Jewish Immigration to Australia

Jews have been immigrating to Australia for centuries.

Jews began immigrating to Australia with the first English convict ships in 1788. By 1817, the first Jewish community was founded in Sydney, and today the country's Jewish population numbers nearly 120,000, making it the ninth-largest Jewish community in the world.

Earliest Settlers

About a dozen Jews were among the first 1,500 convicts to land in Australia toward the end of the 18th century. Joseph Marcus, a former convict, is believed to have founded the first community and Jewish burial society ("hevra kadisha"). Free Jewish settlers began arriving in 1821, swelling the Jewish population to more than 1,000, with synagogues in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane and Perth by 1844.

The Australian Gold Rush

When gold was discovered in 1850, Jews were among the thousands who immigrated to Australia. While some Jews were involved in the actual mining work, many more were involved in traditional Jewish occupations in commercial infrastructure, opening small businesses in rural regions to support the booming population. An estimated 15,000 Jews lived in Australia by the turn of the century.

Immigration After the Holocaust

During and immediately after World War II, Australia maintained strict immigration quotas that severely restricted the number of Jews who were able to enter the country. Pressure from the nation's Jewish community caused the government to relent on humanitarian grounds in 1947, allowing tens of thousands of Holocaust survivors to make their homes in Australia, which now has one of the highest concentrations of Holocaust survivors of any Jewish community in the world.

Immigrants From South Africa

Australia has also received a large number of South African Jews who immigrated in the 1980s, fleeing the deteriorating social and economic climate during the late apartheid period. These Jews, numbering about 8,000, settled primarily in Perth.

Immigrants From the Former Soviet Union

Similarly, many Jewish dissidents from the Soviet Union ("refuseniks") were granted residency in Australia since the 1970s, and many thousands more chose Australia after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s.

References

• Jewish Virtual Library: Australia
• Israel and Judaism Studies: JEWISH IMMIGRATION AFTER THE SECOND WORLD WAR
• Jewish Agency of Israel: A History of the Australian Jewish Community
• Jewish Virtual Library: The Jewish Population of the World