Suzanne D. Rutland

Jews from the Former Soviet Union in Australia: Assimilating or Maintaining Jewish Identities?

Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2007), 289–293. 23 Zvi Gitelman, Century of Ambivalence: The Jews of Russia and the Soviet Union, 1881 to the Present, (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001),115–143. 24 For an overview of second country migrants in Toronto see Remennick’s chapter on Canada in Russian Jews on Three Continents and Dina Roginsky, “Israelis in Toronto: From Stigmatization to Self-Organization” (paper presented at the annual meeting of the Association for Jewish Studies, Toronto, December 16, 2007). 25 In Germany, Jewish community centers are government-sponsored agencies, responsible for organizing and distributing social services, welfare, language courses, and cultural initiatives among its members. Individual communities are governed by the Central Council of Jews in Germany, which represent 107 communities. Since 2003, the federal government and the Central Council signed the National Agreement, according to which the council receives funds to support its programs on integration of Jews from the former Soviet Union. The policy of membership in Jewish community centers has been a controversial matter for a number of years. 26 Gala, interview by author, Potsdam, June 2002. 27 Nelly Elias, 2005, quoted in Remennick, 352. 28 Vladimir K., interview by author, Potsdam, June 2002. 29 David, interview by author, Potsdam, June 2002. 30 See, for example, Danny Ben Moshe and Zohar Segev, Israel, the Diaspora, and Jewish Identity (Sussex: Sussex Academic Press, 2007.) 31 Leonid G., interview by author, Berlin, June 2002. 32 The Jewish War Veteran Association was established in the United States in 1896 as a noncommercial, non-state union of former Jewish military. 33 Boris S., interview by author, New York, March 1999. 34 Vekshina, “Kanadtsy tsenyat nash vklad v pobedu.” 35 Yakov, interview by author, Toronto, June 2007. 36 David S., interview by author, Potsdam, June 2002. 37 Vladimir K., interview by author, Potsdam, June 2002. 38 Isaak M., interview by author, Berlin, June 2002. 39 Laurence Silberstein, “Mapping, Not Tracing: Opening Reflection,” in Mapping Jewish Identities, ed. Laurence Silberstein (New York: New York University Press, 2000), 1–37. 40 Zvi Gitelman, “Thinking about being Jewish in Russia and Ukraine,” in Jewish Life after the USSR, ed. Zvi Gitelman, Musya Glants, and Marshall Goldman (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2003), 51.; Caryn Aviv and David Shneer, New Jews: The End of the Jewish Diaspora (New York: New York University Press, 2005.); Ben Moshe, et al, Israel, the Diaspora, and Jewish Identity. 41 Zvi Gitelman with Ken Goldstein, “From Russians to Israelis” in The Elections in Israel, 2003, ed. Asher Arian and Michal Shamir (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, 2004.) 42 Sonya T., interview by author, Toronto, July 2006. 43 Moshe Shokeid, Children of Circumstances: Israeli Emigrants in New York (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1988); Steven Gold, The Israeli Diaspora (London: Routledge, 2002.); Shokeid, Children of Circumstances, 1988. 44 Roginsky, “Israelis in Toronto.” For Russian “yeridim” see Larissa Remennick, Russian Jews on Three Continents, 297–299. 45 Roberman, “Commemorative Activities...,” 1056. 46 For example, in 2005 the Blavatnik Archive undertook a long-term project to record the personal testimonies of Jewish veterans who fought in the Soviet Red Army during WWII. With over 650 video-recorded testimonies from all over the world, supplemented with digitized photographs and documents, it is the Archive’s mission to preserve the memories of the Jewish veterans and make available new materials for academic research and public inquiry. The interview phase of the project will continue through 2009, with the ultimate goal of creating an online searchable database of the entire video collection. (Julie Chervinski, executive director of the Blavatnik Foundation, e-mail message to author, May 1, 2009.)

