The British rabbi in Australia: The first 150 years
The following article by Rabbi Raymond Apple appeared in the Journal of the Australian Jewish Historical Society in 2019, Vol. 24, Part 2.
ABSTRACT
Australian Jewry began as an extension of the religious jurisdiction of the British Chief Rabbi and many of the early ministers were themselves British, accustomed to the thinking and practices of the Mother Country. Their congregations automatically regarded “Dukes Place” (the Great Synagogue, London) as their model and turned to the British Chief Rabbi in London for their religious rulings. From mid-nineteenth century when Jews’ College was founded in London, Australian communities generally sought “a Jews’ College man” to fill ministerial vacancies. Though the community gradually diversified, most of its ministers – well into the twentieth century – were British or had at least been trained and moulded in Britain. This paper traces the story of “the British rabbi” in Australia.
INTRODUCTION
This paper looks at the Jewish ministry in the first 150 years from the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788. During this period, Britain was the chief source of Jewish religious officials for the English-speaking world. Congregations which needed clergy automatically looked to London. In the beginning this applied not only to the British Empire but even to the emergent Jewish community of the United States.
Charles Duschinsky’s Rabbinate of the Great Synagogue, London[1] shows how the London rabbinate more or less took it for granted that it was the authority for Judaism wherever a British writ extended. Cecil Roth’s Great Synagogue, London,[2] names members of the Great Synagogue in Dukes Place who went to live in New York in the eighteenth century and kept in touch with their mother congregation in England.
It was axiomatic in those days, when American Jewry was a fraction of its later size, that when religious guidance was sought it would usually be the chief rabbi in London who was consulted. This was especially the case in the early nineteenth century when Solomon Hirschell (who held office from 1800-1842) was chief rabbi. However, apart from Hyman A Simons’ Forty Years a Chief Rabbi,[3] which was largely based on the author’s well-stocked memories of things he had heard from his elders, there is scant documentary evidence of Hirschell’s American connections. In the “English” period of American Jewish history, congregations that contacted London for ministers included Charlestown, Cincinnati, New York and Philadelphia. When the Anglo-Jewish press[4] (the rival papers The Jewish Chronicle and The Voice of Jacob) began in the 1840s, some American congregations used this new medium to advertise in England for chazanim, the term meaning “ministers.” In those days, little priority was accorded to rabbinic learning, and congregations were more concerned to find men who could conduct passable services, teach the children and (in some cases) give unsophisticated sermons. Some of Britain’s best Jewish clergy accepted positions in the United States. It was a triumph when Rev. SM Isaacs from Liverpool[5] was brought to America and became the model on which the American Jewish ministry was fashioned.
The first “glamour rabbi” in America was Dr Morris Raphall from Birmingham,[6] who was the first Anglo-Jewish minister to hold a university degree. He was known by Jews and non-Jews alike for his writings and lectures on Jewish history, literature and philosophy, and in the United States he espoused controversial views on slavery. As against Rabbi David Einhorn, he argued that slavery was endorsed by the Bible. Raphall had come to Britain from Scandinavia, but he can be regarded as a British rabbi as his style and approach were largely shaped in Britain.
Hirschell himself was an Englishman by birth, born in London during the rabbinic incumbency of his father Hirschell Levin,[7] who was known in England as Hart Lyon. Hirschell was the least English of Britain’s chief rabbis. He never fully mastered the English language, he spoke mostly Yiddish, and he gave less than a handful of addresses in English. On the other hand, his successor, Nathan Marcus Adler from Germany,[8] took very little time to acclimatise himself to the English language and English way and is rightly known as a British rabbi.
Nathan Marcus Adler’s letter books were amongst his son Elkan’s papers that were acquired by the Jewish Theological Seminary of America together with a large quantity of other Adler material which Elkan Adler was forced to sell to overcome a financial problem attributed to a partner in his legal firm. Thanks to a scholarship from the Jewish Memorial Council in London, I was able to carry out a study of the Adler papers in 1970 and found correspondence addressing a range of requests from New York for religious guidance.[9] The letters sent to Adler came mostly from Ashkenazi congregations, whilst the Sephardim addressed themselves to the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue in Bevis Marks.[10] From about the middle of the nineteenth century, however, American Jewry became more self-reliant, partly because the post-1848 wave of German Jewish immigration was accompanied by the rise of the American Reform movement, for whom the orthodox authorities in London were not an appropriate source of guidance or clergy.
