These Are the Names: Jewish Lives in Australia, 1788-1850

Description

Between 1788 and 1850, more than 1500 Jewish men and women were either transported to Australia as convicts or arrived as free settlers. This important biographical dictionary presents the details - occasionally sketchy but sometimes extensive - of more than 1500 of these pioneers. Rabbi John Levi's painstaking research through the fragmentary and often contradictory colonial records has culminated in an invaluable reference work and resource. A wealth of information, including birth names, extra names, nicknames, aliases and maiden names, together with details of marriages, children and occupations, makes These are the Names a major contribution to an important but little-recognised aspect of Australia's settlement history. For the first time, the earliest generation of Jews to settle in Australia is named and remembered.

John Levi was the first Australian to be ordained as a rabbi and to return to work in the land of his birth. He was named Rabbi Emeritus of Temple Beth Israel in Melbourne in 1997, served as Senior Rabbi of the Victorian Union for Progressive Union from 1974, and was elected Vice President of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry in 2005. He is a Patron of the Council of Christian and Jews, an organisation he helped to found in 1963, and a member of the governing body of the World Union for Progressive Judaism, 1974 to 1998. Rabbi Levi was one of the founders of Melbourne's King David School. His publications include Australian Genesis (1974), The Forefathers (1976), Rabbi Jacob Danglow- Uncrowned Monarch of Australian Jewry (1995), The Musical Tradition of the Berlin Reform Synagogue (1998) and A Passover Haggadah (2002). He is a Member of the Order of Australia. Monash University awarded Rabbi Levi the degree of Doctor of Laws (honoris causa) for his contribution to the community and to Australian Jewish history in 2006.