Broken Hill shul plans centenary celebrations
THE synagogue in the outback NSW mining town of Broken Hill, which closed in 1962, is preparing for its centenary celebrations later this year.
CHANTAL ABITBOL
THE once-thriving Jewish community, which helped to establish the outback mining town of Broken Hill in far north-west NSW, is long gone.
But there is still one remnant; evidence of those former glory days.
Off the city’s main street stands a recently restored red-brick synagogue with a storied past.
Established in 1910, the shul on Wolfram Street once served as the vibrant communal hub for around 250 Jews who called Broken Hill home in the first half of the 1900s.
Though its doors closed in 1962 after Jews steadily moved out of the area, in recent years the local historical society has taken steps to preserve the building. It is now organising centenary celebrations for November as a nod to its past.
“Broken Hill businesses really owe their beginnings to the Jewish community,” said Margaret Price of the Broken Hill Historical Society (BHHS), which is coordinating with Jewish historical societies in both Melbourne and Sydney to help collect photos, letters, diaries and other memorabilia in the lead up to the celebrations.
The two-day event will include a ceremony in the synagogue, a program of historical talks and first-hand testimonies, a bus tour of places where Jewish families lived and worked, and a civic reception by the mayor.
“It will be a great big get-together of the families that used to live here,” Price said. “They’ve never had a reunion, and now they will be able to come together and discuss what happened in Broken Hill.”
From the settlement’s early beginnings in 1885, Jews have been part of the town’s colourful and sometimes turbulent history.
The first headstones in the Jewish section of the Broken Hill Cemetery date back to July 1888 — the same year a typhoid epidemic claimed 123 lives in the new town.
According to Melbourne¬† University professor and former Broken Hill resident Leon Mann, who has done extensive research into the congregation’s past, Jewish religious services were first held in the Masonic Hall from 1900. At the turn of the century, the community numbered about 150.
A few years later, land was ­purchased to build a synagogue, with the foundation stone laid in November 1910.
By the 1920s and 1930s, the community had swelled to about 250 members. But with the outbreak of World War II, Jews began to leave the area in droves, forcing the shul to eventually close down in the early 1960s.
It temporarily became a private residence, and was later purchased as a heritage-listed building by BHHS in 1990.
Today, the building has been faithfully restored and converted into a Jewish museum by the society, which has its premises at the rear of the property.
Still, many of its old features are intact: the name of the congregation appears above the entrance door in Hebrew, and the ark, bimah, and pews all remain in place.
“Here is uniquely a historical society, which has maintained it like a synagogue for some 20 years in appreciation as a place of worship and where Jews gathered ‚Ķ long after the last Jew of Broken Hill died,” said Prof Mann.
“They want us to help them celebrate what is was to be Jewish in Broken Hill. It’s Jews and non-Jews hand in hand coming together again to recognise a place of worship ‚Ķ and the contribution Jews made to the life and community.”
Broken Hill Synagogue Centenary Celebrations will be held on November 28-29. Enquiries: Margaret Wise 0431 153 439; The Australian Jewish Historical Society (02) 9518 7596.
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