Newsletter of AJHS Inc [NSW]
The Australian Jewish Historical Society Inc [NSW] publishes a
newsletter four times per year. The items are from the latest newsletter
and the preceding issue. To contact or join the AJHS [NSW] go to our
Contacts page.
Newsletter Cumulative Index
Newsletter No.
80
1. ROSH HASHANA GREETINGS
At this time of the year our thoughts naturally turn to our own Rosh Hashana,
and the President and Committee would like to take this opportunity to wish
all our readers L’SHANA TOVAH TIKATEVU, (May you be inscribed for a happy,
healthy New Year in the Book of Life). Let us hope that the New Year will be
one of good health, hope and peace for all Israel and our fellow Australian
compatriots.
2. THE AUSTRALIAN JEWISH HISTORICAL SOCIETY AND THE ORIGINS OF AUSTRALIAN
JEWRY by Helen Bersten
This year the AJHS is celebrating its 70th birthday, three score years and
ten, but it far from moribund. It began its existence on Sunday August 21,
1938, just before the beginning of WWII. Whether the cataclysmic events in
Europe of the time had any bearing on its formation is not known, but one
expressed aim was to “strengthen Australian Jewry from within” (p.4, AJHS
Jnl v1, 1939.). Its vision was beyond the nation itself and the committee
envisaged collecting material relating to New Zealand and the Pacific
islands as well.
There were three women present at the inaugural meeting and one was elected
to the provisional committee. All office bearers were men. Today we have a
woman president, vice-president and secretary.
The AJHS Journal commenced publication in 1939 and continues to this day. A
newsletter which was added briefly in the1960s and revived in the 1980s also
continues today. Public lectures are given several times a year, some of the
papers being subsequently printed in the Journal. The Journal was originally
based on that of the RAHS and we continue to be an affiliate of that
Society. Lately we have included the possibility of having peer-reviewed
articles which means academics can gain credits from publication in our
Journal. The Journal has benefited greatly by having dedicated and long-term
editors such as David Benjamin, Harry Kellerman, Morris Forbes, OAM and
Associate Professor Dr. Suzanne Rutland, OAM, now in her 18th year as
editor. The quarterly newsletter was originally designed to inform members
of acquisitions and happenings between Journals which are now only produced
twice a year, one being published by the Sydney committee and one by the
Melbourne committee. (The Victorian organisation used to be Branch of the
national one but has since become independent. The ACT maintains a Branch in
Canberra.) The newsletter editor, Judy Shapira, now encourages members to
supply small articles on their families’ history.
The AJHS Journal initially presented the stories of the ‘old’ Australian
Jews who were descended from convicts and free settlers who arrived in
Australia from 1788 and who established the first synagogues. Gradually with
the arrival of more recent migrants, their stories have also been included,
but the AJHS is a society which primarily researches Australian Jewry and
does not concern itself as much with overseas Jewish history. The early
Australian Jewish historians were Coleman P. Hyman, Percy J. Marks, Hirsch
Munz and David J. Benjamin. S.B. Glass became responsible as secretary for
adding to the collection of historical material already gathered by Hyman
and Marks. The Society initially met at the Maccabean Hall (now the Sydney
Jewish Museum) in Darlinghurst. It kept its historical records in
Darlinghurst but met in the city. After about 20 years it moved completely
to the Great Synagogue in Elizabeth Street.
In the1950s, historians such as Harry Kellerman and MZ Forbes joined the
committee and there was a regular supply of speakers for meetings and
articles for the Journal.
This was the situation when Dr. GFJ Bergman arrived from Europe and took an
interest in the Society in the mid 1950s. He organised the collection of
documents into numbered envelopes and began to collect further archival and
historical material. He had a couple of safes and one filing cabinet and he
began acquiring duplicate copies of books from the Synagogue’s Falk Library
to create a library for the Society.
When Helen Bersten was asked to join the Society in 1978, Dr. Bergman as
historian had researched and published, in conjunction with Rabbi John Levi,
the definitive book Australian Genesis, which covered the history of convict
and settler experience from 1788 to 1850 and was based on Rabbi Levi’s
earlier work The Forefathers, which has recently been expanded into a huge
volume entitled These are the Names. Two committee members, Sophie Caplan
and Terry Newman, felt that Dr Bergman needed extra assistance and asked
Helen to help. Tragically, at the end of the next year, Dr. Bergman died
while on holiday and Helen became, by default, the Society’s Honorary
Archivist, which title she still holds nearly 30 years later.
