\ 1 't • THE JEWISH COMMUNITY TN NEW SOUTH WALES 1914-1939 4 ••• SUZANNE D. RUTLAND B.A.(Hons). Dip.Ed. Cr 4 A thesis submitted in part fulfilment of the requirements for the Honours degree of Master of Arts Department of History University of Sydney February 1978 7 • • • CONTENTS Abbreviations iii Glossary i v 6. Preface v i Chapter One INTRODUCTION 1 Chapter Two THE JEW WITHIN NEW SOUTH WALES SOCIETY 37 . 1914 to 1933 • Chapter Three THE JEWISH SOCIETY 1914 to 1933 76 Chapter Four ANTI-SEMITISM AND THE JEWISH REFUGEE 143 PROBLEM IN AUSTRALIA IN THE .1930's Chapter Five A CHANGING COMMUNITY -- NEW SOUTH WALES 234 JEWRY IN THE 1930's Chapter Six A COMPARISON WITH JEWISH COMMUNITIES IN OTHER 298 PARTS OF THE ENGLISH SPEAKING WORLD Chapter Seven CONCLUSION 324 Bibliography 337 N • ABBREVIATIONS A.J.C. Australian Jewish Chronicle A .J.H. Australian Jewish Herald A.J.W.S. Australian Jewish Historical Society, Journal and Proceedings A.J.W.S. Australian Jewish Welfare Society • 1 C.B. Council Bulletin i C.& Y. Council and Young Men's Hebrew Association D.T. Daily Telegraph G.J.R.F. German Jewish Relief Fund H.I.A.S. Hebrew Immigrant Aid•Society H.S. Hebrew Standard of AustLalasia J.H. Jewish Herald J.N.F. Jewish National Fund • The Mac. • The Maccabean M.J.A.B. Melbourne Jewish Advisory Board P.J.R.F. Polish Jewish Relief Fund R.A.H.S.J. Royal Australian Historical Society Journal Syd. J. News ,Sydnex Jewish News S.M.H. Sydney Morning Herald W.I.Z.O. Women's International Zionist Organization Y.M.C.A. Young Men's Christian Association 4 Y.M.H.A. Young Men's Hebrew Association A 1 • • GLOSSARY Ashkenazi (literally, German) -- Jews originating from Central and Eastern Europe. 1 Barmitzvah -- Religious ceremony to mark a Jewish boy's reaching maturity; held at the age of thirteen. Beth Din (literally, 'House of Judgement') -- Ecclesiastical Court. B'nai Brith -- 'Sons of the Covenant', service organizt.ti.an Chanukah -- Festival of Lights; originated in the Maccabean era. Chevra Kadisha -- 'Holy Brotherhood' in charge of burials. Gaon -- Jewish intellectual leader; name given to the Chief Rabbi of the Sephardi community. Haftorah Reeling from the Prophets. Hasidism -- Pietistic religious movement which developed in the eighteenth century. Kashruth -- Jewish dietary laws. Kol Nidrei -- Part of the Eve of Atonement services, holiest •v■ prayer of the Jewish year. Kosher (or Kosher) -- Complying with the dietary laws. Mikveh -- Ritual bath. Minhaq -- Custom, tradition. Minyan -- Group of ten male adult Jews, the minimum required for communal prayer. Mishnah -- Legal rabbinical codification of the Bible, containing the core of the Oral Law. Pogrom (Russian, destruction) -- organized attack, usually with government collusion, especially directed against Jews. Protocols of the Elders of Zion -- Anti-Semitic fabrication first published in Russia in 1902. Various editions appeared. Schnorrer (Yiddish) -- beggar; usually used in a derogatory sense. Sephardi (literally, Spanish) -- Jews originating from Spain, Portugal and the Orient. V Sepher Torah -- Scroll of the Law containing the five Books of Moses. Shechitah -- Ritual method of slaughtering. Shochet (pl.shochtim) -- Slaughterer of animals according to Jewish law. Shomer (pl.shomrim) -- Watcher to ensure laws of Kashruth are observed. Shtetl -- small Jewish community in Eastern Europe; village. Talmud (literally, 'study') -- Basic collection of rabbinic literature. Torah (literally, 'teaching') -- Pentateuch; at times whole body of Jewish teaching. Yeshiva -- Talmudic college. r: PREFACE The years 1914 to 1939 were formative ones in the • history of the New South Wales Jewish community. The community was challenged from within by the problem of assimilation and from without by developments in World Jewry. Most important of these developments were the rampant antiSemitism of the 1930's, which was mainly due to the Nazi regime in Germany, and the problems faced by the Jewish'National Homeland under the British mandate in Palestine. Prominent Jewish historians such as Nathan Glazer and Marshall Sklare in America and V. D. Lipman and H. M. Sachar in England, have already studied the impact of these developments on the major centres of the Anglo-Saxon world. The main aim of this thesis is to make au in-depth study of New South Wales Jewry in this period. My thesis is that, in the 1920's, the community was dominated by an ideology of non-distinctiveness which involved a desire to integrate fully within the general community and to discard any concepts or practices which accentuated Jewish differences. This ideology, combined with the almost complete acceptance of the Jew within the general community, resulted in a high rate of intermarriage, 30% for males and 16% for females by 1921. This level was high enough to create the 1 possibility Of the eventual disintegration of the community. •This assimilatory trend might not have been reversed without the impact