Broken Hill: outback yes, gold rush yes, but Jewish?

There have always been Jews in European Australia, since the first transport of British convicts in Jan 1788 which included 12 Jews. Later Jewish families arrived in outback desert towns,  usually run­ning small businesses or hotels.  As I suggested in the history of Ballarat, Jewish migrants came to Australia in response to the Gold Rush in the 1850s, where they largely acted as shopkeepers and traders. Thus there were Jewish communities in remote gold rush cities, including Broken Hill (NSW), Bendigo and Ballarat (Vic), Kalgoorlie and Koolgardie (WA).

Map of the SE corner of Australia, 

see how remote Broken Hill is from the State and Federal capitals

Broken Hill, an isolated town surrounded by desert and red earth in the middle of Australian outback, 1160 ks west of Sydney, app­ear­ed in the late 1800s as one of the country’s top mining towns. Huge deposits of iron ore, silver and zinc were discovered there late in the C19th, leading to a rush of migration.

The town is home to the Broken Hill Proprietary Co/BHP, which today is still one of the world’s largest mining companies. BHP was the mining company that ran the town of Broken Hill for its 27,000 citizens at the turn of the new century. This outback city could not have been more isolated from the urban cen­tres of Australia, nor more remote from the centres of Jewish learning. From Broken Hill, Sydney is 1,160 kms, Melbourne 817 kms and Adelaide 506 kms. Yet Jewish migrants were attracted to Broken Hill, presumably because employment was always available and small businesses always had a ready market with the mining families.

“When Jews started to arrive in Broken Hill in the 1880s, there was no natural water there and the region was served by Indian and Afghan camel drivers. Living conditions were harsh and Broken Hill has always been gripped by drought so all supplies had to be carried to Broken Hill. But within years, Broken Hill had become the third-largest provider of silver in the world. 

Some early evidence of the community comes from the tombstones. The first Jewish burials in Broken Hill’s cemetery occurred when a typhoid epidemic hit the town in 1888. Other gravestones tell of how the young son of Rebecca and Isaac Joseph died in 1892, and how Louis Dias was killed in the mines by a runaway cart in 1895.

Broken Hill synagogue, 

opened 1910

Plaque outside Broken Hill synagogue, 

marking the opening ceremony, 1910

“Broken Hill was known around the world as a place where there was opportunity and wealth to be earned from the rich ore deposits disc­ov­ered in the 1880s,” said Professor Leon Mann who was born in Broken Hill in 1937 and co-authored Jews of the Outback, a history of the Broken Hill community. Mann’s parents migrated to Aust­ralia from East­ern Europe and British Palestine in 1929 during the Great Depression. When his parents arrived in Broken Hill, there was still work there from silver, lead, and zinc mining. The entrepreneurial Jewish community who supplied and provisioned the miners fared quite well.

Knowing that Broken Hill mining was prospering, some Jewish imm­igr­ants decided to set­tle in remote Outback Australia. Among the Jewish immig­rants escap­ing the Ukrainian massacres, many already possessed know­ledge and exp­erience in the mining industries as they came from the Donetsk region. These immigrants set up businesses to serve the boom­ing mining indust­ry, and Broken Hill Jews becoming involved in politics and the union movement.

In that mining frenzy, the small group of Jewish settlers began to make their way to the town. A Jewish cemetery was con­secrated in 1891 and in 1900, when there were c150 in the local Jewish community, a congregation was form­ed.  But as there was no special building available, religious services were held in the Masonic Hotel. In 1905 Rev Z Mandelbaum from Minsk was appointed the first minister.

In 1907 Wolfram St site was granted by NSW government for the erection of a synagogue. The foun­dation stone for the Broken Hill Syn­ag­ogue was laid there in Nov 1910 by Solomon Saunders, Pres Adelaide Hebrew Congregation. The façade was roughcast stone brick, but the rest of the building was corrugated iron, a typically Australian material. Next to the synagogue there was a house for the minister and his fam­ily, the place where Sunday school classes were held. Thus a vibrant and successful community of Jewish people existed in Broken Hill for three generations.  The consecration of was performed by Sydney Rabbi F Cohen in Feb 1911.

In its heyday from the 1910s to the 1960s, it served the c200 members of the Jewish commun­ity. After the 1960s, the descendants were scat­t­er­ed all across Australia.” Today Broken Hill remains isolated: this town of 17,000 is a 3-hour drive from the next town of 1,000+ people.

Even since Prof Mann’s family left for Melbourne in 1942, Broken Hill remained iconic outback town in regional Austr­al­ia. There are a number of exotic places in Australia, but Broken Hill on the edge of the des­ert and miles from anywhere was special. Even with a total population under 20,000, the town had a lovely, functional synagogue.

When the Jewish community declined and the synagogue closed in 1962, the remaining Jewish men in Broken Hill rented the residence adjoining the building to try and keep it up. Eventually the synagogue was sold and purchased in 1990 by the Broken Hill Historical Society. These days there is no act­ive Jewish community. The synagogue still stands, but in 1991 it reopened as the Synagogue of The Outback Museum, owned and maint­ain­ed by the Historical Society. Be­hind a stone faç­ade, the build­ing comprises the former rabbi’s resid­ence and the synag­ogue, wh­ich includes the original pews, lectern and ark, as well as a Torah. I will examine the Museum in a later post.

The foundation stone for the synagogue in Wolfram Street was dated 1910, at a time when the Jewish population of Broken Hill was c150. The façade was roughcast stone brick, but the rest of the building was corrugated iron, a typically Australian material. Next to the synagogue there was a house for the minister and his family, the place where Sunday school classes were held.

Broken Hill's great days were in the 1920s and 30s, but WW2 was the beginning of the end of this impressive community. All young male citizens went into the army, the mines were closing and the remaining Jewish congregation was thinking of moving to Melbourne or Sydney. In 1962 the synagogue was permanently closed, with fittings given away to a Melbourne congregation. The last senior citizens of Broken Hill’s synagogue, too elderly to move once again, eventually died and were buried in the Jewish section of the local cemetery. 

Synagogue interior

The Synagogue was purchased by the Broken Hill Historical Society in 1990 and restored, then re-opened in 1991 as the Synagogue of The Outback Museum. The building has since been heritage listed! To celebrate the centenary of the synagogue in November 2010, a programme of historical talks and personal reminiscences about the Jews of Broken Hill and their contribution to the town was organised. They also arranged a bus tour of places where Jews had lived and worked, a walking tour of the Jewish section of the cemetery, and a tour to the Miners’ Memorial Arch. 200 ex-members of the town, or their children, gathered in the restored synagogue.

During the weekend, the visitors viewed the exhibition prepared for the Broken Hill Art Gallery. This was where the book, Jews of the Outback: The Centenary of the Broken Hill Synagogue 1910-2010, was launched by Professor Colin Tatz. He spoke about the issues relevant to a rural city: migration, family life, isolation, hard labour and assimilation – key elements that had been so well illustrated in this particular community.

While there are no known Jewish descendants left in Broken Hill in 2023, the 120 years old synagogue tells the long-forgotten story of Jews in rural, regional, remote Australia. The comm­un­ity was so vibrant and active that it raised money for the Jewish Nat­ional Fund. A cert­ificate hangs on the wall inside.

                                                    

Jews of the Outback was edited by Suzanne Rutland, Leon Mann and Margaret Price, 

and published by Hybrid Publishers in 2010