Australia’s Centenary

This week, Australian Jewry, 25,000 strong and with an enviable record of achievement behind it, celebrates the one hundredth anniversary of the founding of Melbourne and the Jewish community. In the dim, yellowed, uncertain documents which tell of the early origins of the Australian commonwealth, the name of Jacob Solomon occurs over and again and the pioneer explorer and settler John Batman records in his diary that he has discovered another mountain and named it Mount Solomon.

In 1839, on Rosh Hashonah, the Jews of Melbourne assembled for the first time in the shop of Benjamin Lazarus and celebrated the New Year. There were not enough of them for a minyan then. On September 12, 1841, in the home of Asher Hyman Hart, the Melbourne Jewish community was officially organized under the name of “The Jewish Congregational Society.” They numbered “fifty-seven souls.”

FIRST SYNAGOGUE GOT GRANT IN 1844

In 1844 a grant of land was obtained and the first Jewish synagogue was erected on Bourke street. In 1849, Rabbi Moses Rintel became the first rabbi of the small Jewish community. The Jews, chiefly engaged in commerce, flourished in the early days, but not content with remaining in Melbourne, adventurous types penetrated into the interior and soon there were Jewish colonies in Gippsland, Portland Bay, Western Port, Grange, Colac, Horsham and Geelong.

Even before the Jewish community was officially organized, a society for the relief of poverty among Jews had been founded, but in 1848, the Melbourne Jewish Philanthropic Society was officially constituted.

Life in the colony was stable and orderly, but in 1851 gold was discovered and a startling change took place. Curiously enough, the commercial interests were afraid of the discovery and at first Melbourne was neglected because gold had been found in other regions. Realizing, however, that Melbourne was ruined unless people could be attracted to the colony, a reward of $1,000 was offered for the discovery of gold in the neighborhood of the town. Prospecting parties were sent out and soon Ballarat and Bendigo were household words all over the world.

GOLD RUSH BROUGHT PROSPERITY TO ALL

In common with their Gentile neighbors, the Jews prospered as people flocked to the fabulous gold fields of Australia. Life in the staid colony was completely transformed and the merchants were kept busy supplying the needs of the ever-growing population, being paid in gold.

Ballarat and Bendigo became important Jewish centers and Jewish communities were organized there and flourished. The earliest Jewish settlers in Australia had been mostly from Great Britain, but the discovery of gold brought Jewish settlers from every corner of Europe. In 1852, a synagogue had been built in Melbourne at a cost of $58,000, an indication of how prosperous the Jewish community had been. But the synagogue was too small to accommodate all and many of the Jews from Eastern Europe desired to worship in the fashion they were accustomed to. Soon other synagogues were established in Melbourne.

There was intense Jewish consciousness in the early colonial days and Jewish laws were strictly observed. All Jewish businesses closed on the Sabbath and membership in the Sabbath observance society was widespread. Communal life was not limited, however, to the synagogue. Other communial institutions for the care of the poor and social organizations flourished

INDUSTRIAL PIONEERS BROUGHT BY GOLD RUSH

Pioneers of Australian industry, Jewish immigrants all, came to Australia during the gold rush. Moritz Michaelis and Isaac Hallenstein. communal leaders, built up a great leather and tanning industry. David Taherman paved the way for a great export business with his experiments in shipping meat abroad. Barnet Glass founded the rubber industry. Nathaniel Levi successfully cultivated and manufactured beet sugar and pioneered in exploiting the coal deposits of Cape Patterson, where the late Sir John Monash was later to achieve fame as an engineer. Australian Jews were also successful pioneers in many other industrial and commercial fields.

Achieving success in industry and commerce the Jews of Australia turned to politics. Nathaniel Levi was the first. In 1860 after a bitterly contested election, he wrested the Maryborough seat from the Attorney-General, and in 1861 Edward Cohen became member for East Melbourne.