of Nazism, which resulted in a reappraisal of 1 Intermarriage has been divided into four divisions by A. Rmppin; Australia was in the fourth division where almost a third of Jewish marriages were mixed. This constituted a serious threat to the continued existence of the already scanty Jewish population as the children of almost all mixed marriages were brought up in the Christian faith. See L. Wirth, The Ghetto, Chicago 1962,.p.126. vii Australian Jewish attitudes, or without the impetus of the refugees who came from the European centres of Jewish learning and culture challenging the attitudes and institutions of the establishment. By 1939, the position of the Jewish community in New South Wales had changed. Their sense of group cohesion was strengthened and the trend towards complete assimilation reversed. To substantiate this overall thesis it is necessary to study the religious, political and cultural life of New South Wales Jewry, the growth of the Zionist movement, and to trace briefly the careers of a few leading Australian Jews who dominated the establishment and contributed to the community's basic framework. The institutions of a community reflect its strengths and weaknesses and represent community attitudes. They also indicate the ways in which a community attempts to solve its problems. In order to understand the reasons for the institutional changes of the 1930's, an in-depth study of the impact of the Nazi movement on New South Wales society is necessary. The growth of anti-Semitic movements in New South Wales in the 1930's and their significance will be assessed. A detailed analysis of the problems of admitting and integrating the Jewish refugees from Nazism is of even greater importance in gaining an understanding of the changes which took place in the 1930's. This thesis is mainly concerned with the Jewish • community of New South Wales; where relevant, comparisons will be made with other Anglo-Saxon Jewish communities. This study will focus on the period between the two world wars. With the outbreak of World War II migration ceased and so ended a viii distinct phase in Australian Jewish history. The war years began a new era, one of adjustment of the immigrants to Australian conditions and consolidation of the communal changes begun in the late 1930's. It is not intended to present an in-depth statistical survey of the New South Wales Jewish community, or a detailed demographic account of changes in occupation, places of abode ti and educational standards. Excellent work has already been done in this field by Charles A. Price in his "Jewish Settlers in Australia". 2 This study utilizes his statistical tables and demographic data. In researching this thesis, there have been a number of problems to overcome. Problems arose from the diffi6Ulty in obtaining access to source material. Most individual institutions have retained control of their records and have been reluctant to allow them to be read by an 'outsider' for fear that 'confidential' information might be revealed. In one case only, however, was permission refused. Much material has been lost because individuals have either inadvertently or . even deliberately destroyed it. 3The source material available is often unrevealing. For example, the Great Synagogue Minutes dealing with the Rabbi E. M. Levy dispute, 1938, are non- commital. They list only the dates of meetings held and have not recorded the actual discussions which took place. There 2 Charles A. Price, "Jewish Settlers in Australia, 1788-1961", Australian Jewish Historical Society Journal, Vol. V, Part VIII, 1964, pp.355-412. 3 For example, in the Minutes of the Sydney Beth Din twenty pages have been torn out. These cover the period 1937-1938 and probably dealt with the Rabbi Levy episode. It appears that the removal was deliberate. • ix ro is no mention of the reasons for the Board's insistence that Rabbi Levy resign. These gaps have had to be filled in with other methods of research. Written source material has been supplemented by personal recollections. There are a number of difficulties relating to the techniques of an interview for historical research. Elderly people are often suspicious of an interviewer and are cautious in revealing their own ideas of a period so that rapport must first be established. Memory is often clouded and the interviewer must use both his discretion and evidence from written sources to decide what is valid. Despite • • these problems, the interview is an invaluable instrument for the social historian. It allows the researcher to gain an . understanding of the attitudes and atmosphere of the period. Until recently, the amount of published material dealing with Australian Jewry has been limited and patchy. In the last few years the number of works on Australian Jewish history and demography has grown in volume. The majority of publications to date have been specialist studies of Jewish communities in the various Australian states.