Melbourne - Early Australian Jewish Archives Goes For First Time Live Online

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Melbourne - Hard-to-find documents detailing the history of Australia’s Jewish community are becoming more readily available since the National Archives in Canberra commenced digitising its massive collection.

The National Archives maintains such a large number of government records that immigration documents alone fill 22 kilometres of shelf space.

Senator John Faulkner launched the Making Australia Home project earlier this month -– a plan that will progressively make Australia’s immigration records available on the internet.

A search of the National Archives website reveals information that will fascinate Jewish history buffs.

A copy of a 1933 Census document demonstrated the demography of the Jewish population in Australia before World War II.

According to the file, Australia had 23,553 Jewish residents in 1933. Of those, 10,305 lived in New South Wales, 9500 lived in Victoria and 2105 lived in Western Australia, with the rest scattered around the country.

In the 2006 Census, taken 73 years later, 88,000 people declared themselves to be Jewish, with the actual number predicted to be closer to 100,000.

Other documents now available digitally include records of Jewish arrivals to Australia and cabinet ­documents.

For example, Morris “Shmon” Einstock’s “form of application for registration for alien resident in Australia” is available digitally. It records that Einstock, whose nationality is recorded as Jewish and birthplace as Palestine, came to Australia in January 1926.

Confidential cabinet minutes from 1943 reveal that the Australian Jewish Welfare Society was given special permission to bring 150 young Jewish refugees to Australia in the midst of the Holocaust.

For more information visit www.naa.gov.au.