Last weekend, a group of people gathered in Castlemaine to celebrate on the final evening of chanukah.
They are among central Victoria’s small but long-lived Jewish community, whose roots date back to the gold rush era.
Former Supreme Court judge and central Victoria resident Howard Nathan said a congregation was first founded in Bendigo in 1854 after Jews came from England and the United States.
The Jewish community continued to thrive in Bendigo but when World War I broke out, a lot of Jewish men signed up to fight – many of whom never returned home.
Wanting to prove their loyalty, Howard said, the Jews signed up in greater numbers proportionally than the general population.
The devastation wrought by WWI diminished the local Jewish community and a synagogue that stood at the intersection of Lyttleton Terrace and Hopetoun Street became a grain store.
Eventually, the building became unstable and it was demolished.
Howard said the organised Jewish community had faded out by 1927.
But 79 years later, he and Castlemaine’s Sarah Austin re-established the congregation by forming the Progressive Judaism group kehillat s’dot zahav: kehillat meaning congregation in Hebrew, s’dot meaning fields and zahav meaning gold.
Howard said they realised there were enough Jews in the region to warrant a formal community.
Read the article by Natalie Coxon in the Bendigo Advertiser.