Community honours Zelda Rosenbaum

Close to 90 guests recently filled the Jewish Museum of Australia – Gandel Centre of Judaica for the “Inside My Heart, a Museum” event, which honoured Zelda Rosenbaum, a founding pillar of the institution, and her more than 50 years of service.

From the earliest days of the museum’s existence – when it occupied two tiny classrooms behind the Toorak synagogue – Rosenbaum has been at its centre. She served on the first executive committee and in the early 1990s, chaired the campaign to establish Australia’s first permanent dedicated Jewish museum, realising that vision with the opening of the Alma Road premises. Over the ensuing decades, Rosenbaum has held numerous leadership roles within the institution, serving as board director, chairperson and Honorary Life Governor.

Museum CEO and director Sidra Moshinsky paid tribute to Rosenbaum’s leadership of quiet persistence, wise counsel and generosity of spirit. Rosenbaum, she said, understood from the very beginning that a museum is not simply a building or a repository of objects – it is “a living place of memory, conversation and connection.” Her gift was never merely institutional; it was relational, inspiring family, friends, volunteers and community leaders to share in the museum’s purpose and possibilities, building not just an institution but a community around it.

Drawing on the Torah portion from Parashat Balak, Moshinsky invoked the words of the pagan prophet Balaam, who came to curse Israel but found himself praising them instead: “Mah tovu ohalecha Yaakov, mishkenotecha Yisrael” – “How goodly are your tents, O Jacob, your dwelling places, O Israel.” The words that open our morning prayers, she suggested, describe the museum Rosenbaum helped bring into being: a place of goodness, beauty, purpose and community, where past, present and future converge.

“It takes a tribe to make this happen,” Moshinsky said, “and you, Zelda, are one of our most important leaders, chieftains, prophets and wise elders.”

Museum board president Gideon Kline spoke of Rosenbaum as “its living foundation”, a constant through every chapter of the museum’s story – offering warmth when the work was demanding, wisdom when the path was unclear, and an organisational memory without parallel.

He turned to “Eshet Chayil” to capture what his words alone could not: “Many daughters have attained valour, but you have surpassed them all.” He addressed her simply: “Zelda, my Queen.”

Tributes arrived from across the community. Philanthropists John and Pauline Gandel wrote that there are people who contribute to an institution and then there are people who become it. “You, dear Zelda, are the latter.” Sandy Benjamin recalled the early morning phone calls that stretched into evenings during the Alma Road fundraising campaign, as she and Rosenbaum, alongside the late Dr Helen Light and Louise Zygier, courted donors and delivered on every promise made.

As the museum looks toward its own jubilee next year, the recent gathering was a reminder that institutions endure because of people.