The numbers of Jews returned to Parliament and the offices they held was a great reflection and compliment to their abilities. Edward Cohen twice held ministerial office at Minister for Trade and Customs in recognition of his commercial greatness; Jonas Felix Levien, the model farmer, Minister of Agriculture and Minister of Mines; Charles Dyte a dwarf in size but of gigantic personality, idol of the mining population of Ballart; Ephraim Lamen Zox of lovable personality and authority on hospital and charity systems; Emanuel Steinfeld, of Ballart; Joseph Sternberg, member of a number of commissions; Sir Benjamin Benjamin, the first Jew in Victoria to receive a knighthood, son of a first pioneer; D. B. Lazarus, of Bendigo; B. J. Fink, of Maryborough; J. A. Isaacs, Myrtleford and Eurobin; Pharez Phillips, of Warracknabeal, who held office without portfolio, and Theodore Fink, president of the royal commission on technical education.

HIGHEST OF HONORS FOR ISAAC ALFRED ISAACS

But the figure of intellectual brilliance, leader of the bar Queens Counsel, Solicitor General, Attorney General and Acting Premier, a great legislator and statesman was Isaac Alfred Isaacs. Undazzled by the greatness of Victoria he strove for Australian Federation. As member of the convention he brought a great intellect and uncanny perception of the problems of federal government, and when Federation was achieved, he and Pharez Phillips were both members of the first Commonwealth Parliament. But his life of public service had but begun. A place on the bench of the High Court, the Chief Justiceship of Australia, knightly dignities and the Governor Generalship of this great Commonwealth were the marks of appreciation of a grateful people to a brilliant citizen, identified with the Victorian Jewish Community as first president of the United Jewish Education Board.

MANY DISTINCTIONS FOR JEWISH CITIZENS

In the Victorian Parliament today there are three Jews. Col. Harold Cohen, M.L.C., grandson of Edward Cohen, an honorary minister high in the councils of State; H. I .Cohen, K.C., M.L.C., who has been unofficial leader of the Upper House and Minister of Education, and Archie Michaelis, M.L.A., grandson of a worthy pioneer.

In civic life there has been an unending list of mayors, councillors and justices of the peace. Edward Cohen became Mayor of Melbourne in 1862, and during his term of office introduced the pageantry and fancy dress balls once associated with the mayoral office. Sir Benjamin Benjamin gained similar distinction.

Henri J. Hart, a founder of the East Melbourne Congregation, prominent on the gold discovery committee, who had gone to England in 1852 to tell of Victoria’s greatness, was in 1866 appointed Acting Consul for the United States, and in 1872 Vice-Consul for Italy, and for a time was Acting Consul.

The service of Victorian Jewry in their country’s cause is immemorably bound up with the name of Sir John Monash, one of the band of Jewish volunteers in the first forces of this colony, some of whom saw active service in the South African War. His greatness gained as generalissimo of the Australian forces in the holocaust of 1914-1918, was excelled only by his scholarship. Graduate in Arts and Laws and Doctor of Engineering, whose work for the power supply of Victoria is still one of the engineering feats of this generation, he received the homage of a mourning nation in his last obsequies.

Samuel Alexander, professor of mental and moral philosophy at Manchester, was a graduate of Melbourne. There is the long list, too, of doctors and lawyers who have achieved success in their professions begun with Louis Goldsmith, a pupil of the Melbourne Hebrew Day School, admitted in 1872 to the Victorian Bar, the first Jew in the colony to practice, while Henry Louis Harris and Henry Friedman entered the University in 1873, the first Jewish medical students.

A SUCCESSFUL RETURN TO THE SOIL

There is one more phase of Jewish life in Victoria and that is the gradual turning back to agricultural pursuits. Schemes for settlement of Russian Refugees were suggested by M. Rapken when the old Mallee was first opened but no organized settlement was made. In 1913, to demonstrate that the Jews could succeed as an agriculturist, a settlement was made at Shepparton, and it has proven highly successful. Today, the first pioneers are owners of their land with fine orchards, and a new center of men loyal to Judaism has grown up in the North of Victoria. In 1927, land was taken up at Berwick but the success of Shepparton was not repeated.