Costumes add colour to Outback shul centenary
MORE than 250 visitors from Sydney and Melbourne recently marked the centenary of the Broken Hill Synagogue, swelling the far western NSW town’s population for three days.
MORE than 250 visitors from Sydney and Melbourne recently marked the centenary of the Broken Hill Synagogue, swelling the far western NSW town’s population for three days.
The highlight of the anniversary weekend was a re-enactment of the foundation ceremony, with Jewish descendants and members of the Australian Jewish Historical Society (AJHS) and the Broken Hill Historical Society (BHHS) clad in period garb.
Local choir Community Voices sang Hebrew songs, and Professor Colin Tatz of Sydney launched Jews of the Outback: The Centenary of the Broken Hill Synagogue 1910-2010, a book co-edited by Sydney historian Professor Suzanne Rutland, Melbourne academic Professor Leon Mann and BHHS volunteer Margaret Price.
Descendants visited tombstones of their Jewish grandparents and great-grandparents at the local
cemetery.
Prof Mann, the centenary’s coordinator, who spent part of his childhood in Broken Hill, described the weekend as “an emotional experience”.
Presidents of the Victorian and NSW AJHS chapters, Howard Freeman and Sophie Caplan, travelled to Broken Hill to strengthen ties between the AJHS and the BHHS.
Ross Mawby, BHHS president, addressed guests about the significant impact of several waves of Jewish immigration to the mining town from the 1890s until the 1950s. Mayor Wincen Cuy paid tribute to the volunteers who restored the building.
“I thought it was the last hurrah for the shul,” Prof Mann told The AJN, “but now I believe it may become a respected regional museum highlighting the contribution of the Jewish community in remote Australia”.
Regular services at the shul ceased in 1962, but local historians have restored many artefacts – including the ark, bimah and a Star of David – and have turned it into a museum of local Jewish settlement.
PETER KOHN
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