After over 30 years at the Great, the Society moved to our current location,
Mandelbaum House in Darlington, which is the Jewish residential college of
Sydney University. We are all volunteers in the Society and our office is
only open two days a week; however we field questions relating to genealogy,
history, heritage and much more on a regular basis. Not having a museum of
our own, we are delighted to lend materials for exhibition by any of the
Jewish Museums in Australia and to supply photographs to researchers or even
to TV programs. We work closely with the Archive of Australian Judaica at
Sydney University and the Australian Jewish Genealogical Society as well as
the Sydney Jewish Museum, especially in relation to the ground floor
Australian Jewish history section.
Our income is derived from our membership and publications, plus research
fees, supplemented by financial assistance from the Jewish Communal Appeal,
which raises funds from the community for distribution to worthy communal
organisations. The archives and historical records have grown over the years
and we now have five filing cabinets containing over 200 files, 300 boxes,
200 serials, 200 newspaper folders as well as about 700 books, plus
microfilms, tapes, CDs and videos. We are already bursting at the seams
again after 12 years at Mandelbaum House.
The history of Australian Jewry is a much longer one, beginning in January
1788 with the arrival of the First Fleet into Sydney Cove. It encompasses
convicts, free settlers, merchants, judges, doctors and dentists, soldiers,
artists. It has reached the heights of Governor General and the depths of
peddlers. In essence the story of Australian Jewry parallels the society
which encompasses it. As did other religious groups, the Jewish community,
with eventual permission from the powers of the time, established
synagogues, schools, cemeteries and the infrastructure with which a social
group supports itself. Australian Jewry has been fortunate to have been
treated well by the establishment for over 200 years and has shown itself to
be a responsible member of the broader community. With an emphasis on
education, Jewish people worldwide have been high profile achievers and
often seem to be present in larger numbers than is factual. In an Australian
population of some 20 million, only a little over 100,000 are Jewish. Among
four and a half million Sydneysiders there are about 40,000 Jews, living
mostly in the eastern and northern suburbs. There are small pockets of
Jewish residents in rural NSW in the Southern Highlands, the Northern
Rivers, and Newcastle. Queensland’s Gold Coast also has a small community.
3. OUR NEXT DECADE, AND MORE!
Congratulations to the small group of our committee who combined so well to
organise our very successful Seventieth Anniversary Luncheon. Everyone there
remarked on how pleasant it was, and how interesting were the speakers,
especially the Guest Speaker Dr. Anthony Joseph. The catering was excellent,
the room looked lovely, and we could all hear everything that we were meant
to. What a lovely way to start our next decade, and more.
4. GEN08 SURVEY
If you have not already done so, please take part in the first comprehensive
national survey of the Jewish population in Australia being undertaken by
Monash University, and Jewish Care in Victoria, the JCA in Sydney, with the
support of the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies and the Executive Council of
Australian Jewry. The responses will help establish a better understanding
of the issues facing our community as well as provide an accurate assessment
of our current and future needs and will be used to improve planning and
resources for the community. For information and private registration go to
www.jsurvey.info or call 1300 880 371.
5. THE JEWISH SECURITY CAPITAL APPEAL
It is most important that this appeal is supported by all members of the
community. We urge you to attend functions and to support this appeal. While
the AJHS does not have its own premises, we are housed in a Jewish building
and are mindful of the necessity to take serious precautions against
terrorism.
The Jewish Security Capital Appeal to be launched later this month aims to
raise $20 million to provide a significantly improved level of physical
protection for 47 communal buildings and sites.
Through the support of the Federal Government all donations to the Jewish
Security Capital Appeal will be tax deductible. The program also has the
support and endorsement of the State Government.
The Communal Security Group (CSG), under the auspices of the NSW Jewish
Board of Deputies, commissioned Israeli-based international security
consultants to review the physical safety of all our synagogues, schools and
community centres from terrorist attacks. On the basis of this report it was
decided that building upgrades should be undertaken across the community and
to do this a communal capital appeal is required. This Appeal is for the
upgrade of the physical structures of the buildings, not for CSG operational
costs. Endorsed by the Jewish Communal Appeal (JCA) it is the first time a
JCA capital appeal will benefit the entire community, not just a specific
JCA member organisation.
The Jewish Security Capital Appeal is the first appeal of its kind anywhere
in the world and this is the first time that a Diaspora community has taken
this sort of collective, pre-emptive, proactive action. Consultants’
recommendations include wall strengthening, shielding walls, glass
protection, anti-ramming bollards and perimeter fencing. The construction of
visible protective security measures may also reduce the risk of attack by
making facilities obviously “harder” targets.
6. FROM THE ARCHIVES.
Received with thanks from:
* Senator Ursula Stephens: photos of graves at Goulburn cemetery.