In contrast, congregations in British colonial countries remained largely traditional – at least nominally – and regarded themselves as outposts of Empire. If Australia, New Zealand, South Africa or Canada or other overseas colonies needed a minister or an answer to a religious query, they automatically approached the authorities at “home”, which was (and remained for many years) the way of referring to Britain. However, circumstances constantly rendered this procedure difficult because transport and communications entailed extended voyages and took a long time.
Imagine the Jews of Hobart, Tasmania, in the nineteenth century, needing to know whether to count convicts towards a minyan or to call them to the Torah. Letters to London would take months, the chief rabbi would possibly be in no hurry to reply, and the rabbinic responses would require months to get back to Tasmania. A long period could pass before there was an answer to what began as quite an urgent problem. Things presumably had to be kept on hold in the meantime, but one can imagine the frustration on occasions when the synagogue was without a tenth man for minyan. Hobart’s problems are written up in the Journal of the Australian Jewish Historical Society[11] and in Max Gordon’s[12] and Peter and Ann Elias’[13] historical works on Tasmanian Jewry.
Or imagine the Jews of Sydney needing a minister in the 1850s. Once again there were lengthy delays, this time with serious repercussions. The chief rabbi did recommend a minister, in this case Herman Hoelzel, but he could not be certain that Sydney would accept his recommendation. Yet, was Hoelzel a “British” rabbi? He came from the Continent but had been chazan and occasional preacher at the Hambro’ Synagogue in London, which gave him a British connection – not that we can be sure whether he was a fully-fledged rabbi; maybe he possessed no more than the morenu title.
While Hoelzel’s possible appointment to Sydney was still being weighed and the letters were taking their time to cross the world, Hoelzel and his wife Mina set off (with Chief Rabbi Adler’s approval) for Hobart, which also had a ministerial vacancy, and whilst they were on the seas, Sydney’s reply to Adler and its acceptance of the original nomination of Hoelzel reached London but by then it was too late. Hoelzel arrived in Tasmania and promptly installed himself as “Presiding Rabbi of the Australian Colonies”, implying that this grandiloquent title had been agreed to by Adler. Presumably Hobart felt that the title gave them prestige, but they fell out with Hoelzel before long. Bypassing Adler, Hoelzel now approached Sydney, and the previously envisaged Sydney appointment was finally made. Involving London was always a lengthy process, but the delays led to mishaps. The Hoelzel story is detailed in a paper in the Journal of the Australian Jewish Historical Society.[14] As in Hobart, Hoelzel assumed the title “Presiding Rabbi of the Australian Colonies”, evoking considerable resentment from Melbourne but his Sydney incumbency there also did not last long. He and his wife became involved with a strange character who had dreams of being king of the Jews. The synagogue board was alarmed and Hoelzel had to vacate his position. There is a possibility that he began negotiations with Melbourne but in the end he and his wife left Australia and we do not know what became of them.
If we regard Hoelzel as a “British” rabbi, it is clear that geographical origin was not necessarily the criterion. The question of whether and how a man was British has to be answered in broader terms which involve a picture of the man as a whole, his style, his ways, his influences, his personality and his mindset. The present essay therefore presents a biographical picture of a number of rabbis and continues with an attempt to identify what made them “British”.
THE BIOGRAPHICAL PICTURE
In many ways the role model of the British rabbi in Australia was Rev. Alexander Barnard Davis,[15] Hoelzel’s longest-serving successor at the York Street Synagogue and then the Great Synagogue, Sydney. After a time in Jamaica, Davis had returned to London because of his wife’s health. The chief rabbi recommended him to Sydney, where Davis spent 41 generally happy years from 1862 to 1903. There was a second Sydney synagogue for some years, a breakaway congregation worshipping in a converted chapel in Macquarie Street. Davis succeeded in re-uniting the congregations in the impressive Great Synagogue in Elizabeth Street facing Hyde Park.