Subtle Exclusions: Postwar Jewish Emigration to Australia and the Impact of the IRO Scheme

In December 1946 the United Nations General Assembly ratified the establishment of the International Refugee Organisation (IRO) to deal with the problem of displaced persons (DPs) in Europe. From 1947 to 1950 a total of 200,000 DPs were admitted into Australia under the IRO, making the Australian intake the fourth largest, after the United States, Canada and Israel. However, Jews were excluded initially and when some were finally admitted, they had to be young, single and willing to sign a special work contract. Only about 500 Jews came to Australia sponsored through the IRO. This article explores the various bureaucratic measures introduced to discriminate against Jews and the reactions of the Jewish leadership.

Genocide or Holocaust Education: Exploring Different Australian Approaches for Muslim School Children

Holocaust education can play a role in countering the ongoing problem of prejudice and incitement to hate that can lead to racial tension and violence. This chapter examines the beliefs of Muslim school children towards Jews in Sydney, Australia. It then discusses efforts to use Holocaust education to combat racist beliefs and hate language, and an alternative approach that illustrates the common values in the Abrahamic faiths. The chapter analyses the advantages and disadvantages of using various school programmes to counter anti-Jewish feelings amongst Muslim children. It ends with a discussion of whether such programmes should be compulsory and whether the educational focus should be on the specific case of the Holocaust or take a broader approach through genocide studies.

Intergenerational Challenges in Australian Jewish School Education

Abstract The aim of this research is to investigate the intergenerational changes that have occurred in Australian Jewish day schools and the challenges these pose for religious and Jewish education. Using a grounded theory approach according to the constant comparative method (Strauss 1987), data from three sources (interviews [296], observations [27], and documents) were analyzed, thus enabling triangulation. Findings show that there is an incongruity between what the adult community defines as the central components of Jewish and religious identity, which are more particularistic, and the perspectives of Jewish youth, which are more universalistic.

Combatting antisemitism in the school playground: an Australian case study

ABSTRACT The aim of Gross and Rutlands paper is to analyse the problem of antisemitic bullying in contemporary Australian state schools by investigating the case of Jewish children in those schools. The study is interdisciplinary, drawing on historical data and educational methodology, and employs a qualitative approach through semi-structured interviews conducted in Sydney and Melbourne with all the major actors: students (55), teachers (10), principals (4), parents (13) and Jewish communal leaders (10). Gross and Rutland argue that classical anti-Jewish stereotypes are perpetuated in the school playground, transmitted by children from one generation to the next. This finding provides an additional perspective to the general literature, which argues that racial prejudice and stereotypes are acquired primarily through home socialization, religious institutions and the media, and neglects the role of the school playground.

No room at the inn: American responses to Australian immigration policies, 1946–54

ABSTRACT After the Second World War, Australia introduced a new immigration policy based on the concept of ‘populate or perish’. Through the International Refugee Organization (IRO), 170,000 DPs migrated to Australia between 1947 and 1950, funded by the United Nations and the Australian government. Jews were largely excluded from this programme and the Minister for Immigration even prohibited the IRO from continuing to support the migration to Australia, based on family reunion, of individual Jewish survivors. In addition, the Australian government introduced other discriminatory policies that ensured that Jews remained only 0.5 per cent of the overall population. Based on archival research in the files of the Hebrew Immigration Aid Society and the American Joint Distribution Committee, Rutland and Encel analyse the entrenched racism in Australian society that contributed to these policies, and the reactions of the American Jewish leadership to them.

Australian religion review, 1980-2000, Part 1 : Surveys, bibliographies and religions other than Christianity

This article reviews Australian religious history from 1981 to 2000. It extends an earlier review, also published in the Journal of Religious History, which provided an initial survey of Australian religious history from 1960 to 1980. The review is published in two parts. The first part discusses survey histories, bibliographies and reference works, religion in «non-religious» Australian history, Aboriginal religions and missions, Judaism and other non-Christian religious traditions. The second part covers Christianity: Catholicism, Anglicanism, Non-Anglican Protestantism, and Eastern Orthodoxy. Overall, there has been a great deal written since 1980, but not all of it can be considered meritorious. The review includes suggestions for future research.

