|
|
Nov. 22, 2013
Jews arrive in many waves
Population, religious, cultural and other exhibits at museum.
KAREN GINSBERG
My husband and I were in Melbourne on the day that the Australian population reached 23 million. There was great excitement in the country, and the matter was reported at length. TV news shows all hosted statistical experts – noting that an Australian baby is born every minute and a half, that an Australian dies every three minutes, what the country’s immigration and emigration rates have been over the years. Everyone was aquiver with excitement at forecasting the precise time of that day that the special number – 23 million citizens – would be reached.
For us, that same fascination with population dynamics carried over to our visit to the Jewish Museum of Australia: The Gandel Centre of Judaica. Among its many excellent displays was one that was a “riff” on the morning’s theme of “how our population is growing.” This exhibit displayed the shape of Australia on the floor, about a metre and a half in breadth. As a visitor looks down at the map, beams of light travel across the map at the same time as various time frames, all in chronological order, are displayed. The overall effect gives the viewer a bird’s-eye view of the various periods of significant Jewish immigration to Australia and the years in which they came.
While the Australian Jewish population started with a scant 10 convicts who came to Tasmania in the late 1780s, by 1816 there were a significant number of Jewish settlers in the country, drawn by Australia’s gold rush. Between 1850-1900, 10,000 Eastern European Jews came to Australia, mostly to the Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne and Adelaide areas, to escape pogroms.
The next significant movement of Jews to Australia was also of immigrants escaping pogroms; this time, ones that had spread farther east to Russia, from 1900-1913. This influx was followed by yet another large wave of Eastern European immigrants from 1933-39, as Jews tried to escape the Nazis. By then, Australia’s Jewish population had risen to 33,000.
In 1940, there was immigration by the dunera, German or Austrian Jews, thought to be enemy aliens, who were deported from England. After the Second World War, there was another large influx, followed quickly by yet another, from 1971-86, some of whom came from South Africa, where conditions for Jews became less hospitable during the apartheid years. There were also large numbers of Jews from the former Soviet Union. By the late 1980s, there were 70,000 Jews in Australia.
Currently, there are more than 100,000 Jews in Australia, about 50,000 in Melbourne alone, and almost as many in Sydney, with the remainder scattered in much smaller numbers mostly in the more southerly parts of the country. This original pattern of Jewish population distribution has altered somewhat in more recent years, as some have settled in the western part of the country and even some in the northeast.
Adjacent to the display about population, the museum has a heart-wrenching display of letters from individuals whose requests for immigration could not be accommodated in the pre- and early Second World War period. Also nearby, there is a display comprised of travel tags, filled out by various museum visitors who had themselves immigrated to Australia. The tags give the individuals’ names, dates of their arrival and why they came. Overwhelmingly, their reasons were to build a better life for themselves and their families.
Another one of the unique features of this museum is its timeline of Jewish world history, which is literally etched into the floor. A visitor passes through the various major events in sequence, starting with those before the Common Era, the destruction of the First and Second Temples and continuing on towards the world wars and the Holocaust. Displays along the walls link what was happening in Jewish history to other events happening in the world. Walking through/over Jewish history while surrounded by displays on the larger world history enables visitors to literally feel enveloped and to see Jewish history in its broadest context.
In addition to all these exhibits, the Jewish Museum of Australia focuses on explaining and exploring religious and cultural dimensions of Judaism, customs, laws and contemporary challenges, and highlighting the various contributions of the Jewish community to Australian society. It does not focus on the Holocaust, as there is a separate Holocaust Education Centre in Melbourne.
One area of the museum is devoted to the Jewish calendar, with displays of artifacts associated with each of the major holidays. To make the point that different Jews celebrate the holidays in similar but not identical ways, there are photomontages of three different women lighting Shabbat candles, chanting the blessing for the candlelighting with three different melodies. There are displays of both Ashkenazi and Sephardi rituals.
In the exhibit space devoted to Jewish religious life, one of the most interesting features was the manner in which the essence of talmudic debate is explored. Visitors can listen on headphones to debates on such thorny questions as what the Talmud has to say about abortion and when, if ever, there is moral justification for killing someone.
Our museum visit concluded with a tour of the Lovers of Peace Synagogue (Orthodox) immediately adjacent to the museum. In a reminder that the world really is a very small place, our tour guide was a lovely middle-aged South African-born Australian Jewish woman. Upon hearing that we were from Canada and I, originally from Winnipeg, she told us that her father, a rabbi, was once offered a congregational position in Winnipeg – an offer he rejected in favor of a family move to Australia where, among other factors, the weather was more moderate. Go figure!
For more information on the museum, visit jewishmuseum.com.au.
Karen Ginsberg is a travel writer based in Ottawa.
^TOP
|
|