* Doris Rubinstein: rubber stamp from the Sydney Council to counter Fascism
and Anti-Semitism.
* Shannon Maguire, Sydney Jewish Museum: CD of correspondence relating to
establishment of B’nai B’rith in Australia.
* Mandelbaum House: Scribal Habits in the Ancient Near East by June Ashton.
* ACT Jewish Community: The Jewish Community Of Canberra, recollections in
oral history, edited by Adele Rosalky.
* Jewish cemetery Trust: duplicate copies of monthly burial reports 1972-96
and monument maintenance reports.1988-2008
* Julian Chodos: Hebrew Order of David, Syd Einfeld Lodge minutes 1991-1995;
correspondence 1993-1994
* Noela Symonds and Helen Bersten: CDs of photos from 7oth anniversary
luncheon.
* Andrew Samuel: copy of letter of appointment of Aaron Blashki as
Australian representative on the Jewish agency for Palestine, 1931.
Purchased: Australia & Israel – a pictorial history by Dr. Leanne Piggot.
Jewish burials online.
THE BD-BD
Dr Harvey Cohen, Webmaster AJHS Vic Inc, is pleased to announce that he has
now placed on-line the AJHS material on Jewish burials at all cemeteries
within Australasia and Oceania, including Australian War Graves and some
graves of Australian interest overseas.
This massive resource is known as The BD-BD. It has resulted from the
remarkable work of Beverley Davis OAM, who over some 28 years visited
cemeteries with the support of AJHS and its members. Over 48,000 headstones
were transcribed from Hebrew and English and these results have been
digitised and are now available to users on-line at www.bd-bd.info.
As this is still a work-in-progress, the user is advised that although it is
wide-ranging, this resource is not complete. A number of burials are missing
and some may be inaccurate, but we are working to correct this by
supplementing it from other resources.
Placing the Beverley Davis compilation online is a milestone for the
Australian Jewish Historical Society Vic. Inc. We hope that with the support
of the user community we will be able to further develop the search tools
available, plug gaps in the database, and provide access to other records
and databases.
AJHS cemeteries list
At long last the list of burials for Devonshire Street, Goulburn, Maitland
and Raphaels’s Ground cemeteries will shortly be on our website at
www.ajhs.info/NSW. Thanks to Col Choat who collated all the records from the
archives and Helen Bersten who added extra names from the Great Synagogue’s
early burial records. Thanks also to Gary Luke and Terry Newman who checked
the lists and made corrections and suggestions and to Dennis Leonard, our
NSW webmaster, who is adding the lists to our site.
War Honour Roll
The Australian War Memorial is actively collecting photographic portraits of
Australian servicemen who died in service. Their website includes an online
Roll of Honour to which photos can be linked. Please contact the Photographs
Section of the War Memorial if you wish to add any photos of your family who
served in war. Photographs@awm.gov.au. The website is www.awm.gov.au/database/roh/asp.
ACT ORAL HISTORY LAUNCH
A book of ACT Jewish community oral history recollections The Jewish
Community of Canberra: Recollections in Oral History was launched in
Canberra on 12 June 2008. Published by the ACT Jewish community with
assistance from an ACT Government seniors grant, it includes interviews with
founders Earle Hoffman OAM and the late Dr. Ron Mendelsohn OBE, former
Secretary to five Governors-General Sir David Smith KVCO AO, and the
Australian Jewish News’s long-serving former Canberra political
correspondent Bernard Freedman OAM. The book pulls together interviews done
in the past and contemporary interviews with nine present or former ACT
Jewish community members and throws light on Jewish life in the early days
of the community (founded 1951). It also includes photographs. Edited by
Adele Rosalky (AJHS ACT committee member and daughter of AJHS ACT founder
Earle Hoffman OAM), the book was launched by State Library of NSW oral
history curator Rosemary Block at an Australian Jewish Historical Society
(ACT) function. A companion CD with an electronic version of the hard copy
is available as an extra. The book costs $25.00, or $30 with the CD, plus
postage for up to four copies in one satchel for $10.00. Inquiries re
purchase: (02) 6295-1052.
Bankstown trowel
Among items given to the Society recently was a silver trowel from the
Bankstown Synagogue which had been presented to president Max Platus in 1959
at the laying of the foundation stone of the new building, which has since
been demolished after a fire bombing in the1980s. The trowel was in poor
condition and has since been repaired. We will give it on permanent loan to
the Sydney Jewish Museum.
