Isaacs was appointed the first Australian born Governor-General, and was the first Jewish vice-regal representative in the British Empire. Sir Zelman Cowen also served as Governor-General, between 1977 and 1982. Sir John Monash, a distinguished Australian Lieutenant-General during World War I, leading Australian troops both in Gallipoli and on the Western Front. The agent-generalship of New South Wales has been administered by two Jews: Sir Saul Samuel, one of the most prominent and successful Jews in Australian politics, and Sir Julian Salomons.
David Bennett is a Sydney barrister. He was president of the Australian Bar Association from 1995 to 1996 and of the NSW Bar Association from 1995 to 1997. Bennett was president of the Association of Lawyer Arbitrators and Mediates in 1998 and President of the Australian Academy of Forensic Sciences from 1999 to 2001. He was Solicitor-General of Australia from 1998 to 2008. Bennett was awarded the Centenary Medal in 2003. His wife, Annabelle Bennett is a Judge of the Federal Supreme Court.
Leo Port (1922–1978) was an electrical and mechanical engineer. He was elected to the Sydney City Council in 1969 representing the Civic Reform group. He served as Lord Mayor between 1975 and 1978. Port was an advocate of civic design, and was partly responsible for the pedestrianisation of Martin Place and Sydney Square. He revolutionized the system of public works and their contracts in Sydney. He was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the New Year's Honours of 1974.
Jews in Australia have been successful in business disproportionately to their percentage of the Australian population. Notable for their success in business are Sidney Myer, John Gandel, Richard Pratt, Peter Abeles, the Smorgon family, Marcus Besen, Eddie Kornhauser, Frank Lowy and Joseph Gutnick. The latter, along with Sydney gangster Abe Saffron and Rene Rivkin occasionally through less scrupulous means.[10][11]
The foremost among the Jews who have figured as business pioneers in Australia was Jacob Montefiore, a cousin of Sir Moses Montefiore. South Australian history records him as one of the founders of the colony; and he was selected by the British government to act on the first board of commissioners, appointed in 1835 to conduct its affairs. His portrait hangs in its National Gallery, and his memory is perpetuated by Montefiore Hill. J. B. Montefiore's activity was not confined to South Australia. With his brother Joseph Montefiore he gave an impetus to the progress of New South Wales. Jacob owned one of the largest sheep-runs in the colony, and founded and for many years acted as director of the Bank of Australasia. The close connection of these brothers with the colony is further evidenced by the township of Montefiore, which stands at the junction of the Bell and Macquarie Rivers in the Wellington valley. Joseph Montefiore was the first president of the first Jewish congregation formed in Sydney in 1832.
V. L. Solomon of Adelaide is remembered for the useful work he achieved in exploring the vast northern territory of his colony, the interests of which he represented in Parliament. M. V. Lazarus of Bendigo, known as Bendigo Lazarus, also did much to open up new parts in the back country of Victoria. Nathaniel Levi, for many years urged the cultivation of beetroot for the production of sugar and spirits owed its brief existence as an industry to Levi's own interest in raw material for his distilling company. In his labours on behalf of this industry he published in 1870 a work of 250 pages on the value and adaptability of the sugar-beet. In Western Australia, the townships of Karridale and Boyanup owe their existence to the enterprise of M. C. Davies, a large lumber merchant.
Barnett Levy founded an early theatre in Australia. Having been refused a license by then governor Darling in 1828, though in the following year he was permitted to hold approved performances in his Sydney Hotel. A record of that fact is found in the following entry in "Sydney in 1848," a work published in that year: "In the late twenties His Excellency Sir R. Bourke granted Barnett Levy a license for dramatic performances, with a restriction that he should confine himself to the representation of such pieces only as had been licensed in England by the Lord Chamberlain." Levy was at that time the owner of the original Royal Hotel in George Street; and he fitted up the saloon of that establishment as a theatre, where the first representations of the legitimate drama in the colony were given. The encouragement that this undertaking received induced the enterprising proprietor to enlarge his sphere of action. He built a theatre called the Theatre Royal, which was opened in 1833, at a cost which almost bankrupted him.
