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Australian Communities: Jewish Australians

According to the 2006 census, over 86,000 (0.4 per cent) Australians identify as being Jewish. 90% of Australian Jews live in Sydney and Melbourne. The majority of Jews in Australia are native born, being either second or third generation, but in more recent years there has been migration from South Africa, the former Soviet Union and Israel. Jews have always valued the democracy and acceptance which Australia offers, and have usually sought citizenship as soon as possible. Unlike many other migrant groups, they have not usually considered the possibility of returning to their countries of birth. Over 80% of Jewish Australians have visited Israel, with 74% having relatives living there. Approximately 10,000 Jewish Australians have immigrated to Israel since 1945.

Brief History

Jewish history spans 4000 years from its early biblical origins with its founding figures being the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to Moses with the revelation on Mount Sinai and the belief in the giving of the Torah, the Five Books of Moses, around 3300 years ago. Jewish settlement in the Land of Israel splits into the periods of the Judges, the Building of the First Temple which was destroyed in 586 BCE by the Babylonians, the return a generation later and then the Second Temple period which lasted from 515 BCE until 70 CE when the Romans destroyed the Second Temple. Although this started the dispersion of the Jews to both the East and the West, Jews remained the majority in the Land of Israel, renamed 'Palestine' by the Romans, until the sixth century.

Initially, most Jews in the Diaspora were concentrated in Babylonia, where the most authoritative version of the Talmud was finalised in the fifth century CE. With the Muslim conquest of North Africa and Spain, Jews moved into Western Europe. In the early Middle Ages 80% of Jews lived in Muslim Europe and only 20% in Christian Europe. This situation changed with the Christian reconquest of Spain and the expulsion of the Jews from the Iberian Peninsula. With the persecution of Jews in Western Europe, the Jewish population moved east, so that by the sixteenth century Poland had become the centre of Jewish life.

Over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the Jewish people experienced a major demographic change due to their persecution in the Tsarist Empire after 1881, the Holocaust in which 6 million Jews perished and their mass expulsion from many Middle Eastern countries after 1948. In 1820 there were only about 10,000 Jews in the United States, with about 80% of Jews living in Europe and the Arab Lands. Today, less than 10% of Jews live in Europe and very few in the Arab/Muslim world. Almost 50% now live in Israel and 40% in the United States. Less than 1% of the world's Jews live in Australia.

Migration to Australia

Australian Jewry commenced with the arrival of about a dozen Jewish convicts in 1788 on the First Fleet. Australia was, therefore, the first modern state where Jews were present from its very beginning. There are many fascinating Jewish convict stories, some representing success, others tragedy. One of the best known is that of Esther Abrahams who was the mistress, then de facto and finally official wife of George Johnston, a soldier and early colonist. Jewish convicts were not able to establish an organised Jewish community until the arrival of the first free British immigrants in the late 1820s. The first purpose built synagogue was opened in Sydney in 1844 and shortly afterwards synagogues were built in Hobart (1845), Launceston (1846), Melbourne (1848) and Adelaide (1848).

The Gold Rushes of the 1850s brought the first wave of European migrants, mainly from Germany, resulting in the rapid growth of Victorian Jewry and new congregations developing in Ballarat, Bendigo and Geelong. A small number of Jewish refugees from Tsarist Russia found a refuge in Australia and had only a minimal impact on Australian Jewry. In Melbourne, the inner city suburb of Carlton developed as the first area of settlement with a rich Yiddish and Zionist culture and more Orthodox lifestyle.

The transformative period in Australian Jewish history occurred with the refugee flight from Nazism in the late 1930s and the survivor emigration in the aftermath of World War II. In 1933, there were only 23,000 Jews in Australia. Between 1938 and 1961, the community almost trebled to 61,000. The Jewish victims of Nazism who found refuge in Australia completely changed the nature of the Australian Jewish community, but Jews continued to constitute only 0.5 per cent of the overall population because of anti-refugee sentiments at the time. Both before and after the war, proposals to admit Jewish refugees often met with a hostile reception. Known as 'anti-refo' feeling, this manifested itself in newspapers and in statements by some members of parliament.