Our volunteers
At this time of year, the anniversary of our founding in August 1938, we
like to thank our volunteers who come on a weekly basis to assist in the
archives. These are Helen Bersten, Jeannette Tsoulos, Philip Moses, Stella
Marshall, Noela Symonds and Barbara Temple as well as Lisa Marx who comes
once a month to catalogue new library books. We welcome our newest volunteer
Sandra Pilowsky.
We record their dedication and thank them for being part of a great
volunteer team which includes our president, vice presidents and committee
members.
70th Anniversary Newsletter
No. 79
B’REISHITH….HOW THE SOCIETY BEGAN.
By Louise Rosenberg OAM.
In mid-1938, a group of Jewish men and women (most of whom were members of the Royal Australian Historical Society) decided that there was justification and need for a Jewish historical Society with its own publication. The prime mover was Percy J. Marks, and the inaugural meeting was held in the library of what was then known as the Maccabean Hall in Darlinghurst, Sydney on 21st August 1938, corresponding to the 5th Av 5698.
Present were Rabbi L.A. Falk, Sydney B. Glass, Percy J. Marks and others, including a young lady named Miss Marise Lawrence Cohen, then aged sixteen years, and later to become a member of the Society’s original committee. She is now Mrs. Ronald Brass. Mr. Sydney B. Glass read the notices which had been inserted in the Jewish press and asked that the meeting appoint a chairman. Herbert J. Wolff proposed that Percy J. Marks take the chair, referring to the work on Australian Jewish History which he had already done, together with Mr. Coleman P Hyman who was no longer living in Sydney. He added that Mr Marks was already regarded as the unofficial historian of Australian Jewry and already had a considerable amount of valuable data on this subject. Eventually Mr. Marks was to be regarded as the founder of the Australian Jewish Historical Society.
Thus the Australian Jewish Historical Society was born, with David J. Benjamin as its founding Honorary Secretary. Later that office was taken by Sydney B. Glass until his death on 8th September 1959, when Morris Z. Forbes took over. The secretary’s official address was to be Mr. Glass’s chambers at No.2 Castlereagh Street, Sydney. The membership subscription originally was ten shillings per annum, commencing from 1st January each year.
It is useful to record here several interesting points which emerged from that inaugural meeting. For example, Mr. L.W.Cohen who, together with Simon Green, was representing the Sir Moses Montefiore Home, spoke of that organisation as being one of the oldest charities in the state. A letter from Sir Moses is held by the Great Synagogue of Sydney.
The original office bearers were: President..Percy J. Marks
Vice-President..Rabbi L.A.Falk
Treasurer..Arthur D. Robb
Honorary Secretary.. Sydney B.Glass
Committee…Mrs Lawrence W. Cohen, Miss Marise Lawrence Cohen, David J. Benjamin, Victor Cohen, Hirsch Munz and Herbert I Wolff.
In April 1939, a Journal was published and there was plenty of material available for publication and papers “in prospect”. The Volume 1 Part 1 issue contained a quotation on its inside front cover from the inaugural address of Mr. Lucien Wolf to the Jewish Historical Society of England in November 1893 which suggests the burgeoning Australian Society wanted its members also to abide by: “There is nothing more essential to the moral well-being of a people than the historic spirit, for it stands in the same relation to a community as personal repute does to an individual.”
The Journal of the Australian Jewish Historical Society is one of the very few publications which continued without a break throughout the war years and ever since.
In 1943, Norman A. Mandelson of Middlesex, England, became our first Corresponding Member – a Representative for the Society. In that same year Miss Fanny Goldstein became the Society’s United States Corresponding Member. In 1945, David W. Faigen became our Corresponding Member in New Zealand. In 1948, as our sphere of interest was growing, Cecil Roth became our U.K. Corresponding Member, and in 1950 Rabbi L.M.Goldman became our representative in Victoria – that, of course, was before Victoria developed its own sizable branch of the Society.
When Cecil Roth died in 1970, Dr. Anthony P. Joseph became our Corresponding Member and Representative in Great Britain. He had practised in Australia several years earlier as an exchange doctor for one year, had joined the Society and attended our meetings. He is holding the office of Corresponding Member until today. We welcome him to our Seventieth Birthday celebrations.
GUEST SPEAKER…OUR CORRESPONDING MEMBER, DR. ANTHONY JOSEPH.
Anthony Joseph was born in Birmingham, England, into a family that had 19th century connections with Australia. At Barmitzvah age, he became interested in family history and genealogy, and started amassing a unique library of books on Jewish History.