Davis was a classical figure of the Victorian-age Jewish ministry, setting the pattern for what has since generally been a series of lengthy incumbencies at the Mother Congregation of Australian Jewry. He was an impressive preacher, melodious officiant, respected pastor, effective charity collector, and dedicated educationist, but neither a Talmudic scholar or theologian nor a particularly productive writer. His daughter Rachel married Rabbi Dr Joseph Abrahams of the Melbourne Hebrew Congregation.[16] It is said that her state of health prevented Abrahams from becoming chief rabbi in succession to Hermann Adler.
Abrahams himself was unquestionably an Englishman. Born in London, he was one of the four sons of Rev. Barnett Abrahams, principal of Jews’ College and acting Haham of the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue, who had died at a young age. Joseph Abrahams was the first fully ordained rabbi in Australia, the first Australian rabbi to hold university degrees, and one of the few Jewish ministers in Australia’s first 150 years to stand for strict orthodoxy, despite the religious laxity of many of his congregants. He was highly respected, though Davis, his father-in-law, was probably more lovable.[17]
In Davis, Australia found its story-book English minister. He was colloquially called “Rabbi Davis”, but when a real rabbi (Isidor Bramson)[18] reached Sydney and challenged Davis, the congregation realised that their next appointment, whenever it came, had to be of an ordained rabbi able to give halachic rulings and to conduct a Beth Din. The history of the Great Synagogue has a full essay on Davis and his career.[19]
The appointment which the congregational elders made to succeed Davis was of Rabbi Francis Lyon Cohen, another Englishman who had been minister of the Borough Synagogue in South London as well as being a teacher at Jews’ College, music editor of the Jewish Encyclopedia and the first Jewish chaplain in British military history. Cohen’s life and career have been written up in the AJHS Journal and reprinted in book form.[20] Before leaving Britain in 1905, Cohen gained a rabbinical diploma, even though Chief Rabbi Hermann Adler and the members of the London Beth Din had reservations about his orthodoxy. Cohen held office for 29 years and, like Davis, was highly esteemed by the Australian public, but his views were not completely orthodox (an example is his willingness to have the organ played at Sabbath services) and at times his own board – themselves no paragons of traditional observance – overruled him in the interests of the orthodox status of the congregation. On some issues the British chief rabbi backed the board and not the rabbi. Cohen held office at the time of the Balfour Declaration but was no supporter of political Zionism, even though (perhaps paradoxically) he gave donations to Zionist causes. It must be added that Cohen was adamant about traditional Jewish doctrine, as we see from his sermons, generally published in the following week’s Hebrew Standard.
If we ask how and why Davis and Cohen were a success as ministers it has to do with their cultural consonance with their community. Despite the fact that by now some (in due course, many or most) of their congregation were born in Australia and had never visited “home”, there was an essential Englishness about the congregation, and the synagogue services followed the Great Synagogue pattern in London. The ministers’ personality and style fitted in. Amongst other things the clergy soon realised that most of the congregation were not observant of the Sabbath and dietary laws, not to speak of the mikveh, and the minister had to turn a blind eye and sometimes develop a relaxed orthodoxy of his own.
