Australians today have woken up on Christmas morning to the disturbing news of yet another antisemitic attack, this time in Melbourne. A car with a built on menorah on its roof from Hanukkah has been firebombed overnight. This incident took place in another hub of Jewish life in St Kilda moments from Jewish schools and Synagogues. At this stage the authorities believe that have identified the perpetrator but obviously the investigation is still ongoing. The reason i have chosen to include this is to first, highlight the shocking and ever present nature of antisemitic violence in Australia, 10 days after 15 Jews were murdered. And second, highlight the need for this topic, being that the Jewish community in Australia is suffering but we will endure and continue ‘Down Under’ because our community is deeply embedded into the fabric of this nation. (This is a late addition due to overnight developments)

In the wake of the Bondi Beach attack, Jews around the world looked toward Australia with shock and disbelief. Australia has long been spoken of as a distant haven: a sunlit, stable democracy at the edge of the Jewish diaspora, where Jewish life could be lived openly, proudly, and without the constant antisemitic violence seen in other parts of the world. People rightly assume that us Aussies are laid-back, unphased by life, a sunkissed people who ride their kangaroos everywhere. That is why I believe the responses i have been getting from all corners of the world has been so overwhelming. People simply can’t picture Aussies ever enduring this kind of violence. They assume that the violence we are most likely scared about is a snake or spider bite, or a dingo coming to get our baby!

That is why Bondi cut so deep. Not only because of the lives taken, but because it struck at the story Australians tell themselves and that Australian Jews have trusted for generations – that this country is different. That the Jewish experience here is safer, calmer, more settled. Our community consists largely these days of post WWII immigrants but also these days has a massive population of post apartheid South Africans as well as Jewish immigrants fleeing other countries. The reason is often that if you think that Israel is too much to handle with the language barrier, military service and security concerns then Australia is perfect. What other Jewish community globally offers you this lifestyle with this level of safety? So let’s dive into Jewish Australia and how we got here.

Jewish Australia is not new. It is not temporary. It is not imported. It is as old as European settlement itself in Australia, threaded through the earliest years of the colony and carried forward through every era since: penal settlement, gold rushes, Federation, war, refuge, nation-building, multiculturalism, and the modern age.

From the Second Fleet onward, Jews have been here – building, serving, stitching together institutions, contributing far beyond their numbers, and doing what diaspora Jews have always done: integrating and assimilating into the culture around them while refusing to surrender their Jewish soul within. This is not a story of a large community. It is the story of a small one that consistently outperformed its size – quietly, steadily, and unmistakably. And after Bondi, it matters more than ever to tell it clearly: not only as history, but as inheritance.

When the Second Fleet arrived in 1790, it brought misery for many – overcrowding, disease, brutality. Among those transported were Jews, arriving into a world without synagogues, rabbis, kosher food, or communal institutions, and without certainty that Jewish life could survive on a continent so distant from every Jewish centre that had ever existed. And yet Jews remained, determined to rebuild.

Australia’s earliest Jewish presence is often associated with the First Fleet, but the Second Fleet in 1788 is the first real confirmed arrival of Jewish life in Australia. They were part of the colony’s human fabric as it hardened into permanence. Many were convicts – people who arrived with almost nothing, survived harsh conditions, earned emancipation, and........

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