History of the Jews in Australia

The history of Jews in Australia traces the history of Australian Jews from the British settlement of Australia commencing in 1788. Though Europeans had visited Australia before 1788, there is no evidence of any Jewish sailors among the crew. The first Jews known to have come to Australia came as convicts transported to Botany Bay in 1788 aboard the First Fleet that established the first European settlement on the continent, on the site of present-day Sydney. There were 97,335 Australians who identified themselves as Jewish in the 2011 census, but the actual number is estimated to be 112,000. (An answer to the question on the census was optional.) The majority are Ashkenazi Jews, many of them Jewish refugees, including Holocaust survivors who arrived during and after World War II, and their descendants. Jews make up about 0.5% of the Australian population. Major general histories of the Jews in Australia are Hilary L. Rubinstein and William D. Rubinstein, The Jews in Australia: A Thematic History (2 vols., 1991) and Suzanne D. Rutland, Edge of the Diaspora: Two Centuries of Jewish Settlement in Australia (2001; first ed. 1988). Each of these academic historians has written more concise general histories also, with Hilary L. Rubinstein's Chosen: The Jews in Australia (1987) being the first overall history of Australian Jewry, and described by Rabbi Raymond Apple as skilfully and stylishly weaving together the strands of the story of a colourful minority group and its interaction with general society. Rabbi John Simon Levi, co-author of Australian Genesis: Jewish Convicts and Settlers, 1788-1850 (1974) has authored the magisterial biographical directory, These Are The Names: Jewish Lives in Australia, 1788-1860 (2013). The Australian Jewish Historical Society Journal (started 1939) appears twice a year, published in Sydney and Melbourne respectively. There are also a number of published monographs on aspects of Australian Jewish history, for a guide to which (as well as to Australian Jewish literature) Serge Liberman, A Bibliography of Australasian Judaica, 1788-2008 (2011) is a distinguished reference work.