On finishing school, he won a place to study Medicine at Cambridge University, from which he graduated in 1961, and soon started practising in London. He married Jane Mindelsohn, and they had four children. They came to Australia where he worked as a doctor for a year and also researched the Australian part of his family. On returning to England they settled in Birmingham where Anthony opened a medical practice, becoming interested in the Jewish Historical Society of England, in 1969 becoming Chairman of the Society in Birmingham. In 1965 he had become the Corresponding Member of the Australian Jewish Historical Society, thereby making friends with many Australian Jewish historians. Unfortunately his wife Jane died in 1984. A few years later he married Judith Cohen, an enthusiastic genealogist, and together they organised the first International Jewish Genealogical Conference in England in
May 1987. They produced two sons, but unfortunately the marriage did not last.
From 1994 to 1996, Dr. Joseph was President of the Jewish Historical Society of England, and the following year President of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Great Britain, in which position he has continued until now, recently being re-elected for three years. In 2000 he was also elected a Director of the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies until 2004.
In the late 1990s he married Helene Howard, who accompanies him here today.
He is a contributor on Jewish Genealogy to the Blackwell Companion to Jewish Culture and has written a book entitled My Ancestors Were Jewish for the British Society of Genealogists, and numerous other monographs in genealogical publications.
We welcome Dr. and Mrs Anthony Joseph to our Seventieth Anniversary celebrations.
ANOTHER
NONAGENARIAN …MY SISTER VALERIE BENNETT
By Vice
President Judith Shapira.
When the A.J.H.S. Committee was meeting in June this year and deciding on a date for this important Celebration, our seventieth birthday, and today’s date was put forward (7th September), I immediately recognised that that was the date of my sister Valerie’s ninetieth birthday, and that I would not be able to participate as I and my family would be honouring this milestone in her life. With one voice, the Committee insisted that that was an appropriate occasion to combine the two important anniversaries, and to celebrate them together. So, with great trepidation, I set about arranging a little of each occasion to be united as one.
My sister VALERIE LEONIE BENNETT was born in Brisbane on 7th September 1918 to Naomi Bennett (nee Portrate) and Reginald Bennett. When she was six months old, her father died, and Valerie and our mother went to live with our grandparents in a big house in New Farm. Of course she cannot remember her father at all, but has kept up with several of her Bennett relations, now here in Sydney. When Valerie was about six years old, our mother met and married my father, Mel Solomon, who came from a large Melbourne family and lived in Sydney. A few years later, I was born, and we lived in Waverley, and later moved to Bellevue Hill. Valerie first attended school in New Farm, and in Sydney where she was a student at Crown Street Girls High and later Sydney Girls High, where she did the Leaving Certificate. She gained a Scholarship in Art to East Sydney Technical College, where she was taught by famous artists such as Frank Hinda and Lyndon Dadswell. She became very successful in many forms of artistic expression…sculpture, water colours, design and so on…and worked as a commercial artist for some years until the war came. Valerie presented her credentials to the U.S. Army stationed in Australia and was immediately employed by the U.S. Army in the Military Reconnaissance section, where she was trained to draw maps for the Army, based on photographs taken by planes flying over “enemy” territory, involving quite a lot of mathematics, as they flew at different heights at different times. This was extremely difficult work, and highly specialised and secret. She was transferred to Brisbane, and lived with our grandparents again, in New Farm, where she renewed her childhood friendships with the families whom she had known as a child, particularly the Goldman family.
Life in wartime Brisbane was great for young people who were in the war effort but comfortably living at home. Although she met many Australian and US servicemen, life was hard secret work with only the weekends for relaxation. After the War, Valerie returned to Sydney but it was very difficult to pick up the threads of her pre-war artistic career, so she went to England with her cousin Ida Hertzberg and their friend Joyce Falk (nee Lazarus). There, she entered a new artistic career, as a display artist, and had some wonderful commissions in the post-War reconstructive era in London, touring the British Isles and the continent in a car with her two compatriots. They stayed for nearly three years, returning in 1953. Valerie then had to rebuild her artistic career, but with the recommendations from her English commissions, she became a Display Artist/Designer/interior decorator with quite a large clientele, who were thrilled with her innovative ideas. In fact, she really only retired a few years ago, and still gets phone calls from people wanting her advice!
Valerie lives a full artistic life, with concerts, theatre and until recently, opera, and still fiercely independent, lives alone with occasional help from her family and friends. She has always been involved with the Jewish community [Board of Deputies, WIZO, AJHS, Montefiore Home], and we wish her continued Good Health. L’CHAIM, VALERIE!
Judith Shapira, Newsletter Editor.
Contributions to the Newsletter are most welcome. They should be sent to the Newsletter Editor, AJHS, Mandelbaum House, 385 Abercrombie St., Darlington. NSW 2008.