However, once the community grew and diversified, not everyone or every synagogue wanted the “English” cachet or the lax orthodoxy of the Great Synagogue. Though Cohen was held in respect and even affection by the English and Australian element of the community, the “foreign” and more orthodox groups roundly criticised his views and religious compromises. The Zionists, some of whom belonged to the Great Synagogue, criticised him too. It is said that they engineered the appointment of a “red hot” Zionist, Rev. Leib Aisack Falk,[21] as his assistant, precisely as a foil to Cohen. Falk later completed his rabbinical qualifications in Palestine in 1936.[22]
There is much that can be said about other British ministers in Australia, especially David Freedman of Perth and Elias Blaubaum and Jacob Danglow of Melbourne. Freedman, though born in Hungary, was highly British in his ways and approach. He too was comfortable with the relaxed orthodoxy of the community, though he was far more of a Zionist than many of his colleagues. He was a chaplain in the First World War and a public figure, even acting as an Australian delegate to the League of Nations. In an essay about Freedman, Nate Zusman wrote, “He was an ardent supporter of the British Empire and was imbued with the principles of Service, Loyalty and Citizenship, which he demonstrated throughout his lifetime, particularly during the First World War.”[23]
Blaubaum was from Germany and set out for Australia without knowing English. But he became so British in style and so adept at English that he not only preached in the vernacular but founded and edited the Jewish Herald. He was orthodox in principles and practice but tolerant of the religious and other foibles of his St. Kilda congregation. He was not only a capable editor but a deep thinker and effective writer.[24]
Danglow, his successor at St. Kilda, became the doyen of the Australian Jewish ministry,[25] was a chaplain in both World Wars and from 1942-62 Senior Hebrew Chaplain. No public cause was considered credible without his involvement – and he played golf and bowls with leading churchmen. His anti-Zionism, influenced by Sir Isaac Isaacs, was partly motivated by his fear of Jews being thought less than fully British by the Australian people. At an earlier period, however, Danglow had welcomed the Balfour Declaration, saying, “Great Britain’s acceptance of the Mandate for Palestine is a pressing call to us all to try and ensure the success of the Jewish resettlement there.”[26] In his correspondence with his friend Dayan Harris M Lazarus of the London Beth Din, Danglow expressed concern that strict orthodoxy was becoming untenable. He shared his feelings about the ministry with Lazarus, urging upon him “regular leisure and mental relaxation. The community is a severe and thoughtless taskmaster”.[27]
Could Davis and Cohen, Freedman, Blaubaum and Danglow have proved a success had they not come to Australia? Possibly, but Australia stretched them and made them significant public figures. It helped that, despite the small numbers of the Jewish community, the rabbis were given parity with the Christian archbishops on public occasions. Apart from the chief rabbi, few “establishment” ministers ever had that opportunity in Britain. One of the rare exceptions was Hermann Gollancz of the Bayswater Synagogue,[28] who held the chair of Hebrew at University College, London, was a well-known national figure, and spearheaded several movements for the benefit of the public at large. Gollancz could have nominated for the chief rabbinate after the death of Hermann Adler but felt that his age was against him. His public work earned him a knighthood. His brother Israel, a scholar and teacher of English literature, also had a knighthood conferred upon him, and the two brothers reminisced about their father, Rev. Samuel Marcus Gollancz of the Hambro’ Synagogue, and how proud he would have been of his sons.[29]
Other British ministers achieved a fame and status in the Australian communities similar to those we have discussed. The list includes Israel Brodie and Solomon Mestel of Melbourne, as well as Abraham Tobias Boas of Adelaide.
Brodie was born in England and in his youth was already spoken of as a future chief rabbi. He was an armed forces chaplain (Senior Jewish Chaplain from 1944-48) and an Oxford man. He used to describe himself as a combination of Oxford and Kovno.[30] Though Brodie was rabbi of the senior congregation and head of the Melbourne Beth Din (the ecclesiastical court), it was Danglow who was regarded as the religious representative of the community. The lay leaders justified the apparent anomaly by saying the matter would be addressed again if and when Brodie married and indicated that he intended to stay in Melbourne.
Mestel had been born on the Continent but served as a minister in Britain before going to East Melbourne. The “north of the Yarra” Jews highly respected him, though he left Australia early in the Depression, after which the more learned and orthodox element supported the (rather un-British) Lithuanian ga’on, Rabbi Joseph Lipman Gurewicz, who settled in the immigrant district of Carlton in the mid-1930s. Perhaps strangely, Gurewicz was friendly with the Liberal rabbi Herman Sanger, one of the best products of the German rabbinate, who arrived in Melbourne in 1936 and consolidated the Liberal movement after a shaky start.[31]
Born in Holland, Boas spent part of his early life in England and was a Shakespearean scholar. He was a well-known lecturer on the Bible. He was a kindly man who never took a holiday for forty years because his congregation could not manage without him.[32]
Similar names can be quoted from other parts of the British Empire. In South Africa, one could quote Professor Alfred Philipp Bender of Cape Town, and in New Zealand, Herman Van Staveren of Wellington and Solomon A Goldstein of Auckland, both of whom stayed with their respective communities for over fifty years, as well as Alexander Astor of Dunedin and Auckland.
