AUSTRALIAN JEWISH HISTORICAL SOCIETY INC. Member of the JCA Family of Communal Organisations

NEWSLETTER ------

Address: Mandelbaum House, Issue No 89. August 2010. 385 Abercrombie Street, ISSN-0816-714-1 Darlington NSW 2008 Website: www.ajhs.com.au Fax and Telephone: (02) 9518 7596 /9692 5260 Email address: [email protected] ------

The Australian Jewish Historical Society is a member of the JCA family of organisation

ROSH HASHANA GREETINGS

The President and the Committee of the Australian Jewish Historical Society extends to all its readers its best wishes, L’Shona Tova Tikatevu, and hope it will be a good year for all Israel, and especially for members of the Australian Jewish Historical Society.

JCA VOLUNTEERS RECOGNITION AWARDS GALA EVENT

At a Gala Event held at the Horden Pavilion on 10th August the JCA 2010 Volunteer Recognition Awards were presented. The theme for the event was “giving back to the community” and this was superbly reinforced by the keynote speaker for the evening – Ronnie Kahn, the founder of OzHarvest. As a member of the JCA, the AJHS participated and the efforts of two of our long serving volunteers, Stella Marshall and Jeanette Tsoulos were recognised. There were also a number of our members whose services to other JCA organisations were recognised. These included - Anna Marks (B’nai B’rith), Ralph Hirst (Emanuel School), Jonathan Caplan, Harry and Ruth Cromer, Evelyn Platus, Jack Stern, John and Rose Temple (JCA), Sonia Gold (AJGS) , Rosa Israel (NCJW), Alexander Ferson, Gael Hammer (), Maurice Finberg (Mount Sinai College).

WILLYAMA

By Noela Symonds.

1

Willyama at 2 Alfreda Street, West Bowral was one of four “Inter-War” Houses opened for inspection by the National Trust Southern Highlands Branch during Heritage Week in April.

The house was built in 1924 for Morris and Celia Symonds. At the time they had a home on the corner of Victoria Road and Rivers Street, Bellevue Hill also called Willyama meaning ‘a place on the hill’ (the Aboriginal name for ). In 1928 they moved to Bowral permanently.

Morris Symonds was born on 18 December 1869 in Kovno, Lithuania. He was the youngest of seven sons and the family emigrated to London in 1877 to avoid conscription into the Czar’s army. Morris arrived in Sydney on 26 December 1888 on the Port Victor. He married Celia Goldstein at The Great on 6 September 1891 and they lived at Manly and Randwick before moving to the Victoria Road house.

Morris began a second hand furniture business and from there moved into retail furniture. In 1905 he bought a six-story building at 266-274 Pitt Street. The family used to visit Bowral, staying at Miss Nellie Brennan’s Arankamp guest house and Morris bought approximately 20 acres from the Arankamp holding to build Willyama. A cottage was also built for his grandchildren.

Morris Symonds was President of The from 1929 to 1932 and Senior Vice President of The Australian Zionist Federation. He was a generous contributor to Jewish and non-Jewish causes. When he died in 1933 the house was leased until 1939 and then sold.

In 2007 when the present owners, Paul Jenkins and Elizabeth Eastland, found Willyama it was about to be demolished by developers. This did not proceed due to their opposition and that of their neighbours. The house was very neglected and Paul and Elizabeth spent three years restoring as much as possible of the original house. The exterior remains the same and a complimenting extension has been added. The beautiful interior leadlight sliding doors and butler’s pantry are still in excellent working order. The leadlight windows remain a feature in the front. Fireplaces were restored and original colours in the polished floors were found.

Anxious to know more about Willyama’s original owner and its history, Elizabeth contacted the Australian Jewish Historical Society and spoke to Helen Bersten. Helen rang my husband Len, a grandson of Morris, and he contacted Elizabeth. The families have kept in touch since 2007 with Len and I attending the National Trust Open Day on 22 April 2010.

SOMETIMES I GET LUCKY.

By Jeannette Tsoulos, genealogist.

Genealogical research can be lengthy and not always successful. Occasionally, however, fate intervenes to produce a surprising result.

Over the years I have carried out research for Therese Saville, whose late husband, Richard, was distantly related to me. She, in turn, was corresponding with another family member, a priest in Forbes, Father Peter King, who had been told that I worked with the Society. Last month, Father King sent a photo of a solitary Jewish tombstone in a tiny cemetery in Mt Hope, in western NSW, an old mining town, and asked what the Hebrew inscription meant. He had seen the grave many years before and had always wondered about its young occupant, Ephraim Joseph, who was buried so far from any Jewish community. When he overheard a fellow townsman say he was going to visit Mt Hope, he asked him to photograph the grave.

Some months prior to this, I had received a query from a woman seeking information about her great- uncle, who had arrived from Baghdad with his brothers in the late 1800s and disappeared without trace. They had changed their name from Shellim to Joseph, and she only knew her great-uncle as Frank. Despite the family tree she sent me, and the efforts of Dr Myer Samra, who knew Sydney's Baghdadi Jews, I had been unable to find out more for her.

2 The priest's photo then arrived and I took it to Professor Alan Crown for translation. As the inscription began to reveal its secrets, the hairs stood up on the back of my neck. "...Son of Jacob Moses Shellim… born in Baghdad 28 years ago..." The data in the inscription matched that in the family tree. The grave belonged to the woman's lost great-uncle!

DO YOUR ANCESTORS RESIDE IN COUNTRY NSW?

