The "Kadimah" Leo Fink Hall, at 7 Selwyn Street, Elsternwick, Victoria, Australia 3181

Jewish Arrival and Settlement in Australia 

In 1788 the First Fleet, which arrived from England to Botany Bay south of present-day Sydney, carried some 14 Jews amongst the 717 miserable convicts transported to these distant shores.  By 1828, Jewish communal life in Australia had tentatively been established, with the founding of the first congregation. The first Jewish welfare society opened in 1841 and a Jewish newspaper in English began publishing in 1851.  The first Jewish school opened in the mid 1860s.  The first Jewish settlers where overwhelmingly of Anglo-Germanic background and the first Yiddish speakers began to arrive in small numbers following the discovery of gold in the 1850s.  Some more Yiddish speakers came seeking refuge following the pogroms and failed revolutions in Russia.  The Kadimah Jewish Cultural Centre and National Library was founded in 1911 and Yiddish theatre began performances about the same time.  The first Yiddish newspaper appeared in 1937 and the pioneer Yiddish writer, Pinkhas Goldhar, began publishing his stories about Australia a year later.

Following WWII and the Holocaust, which resulted in the deaths of 6 million European Jews, the majority of them Yiddish speakers, a new wave of Jewish migrants and refugees resettled in Australia.  Amongst these were a few thousand Holocaust survivors and some ten thousand Yiddish-speakers were located mainly in Melbourne and Sydney. They established a small Yiddish speaking community in Australia and with the growth of migration Melbourne became one of the most active centres of Yiddish culture in the world. The post-Second World War migration flow re-invigorated and diversified the Jewish communities of Australia and Yiddish language and culture blossomed.  The Yiddish language has been a valuable link for the post-war migrant generation, as well as the more recent ex-Soviet Union wave of Jewish migrants. An estimated 100,000 Jews, 90% of whom live in even proportions in Sydney and Melbourne, are of predominantly Ashkenazic background.

The Jewish community is in itself a multicultural community made up of members from some 80 different linguistic and geographic origins. This diversity has often necessitated English as the common language of the Australian Jewish community.  Notable figures from Australia's Jewish community have included Sir Isaac Isaacs, the first Australian born Governor General, Sir John Monash, a First World War Allied Armies Commander and Sir Zelman Cowan, a recent Governor General of Australia.

Yiddish Language and Culture

Yiddish is the language of the majority of Ashkenazi (Eastern European) Jews. It evolved around the Rhine region of Germany some 1000 years ago as Yiddish Taitch, a local dialect for translation of the scriptures, commentaries and for daily useage.  Yiddish is affectionately known as Mame Loshn, or Mother Tongue and uses the ancient Hebrew alphabet in its written and printed form. Most of the content is derived from Mittel Hoch Deutsch, or Middle High German with elements of scriptural Hebrew or Loshn Kodesh, Slavic and other linguistic elements integrated over time.  Yiddish language and culture spread worldwide after the Middle Ages as Jews moved from Germany and eventually set up communities around the world. The largest of these were in Poland, the Baltic States, Russia, Romania, Argentina, USA and Palestine.  Yiddish boasts a rich and varied literary, folkloric and lyrical tradition. 

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