THE BRITISH RABBI’S STYLE AND ETHOS
The “British rabbi” was rarely a rabbi and often not British by birth. Chief Rabbi Nathan Marcus Adler, who founded the ministerial profession in Britain and the Empire, wanted a ministerial style which combined elements of the German rabbinate and the Anglican pastor, bearing the title “Reverend” and generally lacking formal rabbinic ordination. Hence it was style and ethos rather than geography that characterised the British rabbi. This is the conclusion that arises from an analysis of the nature of the Australian Jewish clergy.
A key feature of British rabbis was their Jews’ College training: congregations at home and abroad regarded “a Jews’ College man” as their model. Jews’ College, founded by Nathan Marcus Adler in 1855, provided a well-rounded Judaic education, including rabbinic studies though not at a very advanced level. Until the end of the nineteenth century those who wanted a rabbinic degree (such as Hermann Gollancz and Simeon Singer) had to go abroad to obtain it. The lack of ordained rabbis led the critics to call Nathan Marcus Adler a chief without Indians. About half the rabbis had university degrees, but few of their congregants had gone to university either. General culture, personal polish and deportment were more important. Some ministers were largely self-taught and learned “on the job”, partly due to personal or family poverty.
Another element was their Christian models: Anglican clergy seemed to offer a 3-P role model: preacher, pastor and precentor. The Jewish ministry more or less followed the Christian example, carrying out functions which differed from the traditional scholarly role of the rabbi. Jewish ministers looked and spoke like their Christian counterparts. Jews gained respectability and status when their ministers seemed to be of the same mould as the Christians. This did not guarantee Jewish acceptability, but it kept antisemitism at low ebb. There were religious conflicts, but they were mostly within Christianity (Catholics vs Protestants).
British patriotism was another key feature. Patriotism was a major expression of rabbinic and community identity, willingly accorded by Jews in Britain and the Empire in gratitude for the secure haven which antisemitism had denied to Jews initially in the Iberian peninsula during the period of the Inquisition and then across the rest of Europe. British rabbis like Cohen and Danglow constantly resorted to rhetoric about the British flag, British justice and the Royal Family. Serving one’s country in time of war was taken as axiomatic. Cohen was disappointed that he was too old for active chaplaincy duty in the First World War, but Freedman and Danglow were younger and served in France. Because they feared that political Zionism would be seen as dual loyalty and Jewish patriotism would be questioned, Cohen and Danglow were wary of Zionist political involvement, though Danglow was more sympathetic to Zionism.
As well, they understood the need for a flexible orthodoxy. The Reform movement was not established in Australia until the 1930s,[33] even though Reform had been advocated by Isaac Jacobs of St. Kilda and earlier by Rev. Dr Dattner Jacobson, a former minister of the Melbourne Hebrew Congregation.[34] Rabbis tolerated the laxity of their congregants, and some took a lenient line in their own religious practice. Strictly orthodox rabbis were rare until the arrival of Holocaust survivors and the emergence of modern yeshivot.
At the same time, people skills were extremely important. Many rabbis had considerable rapport with their congregants though personal popularity could make it hard to maintain professional distance. They were known for their ability to mix with non-Jews and to converse about subjects other than religion. The rabbi was often the Jewish ambassador to the non-Jewish world, and this sometimes required attending and partaking of luncheons and dinners, which presented a challenge to the observance of the Jewish dietary laws.
