0One of the more incredible attributes of the Jewish people is our desire to remain proud, practicing Jews, even while living in cities and countries where we are outnumbered tens of millions to one. Even today it is said that there is a Jew in almost every country around the world.
Afghanistan, for example, has a solitary member of the tribe left. Ghana, Sri Lanka, Iceland? Yep, there are a few Jews there. Even Gadaffi’s Libya, which so many associate with the blind hatred and persecution of Jews, still had a few as recently as the turn of the century.
It’s certainly not a new phenomenon, but despite the fact that smaller communities have an easier time staying in touch with the wider Jewish world today, young people are still deserting them for larger, more diverse Jewish communities. They just don’t see themselves as having a future in small communities — if they want to live a fulfilled Jewish life, if they want to socialise with Jews and eventually marry one, they don’t have a choice but to migrate to cities with more Jews.
And I’m not even talking about war-torn places halfway around like Afghanistan. The most striking is the pattern of going from hardly tiny communities like Perth today, to Melbourne and Sydney, in search of a better life — personally, professionally and communally. I was born in Perth and look back and see so many friends from my hometown that have made the trip across the Nullarbor and settled on the east coast.
It’s sometimes a lack of vibrant Jewish culture that drives them, or perhaps just a shortage of good Jewish boys, but there’s no doubt about it — many of Perth’s youth are either already firmly settled there, thinking about family, or entertain thoughts of leaving.
Similarly in Adelaide, where today the community is being held together by a small dedicated few. With fewer than 2000 Jews and just a hundred active families, many of whom are leaving, it’s difficult to imagine a more dire time for the South Australian Jewish community in its 140-year history.
You can search farther abroad to communities like India — where a strong community of 30,000 have virtually all made aliyah since 1948 leaving only a shell of its former self — but the same question keeps coming up: do we have an obligation, as a large, prospering and affluent community, to support smaller ones, or rather, is it better for them to emigrate?
The issue then arises that these small communities suffer a brain drain and chronic lack of people willing to take over community responsibility from older generations. Perth isn’t suffering that problem now, thanks to the influx of South Africans over the past quarter century, but Adelaide and Auckland certainly do.
But what is the answer? Is it that we recognise the duplicity of investing finite resources into many, smaller communities and resolve to instead support only a few, larger ones? It would, after all, ensure great centres of Jewish life and culture — we can have more Carlisle Streets in Melbourne and more Bondis in Sydney bustling with Jewish.
Imagine having all 120,000 Australian Jews in just one city, the opportunities would be limitless. Consider the possible diversity of Jewish schools and youth movements, the plethora of minyanim on a Shabbat, the assortment of (affordable and varied) kosher culinary options and real community support for new initiatives. It would be an extraordinary community, but would it be what we want?
After all, one can go to Israel to have that and more: a complete immersion in Jewish life and culture of every conceivable kind. So why try and re-create that in Melbourne or Mumbai?
Small communities have inevitably been around ‘forever’ and provide people with flexibility, choice and variety. They provide an attractive homeliness and spirit you probably won’t find in Melbourne or Sydney. In an era where people are migrating far more than ever, and with more ease, peripheral communities simply must exist to ensure the continued connection between Jews all over the world.
If some cities in Australia face a torturous time in the next few decades with dwindling numbers and financial support, it will need to be the responsibility of all Australian Jewry to ensure the viability of each one. The continued strength of the Jewish people — though now with a homeland after 2,000 years of yearning — requires the understanding of the place of each diaspora community, no matter the size, and the collective force we all gain from that.
This column was originally published in the Australian Jewish News.
Related reading:
Comments on this entry are closed.