The newcomers introduced a diversification into Jewish practice in Australia. Until the 1930s, the only form of Judaism was a diluted form of Anglo-Jewish orthodoxy. This changed radically with the arrival of the European Jews before and after World War II. Progressive Judaism was established first in Melbourne with the Temple Beth Israel in 1931 and the Temple Emanuel in Sydney in 1938 and developed rapidly after 1945, with congregations now existing in all centres of Jewish life. Post 1945 immigrants also brought with them stricter forms of orthodoxy. The first Yeshiva, centre of advanced Jewish learning, was established by the Hassidic sect, Habad, in the rural town of Shepparton in Victoria and then moved to Melbourne, opening up in Hotham Street in East St Kilda in 1953. Today Chabad is a major religious force in Australian Jewry.

In Australia, Jews have generally managed to successfully bridge at least two cultures - Australian and Jewish, with those of their countries of origin in Europe, the Middle East or other Anglo-countries, all contributing to a rich, multi-layered identity. As a result both the Jewish community and the broader society have been enriched.

In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries Jewish Australians made a substantial contribution to the developing Australian nation. Lionel Sampson was elected to the West Australian parliament in 1846, before the first Jews entered the British parliament, and soon there were leading Jews in all the colonial parliaments. Two outstanding names were Sir John Monash who became the commander-in-chief of the Australian army during World War I and Sir Isaac Isaacs, who was appointed as the first Australian born Governor General in 1930.

Since World War II, Jewish Australians have continued to make a significant contribution to Australian society as a whole. Jewish immigrants have embraced their new life in Australia and have contributed greatly to their adopted country. They have made significant impacts on business, medicine, the law, entertainment, the judiciary, academia and politics.

Prominent Australians of Jewish ancestry include:

• Esther Abrahams 1771-1846, Convict and early colonist
• Isaac Nathan c1792-1864, "the father of Australian music". First person to research
  and transcribe Indigenous Australian music
• Barnett Levy 1798 - 1937, merchant and theatre director, first free Jewish settler
• Lionel Samson 1799-1878, pioneer, politician and merchant
• Joseph Barrow Montefiore 1803-1893, merchant and financier
• Sir Isaac Isaacs GCB GCMG QC 1855-1948, pupil-teacher, barrister, politician, judge and governor-general,
  first Jewish vice-regal representative in the British Empire
• Sir Julian Emanuel Salomons 1836-1909, NSW barrister, solicitor-general, chief justice
  and member of parliament
• Sir John Monash GCMG KCB VD 1865-1931, soldier, engineer and administrator, commanded
  Australian troops in World War I at Gallipoli and on the Western Front
• Sidney Myer 1878-1934, businessman and philanthropist
• Rabbi Sir Israel Brodie KBE 1895-1979, evacuated from Dunkirk , Senior Jewish Chaplain
  for the British Forces, appointed Chief Rabbi of Great Britain and the British Commonwealth
• Maurice Ashkanasy 1901-1971, barrister and Jewish community leader
• Sydney Einfeld 1909-1995, Federal and NSW Labor politician, Jewish community leader,
  advocate for immigrants and refugees
• Georges Mora 1913-1992, entrepreneur, restaurateur, art dealer, patron and connoisseur
• Samuel Wolf Cohen 1915-1986, educator, Fulbright scholar and foundation Deputy-Vice Chancellor (Academic)
  of Macquarie University
• Richard Pratt 1934-2009, footballer, actor, businessman, environmentalist and philanthropist
• Sir Zelman Cowen AK GCMG GCVO QC, academic lawyer and Governor General of Australia
• Smorgon Family, industrialists and philanthropists
• Mirka Mora, prominent artist awarded title of Honoured Artist 'in recognition of her lifelong
  achievement in the arts which has made an outstanding contribution to the life of this city' (Melbourne)
• Frank Lowy AC, Holocaust survivor, businessman
• Ernie Friedlander OAM, Hungarian ghetto survivor, tireless worker for an Australian society based on
  respect and understanding and the celebration of diversity
• Harry Triguboff AO, property developer and philanthropist
• Mahla Pearlman AM, Chief Judge of the NSW Land and Environment Court
• Jim Spigelman AC, Lieutenant Governor and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of NSW
• Rabbi Mendel Kastel,CEO of Jewish House, set up Point Zero Youth Services providing a Drug and Alcohol Outreach service
• Dr Michael Friedlander, conjoint Professor of Medicine at the University of NSW, Director of Medical Oncology at the Prince of
  Wales Hospital in Sydney and consultant medical oncologist to the Gynaecological Cancer Centre, Royal Hospital for Women.
• Vic Alhadeff, CEO NSW Jewish Board of Deputies, advocate for social harmony and social inclusion
• Rabbi Zalman Kastel, director of Together for humanity an Australian multi-faith organisation.

Additional information: The Keynotes Project