With spring and the warmer weather is just around the corner, it is the time of year when members like to go driving in the country. If you are interested in visiting Jewish cemeteries and burial sites, here is a list of those throughout country New South Wales.

Albury Drayton Kyogle Orange Bombala Evans Head Liverpool Port Macquarie Broken Hill Forster Macksville Shoalhaven Canberra Gol Gol Maitland Walgett Cobar Hay Narrabri Wyalong Henty Newcastle Young

DUNERA ARTICLE

The Canberra & District Historical Society Journal May 2010 published an article written by Patricia Clarke, former editor. The article highlights the role of Eilean Giblin, a member of the Australian delegation to the International Women’s Suffrage Alliance Congress in 1923, who campaigned in 1940 for the release of the Dunera deportees. She had been contacted by a friend of Peter and Erich Stadlen and Stefan Petoe who were interned in London as enemy aliens.

LOST, STOLEN OR STRAYED?

Some years ago Rabbi Apple was given an incomplete manuscript by the late Rabbi Shmuel Gorr on the subject of Orthodoxy in . He showed it to the late Morris Forbes and possibly to others. The whereabouts of the manuscript is now unknown. If anyone can help to find it, please email Rabbi Apple at [email protected].

GIFT SUBSCRIPTIONS.

Instead of a tie or a bottle of perfume or chocolates or flowers, why not give something really worthwhile to honour a birthday, barmitzvah, wedding anniversary etc... A one-year’s subscription to the Society. $50.00 will provide 2 Journals, 4 Newsletters, notices of meetings and members’ rates for research.

FUTURE FUNCTIONS.

October 31: B’nai B’rith day of Culture. AJHS office display of archival treasures; books for sale. 2-4pm. Mandelbaum House. November 21: AGM. Assoc. Professor Suzanne Rutland on the Broken Hill Jewish community. Venue to be announced. November 27-29: Centenary of Broken Hill Synagogue at Broken Hill. www.brokenhillsynagagogue.org.au

FROM THE ARCHIVIST:

Received with thanks from: • Rod Corrie: List of burials at Old Jewish section, Rookwood cemetery, with additions and corrections from gravestones, Jewish Cemetery Trust and newspaper records. • Louise Rosenberg: Address to Great Synagogue Ladies’ Auxiliary, On Being a Nonagenarian. • Johanna Nicholls: Freemasonry: Studies, Speeches and Sensibilities, by Raymond Apple, 2010. 3 • Joseph Litani in Israel: Hebrew and English translations of letters written in 1939 in Australia by Szymon Klitenik, Polish refugee, killed in New Guinea in 1945. • Gary Luke: Excerpt on Jews in Australia from The Australian People, an Encyclopaedia of the Nation…ed by James Jupp. • Air Power Development Centre, Canberra: Into the Midst of Things; the autobiography of Sir Richard Kingsland. • Johanna Nicholls: Dr.NX22, Memoirs of an Australian Doctor in Peace and War by C.H. Selby. • Robyn Lenn: photos from NCJWA visit to Hobart for 160th anniversary celebrations, 2005. • Peter Keeda: CD of Bridge Street Synagogue minutes Sept 1837 to Dec 1842. • Stuart Shaw: Shaw family tree.

BOOKS FOR SALE.

We started this newsletter with Rosh Hashana greetings, but the time really does fly and before you know it you’ll be scratching your head for Chanukah presents for the family and we’ll be lighting the menorah. Did you know the Society has a number of very reasonably priced publications which make for interesting reading and would make excellent Chanukah gifts for the family?

These publications include: History of the Western Suburbs Synagogue, by Phillip Barg…$5. Jewish Sydney – the first 100 years, by Helen Bersten…$8. Historical Essays to Honour Rabbi Dr I Porush OBE on his 80th Birthday…$10. Blashkiana, the Memoirs of Aaron Blashki, AJHS special publication…$10. Rabbi Danglow, by Rabbi John Levi…$15. Fifty Years of Caring: history of the Australian Jewish Welfare Society, by Anne Andgel..$20 A Time to Keep: The story of Temple Beth Israel, by Baskin, Graf & Turnbull...$20. With One Voice: A history of the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies by Rutland & Caplan…$20. My Dear Friends. The life of Rabbi Dr. Hermann Sanger, by Rabbi John Levi…$25. To be Continued: memoirs and musings, by Rabbi Apple…$25. If ordering by phone or email the usual postage charges will apply for delivery.

The publications will be available for purchase from our office, on Level 2, Mandelbaum House, 385 Abercrombie St, Darlington, at our Open Day on Sunday October 31 which is being held as part of the B’nai B’rith Day of Jewish Culture and Heritage. They can also be collected from the office on the usual days of Tuesday and Thursday between 11:00am and 4:00pm.

THE SOCIETY’S JOURNALS – BACK COPIES.

The Society has available for purchase copies of all the Journals printed since its inception. These make for fascinating reading and are also a most valuable tool when researching family history or Australian Jewish history. All the volumes have been indexed so a particular person or subject can be researched. They also provide a useful gift to children and/or grandchildren for them to learn their family history and engender in them a sense of their history and heritage. The prices of the Journals are as follows and postal charges apply unless they are collected from the Office. Volumes 1-9…$5. Volumes 10-20…$15. Volume 20…$20.

Judith Shapira, Newsletter Editor. Philip Moses, Assistant Newsletter Editor Contributions should be sent to the Newsletter Editor, 385 Abercrombie St., Darlington. NSW 2008.

4