Until comparatively recently, Australian synagogues followed the liturgical practices of Britain (popularly called Minhag Anglia, the English Usage), with minor changes necessitated by Australian geographical and climatic conditions. Minhag Anglia can be understood in a broader sense as an Anglophile ethos which emulated the ways and terminology of the Church of England and regarded everything English as their model. Colonial and Commonwealth congregations followed this pattern and were sometimes more English than the Mother Country. In the broader sense, Minhag Anglia is an attitude, not just a religious tradition. Australian Jewry generally remained nominally orthodox like most English congregations but gradually became more Australian, which led the writer to contribute to the AJHS Journal an article about recognising an entity which could be called Minhag Australia. As I have discussed in this article, these various elements contributed to the emergence of Minhag Anglia: the British rabbi knew how to behave, particularly within the gentile context.[35] Minhag Anglia was Anglo-Jewish propriety, not just “the English liturgical usage” because English Jews wanted to be “both in and of Britain and hoped to lose the taint of foreignness’.
Central to the British rabbi’s approach was Torah Im Derech Eretz: Ministers, and congregants generally, believed that Diaspora Jews should not only maintain their Judaism but engage with the modern world. This
was Samson Raphael Hirsch’ s concept of Torah Im Derech Eretz (“Judaism and general culture”), which became a key element of the British chief rabbinate.[36] Not that Hirsch gave the two cultures equal status: Western culture was the handmaid of Torah. Adler clearly developed the concept in the structure of Jews’ College, which was the central training ground. British rabbis were comfortable with this symbiosis though some congregants preferred Western culture and attenuated, hid or abandoned their Jewishness. Some were uncomfortable with working on Saturdays and festivals, but they felt they had no alternative.
An important element of Minhag Anglia was the Chief Rabbi’s confidence: Australian Jews originally saw themselves as an extension of the chief rabbi’s jurisdiction. Even when the ties loosened, there was a feeling of mutual trust. The chief rabbi was usually perceived as knowing what kind of rabbi would fit a given congregation, and the rabbi appreciated the Chief’s confidence. Sometimes a man was too young to have a track record, such as Freedman who came to Perth at 22, when Hermann Adler had to rely on his instinct.
A constant problem for all the British rabbis was the tendency of lay leaders to control or stifle their rabbis, making the term “spiritual leader” a mere formality. The rabbi had his supporters, and the tussle made synagogue life unedifying. Instances of conflict between the rabbi and the cantor also made synagogue life somewhat toxic. These issues were generally unrelated to a man’s Britishness other than to make it more difficult to maintain one’s dignity.
In regard to Britishness, what was decisive was whether a man looked, thought and conducted himself in a British manner: patriotic, urbane, tolerant and approachable. He would agree with Gilbert and Sullivan: “For he himself has said it, and it’s greatly to his credit, that he is an Englishman”. This situation changed in the twentieth century, with the arrival of continental Jewish refugees in the late 1930s and Holocaust survivors after the war. They changed and diversified Jewish religious practice in Australia so that Minhag Anglia and the key role of “the British rabbi” came to an end. However, their approach to Judaism dominated Jewish life during the colonial period and the early years of the Australian federation after 1901.
ENDNOTES
1. Charles Duschinsky, The Rabbinate of the Great Synagogue, London, from 1756-1842, Oxford, OUP, 1921.
2. Cecil Roth, The Great Synagogue, London, 1690-1940, London, Goldston, 1950.
3. Hyman A Simons, Forty Years a Chief Rabbi: The Life and Times of Solomon Hirschell, London, Robson, 1980; Raymond Apple, Solomon Hirschell, ‘High Priest of the Jews’, Falk Lecture, The Great Synagogue, Sydney, 2006.
4. [Cecil Roth], The Jewish Chronicle 1841-1941, London: The Jewish Chronicle, 1949.
5. “Isaacs, Samuel Myer”, Jewish Encyclopedia, vol. 6.
6. “Raphall, Morris Jacob”, Jewish Encyclopedia, vol. 10.
7. Simons, Forty Years a Chief Rabbi; Apple, “Solomon Hirschell”.
8. Derek Taylor, Chief Rabbi Nathan Marcus Adler: The Forgotten Founder, London, Vallentine Mitchell, 2018.
9. Raymond Apple, “Adleriana” in Elkan Adler’s Collection, Preliminary Report for Jewish Memorial Council, typescript, 1970.
