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3 Av 5764 - July 21, 2004 | Mordecai Plaut, director Published Weekly
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NEWS
A South African Perspective of the Australian Jewish Community
by D Saks

Australia's Jewish community, today exceeding the 110,000 mark, can attribute much of its growth over the past two decades to immigration from South Africa. In June-July this year, South African Chief Rabbi Cyril Harris was given an opportunity to observe how South African expatriates were coping, both in Australia and neighboring New Zealand during a busy speaking tour on behalf of the Anti-Defamation Commission.

Rabbi Harris, who enjoys an international reputation as an advocate of human rights issues, was brought out by the ADC to deliver its annual Gandel Oration, the organization's premier fundraising event.

Australian Jewry is concentrated in Melbourne and Sydney, but there is a substantial Jewish presence (75 percent ex-South African) in Perth and smaller communities -- ranging from between a few hundred and a few thousand -- in Adelaide, Brisbane, Canberra and Hobart. The New Zealand Jewish community remains small, something generally attributed to the isolation of the country and the belief that many immigrants were using it only as a steppingstone to get into Australia. The Jewish primary school in Auckland still functions, but the high school recently had to close because of lack of students. Over the past three years, Jewish communal leaders in both countries have noted a sharp decline in South African immigration. (Editor's Note: New Zealand also has a serious halachic issue because its Saturday, which is the same as Australia's, is not the same day as Shabbos which is a day later.)

Rabbi Harris took the opportunity during his visit to correct numerous misconceptions regarding the situation in South Africa and the Jewish community there. While crime remains at an unacceptably high level he said, it is untrue that South African society is in crisis and that the Jewish community is in the throes of disintegration. South African Jewry might be smaller, but it has never been more vibrant.

It is also incorrect to depict South African expatriates as refugees who had been forced to leave their country of birth. Rabbi Harris deplored the way some people denigrate South Africa from afar.

Rabbi Harris found that expatriates generally settled in very well, in part because the lifestyle was very similar to that in South Africa. He did, however, come across several people who indicated that they were struggling financially and would return to South Africa if they could. While ex-South Africans tended to be disproportionately represented amongst Australia's Jewish communal leaders and educationalists, it is also true that some had, so to speak, "dumped their Yiddishkeit into the Indian ocean" en route, and are today far less involved than they had been in Jewish life in "the old country."

Rabbi Harris described the Melbourne Jewish community as the strongest and most active in Australia.

Two noteworthy disadvantages of Australia from a Jewish point of view involve assimilation and antisemitism. The current intermarriage rate in Australia is thought to be about 30 percent, as opposed to less than 10 percent in South Africa. Recorded antisemitic incidents in Australia have topped the 500 mark two years running, compared with an annual average in South Africa over the past decade of less than thirty.

 

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