The land down under has it all

Nicole Kidman, coral reefs

BY DAVID SHYOVITZ

he great continent of Australia is famous for
many things, among them its less-than-prodi-
gious beginnings as a penal colony. But a vibrant
Jewish community? Read on.
To make room in England's perpetually
crowded British prisons, convicts vere routinely shipped
to America's 13 colonies. When they revolted in 1776,
England lost its biggest prison; as a result, England
annexed the island of Australia in 1788 as a new prison
colony.
After Australia's native Aboriginal population, the
English were the first to settle there on a permanent basis
— even though Europeans had known of Australia since its
discovery in the 16th century. Of the 1,500 initial prison-
ers who arrived in Australia, 16 were Jewish; by 1817, more
had arrived and enough had been freed to form an orga-
nized minyan and burial society. As their numbers swelled,
primarily due to immigration from England and Germany,
kehillahs (organized communities) sprang up in the cities of
Sydney (in 1831) and Melbourne (in 1841), which were to

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become the two centers of Jewish life.
The Sydney kehillah — founded by Joseph Barrow
Montefiore, a cousin of the prominent Jewish philanthropist
Sir Moses Montefiore — worshiped in homes and shops
until 1844, when the growing community built the first
synagogue in Australia. It was followed soon after by syna-
gogues in Hobart, Launceston, Melbourne and Adelaide.
The gold rush of the 1850s attracted more Jewish immi-
grants, so that foreign-born Jews soon outnumbered the
native-born. Although many immigrants settled in rural
locations rather than the urban communities of Melbourne,
Sydney, Perth and Adelaide, fear of assimilation caused.
most Australian Jews to consolidate in cities by the end
of the century. Consequently, the rapidly growing Sydney
community soon needed larger facilities, and in 1878 built
the Great Synagogue, which was widely considered the
most impressive place of worship in Australia.

Early Jewish Life

Australia remains to this day the only country in the world,