10. Albert M Hyamson, The Sephardim of England, London, Methuen, 1951.
11. Lazarus Morris Goldman, “The History of Hobart Jewry”, Australian Jewish Historical Society Journal, (AJHSJ), vol. 3, part 5 (1951), pp. 209-237.
12. Max Gordon, Jews in Van Diemen’s Land, Sydney, Ponson, Newman & Benson, 1965.
13. Peter and Ann Elias (eds.): A Few From Afar: Jewish Lives in Tasmania from 1804, Hobart, Hobart Hebrew Cong., 2003.
14. Raymond Apple, “Herman Hoelzel – Ambitions of a ‘Presiding Rabbi’“, AJHSJ, vol. 23, part 2 (2015), pp. 233-242.
15. Raymond Apple, “Alexander Barnard Davis: Colonial Clergyman“, in M Dacy, J Dowling & S Faigan (eds.), Feasts and Fasts: A Festschrift in Honour of Alan David Crown, Sydney, Mandelbaum Publishing,
2005.
16. Keith Freedman, “From Bevis Marks to Bourke Street”, AJHSJ, vol. 8, part 7 (1979); Joseph Aron and Judy Arndt, The Enduring Remnant: The First 150 Years of the Melbourne Hebrew Congregation 1841-1991, Melbourne: MUP, 1992, Index, “Abrahams”.
17. Ibid.
18. Hebrew Standard (Sydney), 5 October 1905.
19. Raymond Apple, The Great Synagogue: A History of Sydney’s Big Shule, Sydney, UNSW Press, 2008.
20. Raymond Apple, “Francis Lyon Cohen: The Passionate Patriot”, AJHSJ, vol.12, part 4 (1995), pp. 663-747. Reprinted in book form, Sydney, AJHS, 1995.
21. Raymond Apple, The Great Synagogue, pp. 117-119.
22. Suzanne D Rutland, “Falk, Leib Aisack (1889–1957)”, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/falk-leib-aisack6136/text10531, published first in hardcopy 1981, accessed online 3 March 2019.
23. Nate Zusman, unpublished manuscript, Rabbi Apple’s private collection.
24. Hilary Rubinstein, “Rev. Elias Blaubaum (1847-1904): minister, editor and scholar”, AJHSJ, vol. 9, part 8 (1985), pp. 567-581; and David Havin, “Rev. Elias Blaubaum”, unpublished manuscript, Rabbi Apple’s private collection.
25. John S Levi, Rabbi Jacob Danglow: Uncrowned Monarch of Australian Jewry, Melbourne, MUP, 1995.
26. Letter from the Dayan Lazarus correspondence files, Rabbi Apple’s private collection. Other documents from Dayan Lazarus have been dispersed, with texts of his sermons and draft responsa donated to the library of Jews’ College (now the London School of Jewish Studies).
27. Ibid.
28. Hermann Gollancz, Personalia: The Story of a Professional Man’s Career, Oxford, OUP, 1928.
29. Hermann Gollancz (ed.), Samuel Marcus Gollancz: Biographical Sketches and Selected Verses, Oxford, OUP, 1930.
30. Raymond Apple, Kovno and Oxford: Israel Brodie and his Rabbinical Career, Falk Lecture, The Great Synagogue, Sydney, 2008.
31. John S Levi, My Dear Friends: The Life of Rabbi Dr. Herman Sanger, Melbourne, Hybrid, 2009.
32. Louise Rosenberg, “Reverend Abraham Tobias: a pioneer Jewish minister, 1842-1923”, AJHSJ, vol. 7, part 2 (1972), pp.77-169, condensed from a full biography published in 1970 by the AJHS.
33. Ibid.
34. Aron & Arndt, The Enduring Remnant, index, ‘Jacobson’; Lazarus M Goldman, The Jews in Victoria in the 19th Century (Melbourne, 1954), Index, “Jacobson”.
35. Raymond Apple, “Is there a Minhag Australia“, AJHSJ, vol. 21, part 2 (2013), pp. 186-194.
36. Writings of Samson Raphael Hirsch. See, for example, Moreshet Zvi: The Living Hirschian Legacy, NY/Jerusalem, Feldheim, 1988.
