Archive of Australian Judaica

June 1999

ISSN 0814 - 8288

Archive Web Site

The most recent addition to the online photo archive features Benzion Patkin, one of the founders of Mount Scopus College in Melbourne and a prominent zionist.

Acquisitions

• Mrs Sophie Caplan for regularly sending ephemera and journals.
• Mrs Ilana Cohen for additional ephemera, and information from the Falk Library and the Great Synagogue, Sydney. We express our thanks to Mrs Cohen for working in the Archive in December, January and February on a voluntary basis.
• Mr Herbert Kohn for 10 discs which contain 670 pages of letters concerning the Gros Breeseners, about whom Wolf Matsdorf wrote. There are still eight copies of Wolf Matsdorf's: No Time to Grow: The Story of the Gros Breeseners in Australia. vi, 144pp. ($20.00 + postage - $2.00 (Australia) -$5.00 (overseas). The discs are a resource for more material.
• Mrs Israel Porush, on her return from Jerusalem for a few weeks recently donated to the Archive the remaining papers of her husband, the late Rabbi Dr Israel Porush. These papers contain notes from his sermons at Finchley synagogue (1934 - 1939), as well as from the Great Synagogue (1940 - 1972), newspaper clippings of important events about Sydney Jewry, letters to members of the Government, the Chief Rabbi of Great Britain and members of the Jewish community. In addition to valuable scrapbooks of newspaper clippings, are files of programmes of inductions and important events in the Jewish community from the 1940's. Rabbi Porush also corresponded with members of the Christian clergy and was active in interfaith relations. Our thanks are expressed to Mrs Porush for choosing to lodge this valuable collection with the Archive.
• Dr Michael Patkin, in cooperation with Mrs Benzion Patkin has begun publication of his father's memoirs which he is making available on disc.

Publications

Copies of Monograph No 9: Early Australian Zionism. An Annotated Index of Records in the Central Zionist Archives, Jerusalem. 50pp are also available from the Archivist for $5.00+ $1.00 postage ($3.00 overseas).

In addition, copies of the catalogue will continue to be updated on the internet, as well as some copies printed on request. A print out of Monograph no 12 will be available in the second half of 1999.

Also available from Mrs Nancy Hickson: Administrative Assistant, Semitic Studies, University of Sydney NSW 2006 are some Mandelbaum Trust publications.

These publications include:

• Israel Kipen's: Ahad Ha-am: The Zionism of the Future. 1997 (Mandelbaum Studies in Judaica no 9) $20.00. Postage $5.00 (Australia) $12.00 (overseas).
  
  
• Glenn Gordon's: Guardians of Zion: the Shomrim in Australia 1939-1944, (Mandelbaum Studies in Judaica no 6) and Eliyahu Honig's Zionism in Australia 1920-1939: the Formative Years. (Mandelbaum Studies in Judaica no 7).

The last two items are priced at $40 each. Postage $5 (Australia) or $12 (overseas).

Archive Publications in Progress

A second publication, an expanded listing of Australian Jewish archives in the Central Zionist Archives is also in progress. It is planned that later in 1999, this material will be put "on line" on the website. When finances permit, it is hoped that the latter will appear in a printed version.

The Archive continues to attract a wide variety of users who include students from overseas universities, as well as local users who include authors, writers and researchers preparing exhibitions or museum curators.

The Archive wishes to thank the University of Sydney Library, for technical support of the Archive, as well as the Mandelbaum Trust for supplying the salary of the Archivist, and the Friends of the Archive for their ongoing support.

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