Behind the Headlines the Jews of Australia

Signs of Israel or Jewry catch the visitor’s eye in unexpected places in Australia. On the Great Barrier Reef, some 1,400 miles north of Sydney, the flag of Israel flies with nine other national flags, the Stars and Stripes included, above the center court of the excellent Royal Hayman Hotel on tropical Hayman Island.

In Sydney’s unique and splendid Opera House, imbedded in a corner of its main corridor, is a small section of a mosaic taken from an ancient synagogue in Gaza. It was presented to the Opera House by the Israeli government. A bronze plaque, with Hebrew and English inscriptions, reports that the mosaic was laid in the synagogue in 508 C.E. and presented to Sydney in October 1976 — a span of more than 14 centuries.

In a charming little restaurant overlooking Victoria Harbor some 30 miles outside of Adelaide in South Australia, the menu offers “Avocado Tel Aviv.” This dessert was listed last among six and the most expensive. The efficient, polite waitress was asked what this dessert was like. “Tel Aviv,” she replied with assurance, “means cream.” It turned out the dessert was avocado diced with banana, immersed in an orange liquer, and yes, indeed, rich cream. The restaurant manager said later it was an Israeli dessert published in “a famous French cookbook” that he had found in New York.

China is associated with Jewish personalities in Australia. Hans Mueller, the B’nai B’rith’s district president in Sydney, and his wife, Gertie, both came to Australia from Vienna by way of Shanghai where they had met and spent the World War II years. They came to Sydney in 1947.

Mueller proudly and deservedly shows Sydney’s handsome B’nai B’rith quarters that were converted from a warehouse and has a fine kosher restuarant B’nai B’rith initiated a breakfast program in Sydney’s public schools that is now conducted as a project by the general community, the B’nai B’rith included.

In Melbourne’s “Chinatown,” that is part of the city’s downtown area, is “Cohen’s Alley.” No one was found who remembered that particular Cohen.

JEWISH EMIGRATION FROM CHINA

In Canberra, Australia’s beautifully planned capital with a population now close to a quarter-million, the president of the Jewish community of some 500 people, is a third-generation Chinese although a Caucasion by race. Ted Whitgob’s grandparents came to China from Russia in 1905 — the year of the Russo-Japanese war. His mother was born in Harbin and his father in Shanghai.

Whitgob, who attended a British school in Shanghai before emigrating to Australia, is the chief ethnics affairs officer in the Australia Department of Immigration. One of its projects is Australia’s pilot program to help Soviet Jewish immigrants establish themselves more quickly in their new country.

Among Jewish newcomers to Adelaide that have helped swell the Jewish community’s population to about 2,000 are seven Soviet families which arrived in the last year. Other newcomers to Adelaide include some 50 South African families and “at least” as many Egyptian families. Robert Phillips, vice president of Adelaide’s Jewish Board of Deputies, observed that South Africans are “fully committed” to Judaism and the Egyptians also are “very active” in the community.

Until 15 years ago, Phillips observed, the community was Orthodox. It now has both Liberal and Orthodox congregations. He estimated that as many as 400 to 500 Jews, mainly of British origin, were “lost” to Judaism in South Australia between the two world wars — “the lean period” in the region’s Jewish history. Phillips’ forebears came to Adelaide some 70 years ago from Scotland, England and Poland.