Creating a safe place: SRE teaching as an act of security and identity formation in government schools in Australia

This study seeks to analyse the components that contribute to Special Religious Education (SRE) classes in government schools in Australia being considered as a ‘safe place’ and the ways in which they facilitate an understanding of the students’ own religious and cultural identity. Our research focuses on one of the small faiths, Judaism, as a case study through observation of the Jewish SRE/SRI classes in the two largest Jewish population centres, Sydney and Melbourne. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 90 participants, and classroom observations were undertaken in both cities. This paper draws on Kymlicka’s concept of the rights of minority groups in a liberal society and discusses the distinction between thin and thick multiculturalism. Our findings show that the Jewish SRE teachers implemented Jackson’s interpretive approach, ensuring that the students’ educational experience is meaningful. As a result, they are able to develop their unique identity capital, which is important in a multifaith society to ensure ‘thick’ multiculturalism. Our argument is that students need to have an understanding of their own particularistic identity, as well as learning to respect other religions.

In the Shadow of the Holocaust: The Development of Moriah College, Sydney

This paper analyses the legacy of the Holocaust in the development of Moriah College, today the largest Jewish school in Australia, and explains why this tragedy led to a determined effort to achieve Jewish renewal as well as academic success. The growth of the College was facilitated first by restitution and later by the generosity of survivors. As a result of survivors’ reluctance to talk about their experiences, there was no formal study of the Holocaust until the late 1970s when Holocaust education and memorialisation became part of the College’s programme. An analysis of this adds to our understanding of the ‘silence’, an issue of significant debate in recent scholarship.

A celebratory history of Queensland Jewry

Jewish Life in Queensland is a celebratory history, marking 150 years since the establishment of Jewish life in the colony in 1865, following its separation from New South Wales in 1859. The book charts the history of the community as it developed from a small group of 150 people to a total population of over 5000 according to the 2011 census. In writing this book, Jennifer Creese has sought to cover every aspect of Jewish life, while at the same time writing a general history that would be accessible to all readers. Her approach combines both archival research and family histories. In addition to producing a very readable text, she has focused on creating a book which is aesthetically pleasing; a great deal of thought has gone into the design of the book, with excellent results. The book targets both those who wish to read the book from cover to cover, as well as those who just want to dip into the book or follow the story via the illustrations. As a sponsored history, with three major sponsors acknowledged – the Reuben Pelerman Benevolent Foundation, G. James Glass and the Saragossi family – this approach is understandable. The book is divided into three parts, which together aim to provide a comprehensive picture of Jewish life in Queensland, although the contents page does not reflect this division clearly. The first part of the book provides a chronological narrative of the development of Jewish life in Brisbane. This section begins with the colonial origins and early years of settlement in the area, starting with the story of the Jewish convicts sent to Moreton Bay from 1825 until 1839, when the penal settlement closed. Creese then discusses the events leading to the formation of the congregation in 1865 and the key role of Jonas M. Myer, who had no formal rabbinical training but led the community for 43 years. The history of Brisbane then moves to discuss the various periods of development, from the building of the synagogue and its formal opening in 1885, to the development of the South Brisbane congregation with the arrival of Jewish refugees from Russia, first under Tsar Nicholas II and then with the Communist Revolution, developments in the interwar years and the post-war growth resulting from various waves of migration and the impact of the different groups. Each section is introduced with a brief overview that sets the scene for the new chapter, and which enables the reader to follow the narrative without necessarily reading the whole text. The second part of the book deals with Jewish life in the different regional areas of Queensland. This part is divided into North Queensland, the Outback, Toowoomba and its region and finally the Gold and Sunshine Coasts. The discussion of each of these