Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On the weekend, I attended the 75th anniversary celebrations of the Elwood Talmud Torah Congregation. It was a well attended affair with over 200 people present and included my state colleague Martin Foley and the Mayor of the City of Port Phillip, Janet Cribbes. In a wonderful historical booklet especially produced for the occasion and a video, the historian Yossi Aron noted that the congregation was formed at the home of Joseph Fisher in 1932. The Fishers came from the Ukraine in 1928 but settled in Elwood. Together with their daughter’s fiance, Samuel Gandel, over many decades they played a role in the formation of this very important local synagogue, which is just around the corner from my house.

Over the afternoon, an important element of history became clear. Most Australians and most historians think that the Jewish community in Melbourne was formed largely in Carlton. However, it was very clear from Mr Aron’s book and the film that this was not so. Elwood, of course, has had the legendary rabbi who looked after Holocaust survivors, Rabbi Chaim Gutnick, who was the progenitor of a great rabbinical dynasty; and an internationally famous cantor, Reverend Adler.

The current rabbi, Mordechai Gutnick, the eldest son of Chaim Gutnick, was at the celebrations, as were Rabbi Shmuel Karnowsky, Rabbi Avigdor Aron and Moshe Hanovich. Also present were the great philanthropists Les and Eva Erdi and former presidents Fred Antman and Shmuel Rozenkranz, who steered the congregation through many of the last decades. The historian Yossi Aron, who wrote the wonderful history of the Elwood Talmud Torah Congregation, was present and is owed great credit for the function, as are Magdi Bar Zeev and Max Singer.

Yossi Aron’s history is not just about a 75-year-old Hebrew congregation. It is partially a social history of migration in south-eastern Melbourne, particularly in Elwood. It is very fortuitous, when you look back at it, that this congregation was formed by central and east European migrants prior to the Second World War. These were the very people who were able to look after the refugees and the displaced persons who came off the ships during the Second World War and who, subsequently, filled the pews at this very special shule.

The emphasis on education by the Elwood congregation is well known. There was originally a talmud torah there and then there was the Moriah College and now there is the successful primary school Yesodei HaTorah. I pay great tribute to all of the people who have worked there, prayed there and been great members of the Australian community, in Elwood and in Melbourne, and who have contributed so much beyond their community to our great country Australia.

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! In accordance with standing order 193 the time for constituency statements has concluded.