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Remember Coles at Sandy Bay for all your Kosher goodies!
12
HOBART’S HISTORIC SHUL
(The following is an excerpt of an article which appeared in The Australian Jewish News of Fri 01
July 2005)
It was borne out of domestic dispute, but Hobart’s historic synagogue – the oldest in Australia – is
still standing and, surprisingly, even thriving. Mark Franklin reports.
Judah Solomon left 10 children and a pregnant wife in England when he was deported to Van
Diemen’s Land with his brother Joseph in 1819. The two were convicted of hiring burglars to steal
goods that, oddly enough, had already been stolen from someone else.
The Jewish community in their hometown of Sheerness must have felt a twinge of pity at their
unhappy exile because they sent the brothers a large sum of money. It enabled them to open a
store in the main street of Hobart Town with the blessing of colonial authorities who wanted to
develop a local infrastructure.
The brothers prospered. Judah built himself a mansion, found a mistress and fathered a child, but
his blossoming comfort was shattered when his long-forgotten wife arrived from England with
several of their children. Unsurprisingly, Esther Solomon took unkindly to her husband’s
unfaithfulness. She moved into Judah’s house but after their attempts to live peacefully under one
roof failed, she kicked him out. Their marital battle escalated. Esther publicised his infidelity around
the town and undermined his attempts to gain an official pardon, while he accused her of prostitution
and gambling.
Judah decided to offer the garden of his grand mansion – which Esther had usurped, but which he
still legally owned – to the emerging Jewish community and it was there that Hobart’s first
synagogue was built. Hobart synagogue now houses the oldest functioning congregation in
Australia – on Monday 4 July it became exactly 160 years since Judah Solomon and the entire
Jewish community of Hobart Town turned out for its opening.
Over its long history, Hobart Hebrew Congregation has both blossomed and withered. A census in
1842 revealed some 259 Jews living in Van Diemen’s Land. Most were convicts or emancipists,
many of whom opened small stores and scraped together a meagre living. But in 1847, two years
after Hobart’s shul opened, it was announced that freed convicts could settle on the mainland
without permission from the governor. It caused an exodus from the impoverished island and many
Jews moved to South Australia, Victoria and New South Wales. In the 2001 census, only 163
Tasmanians identified themselves as Jews, and the Hobart Hebrew Congregation numbered no
more than 70.
There was a brief resurgence when a handful of European refugees migrated after World War II, and
later as South African Jews trickled in and out during waves of migration to Australia. (From the
late 1980s to the present time, Progressive Judaism and Traditional Orthodoxy has been practised
in the Hobart shul. Admittedly, at first there were difficult times …)
But, unlike Esther and Judah Solomon, this time a compromise was reached and a decision was
made to “share the shul”. Hobart Hebrew Congregation president Caroline Heard told the AJN:
“Over the past four or five years we’ve come to a very nice, comfortable understanding. For Rosh
Hashanah, the Progressives have their service between 9 and 11 in the morning, and the Orthodox
come in at 11.30 and go until whenever they finish. And for Kol Nidre and Yom Kippur, the
Orthodox usually go to the Chabad House in Launceston.”
The Progressives have one Friday and two Saturday services a month. They help out the Orthodox
with minyans occasionally, and both congregations join together for social and non-religious
functions – they have a joint Kiddush every month and they come together to celebrate simchas.
And so it has been ever since – two congregations, Progressive and Orthodox, sharing Australia’s
oldest synagogue. “We’re all happy and everyone’s respectful of each other. That’s the optimum,
you can’t ask for more,” Heard said. “We can all exist under the same roof.”
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