Isaac Nathan, who emigrated to Australia in 1841, wrote the first Australian opera, Don John of Austria to a libretto by Jacob Levi Montefiore. It premiered on 3 May 1847 at the Royal Victoria Theatre in Sydney.
There have been Jewish contributions to Australian visual arts. Georges Mora, born Gunter Morawski in 1913 in Leipzig, Germany of Jewish/Polish heritage, fled Germany to Paris in 1930, then to Melbourne in 1949. He established the Tolarno Gallery in Melbourne's bohemian St Kilda. This became a venue for exhibitions of Australian Modernist avant garde art. Printmaker and projection artist Ludwig Hirschfeld Mack graduate and professor of the Bauhaus was deported to Australia as an "enemy alien" on the ship HMT Dunera, spending time in internment camps in Hay, Orange and Tatura, before being sponsored for Australian citizenship by (Sir) James Darling, headmaster of Geelong Church of England Grammar School. He was influential in the introduction of Bauhaus principles into visual art and design curricula in Australia. E. P. Fox and Abbey Alston have achieved distinction. Paintings by both these artists have been hung in the Melbourne National Gallery. In the Adelaide Gallery hangs a tribute to the memory of H. Abrahams for the services he rendered to the progress of art in Australia. Two Jews of Australian birth have attained to some distinction as writers, S. Alexander and Joseph Jacobs.
In May 2004, the art collector and dealer, Joseph Brown (artist), donated his substantial collection of Australian art of the 20th century to the National Gallery of Victoria. It was the largest single gift of works of art ever made to a public gallery in Australia. Brown migrated from Poland in 1933. He was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for his services to the arts.
Since the days of white settlement in Australia, Jews have enjoyed formal equality before the law and have not been subject to civil disabilities or other forms of state-sponsored antisemitism excluding them from full participation in public life. [says who?]. Jews have been active contributors in science, art, and literature, and in the government of the colonial and Commonwealth eras, with a number attaining prominent public offices, including several Governors-General.
Australia was a safe haven for Jews throughout World War II. With the notable exception of the exclusionary policies of several "gentlemen's" clubs, there was no systemic or organised discrimination against Jews during this period.
Post-war Jewish immigration came at a time of antisemitism, with the Returned Services League and other groups publishing cartoons to encourage the government and the immigration Minister Arthur A. Calwell to stem the flow of immigrants. However, attacks on Jewish property and institutions increase with tensions in the Middle East, and security precautions have had to be increased. In 1975, ASIO documents revealed that Palestinian terrorists planned to kill high profile Jewish figures including the Australian ambassador. People considered to be supporters of the Israeli position, such as former Prime Minister Bob Hawke, were also considered for attack.[12]
Since the 11 September terrorist attacks in the United States, Jews in Australia have seen a rise in attacks on synagogues and violence against persons of Jewish descent.[13] However, Australia has seen a significantly lower amount of anti-Semitic incidents than Western Europe and North America.
Until the 1930s, all synagogues in Australia were nominally Orthodox, with most acknowledging leadership of the Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom. To this day the vast majority of synagogues in Australia are Orthodox. However, there is a wide range of Orthodox congregations, including Mizrachi, Chabad and Adass Israel congregations. There are also Sephardi congregations.
There had been short-lived efforts to establish Reform congregations as early as the 1890s. However, under the leadership of Ada Phillips, a sustained liberal congregation, Temple Beth Israel, was established in Melbourne. Subsequently another synagogue linked to the United States Reform Movement, Temple Emanuel, was established in Sydney. Following these two congregations, a number of other Liberal synagogues have been founded in other cities.[14]
Since 1992 Conservative (Masorti) services have been held as an alternative service usually in the Neuweg, the smaller second synagogue within Temple Emanuel, Woollahra, Sydney. In 1999, Kehilat Nitzan, Melbourne's first Conservative (Masorti) Congregation was established, with foundation president Prof John Rosenberg. The congregation appointed its first rabbi, Ehud Bandel in 2006. In 2010 Beit Knesset Shalom became Brisbane's first Conservative (Masorti) synagogue.
The Jewish Museum of Australia is located in Melbourne.
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