The 40s
Who Were The Founders and Where Were They From?
To understand the character of the community it is helpful to understand the background of its founders. Simon (Sam) Isaacs was one of its earliest activists. Click here for his biography and an account of his role*, and that of others, in the founding of the community.
* The biography was composed by Ms Esther Morrish, daughter of Simon Isaacs, and provided by courtesy of the Archives of the Australian Jewish Historical Society.
* The biography was composed by Ms Esther Morrish, daughter of Simon Isaacs, and provided by courtesy of the Archives of the Australian Jewish Historical Society.
Back row, left to right: Unidentified boy, Laura Boaz (Sunday School teacher), Mal Isaacs (son of Simon Isaacs) and Gerda Bruck (Sunday School teacher). If you can identify yourself in this photo, please write in to: [email protected].
What Lies Behind a Name ?
One of the peculiarities of the “Strathfield and District Hebrew Congregation” is that its members often called it ‘The Centre’. No other community referred to its home in the same way. Why was this so?
The answer lies in the genesis of the community in the early-1940s. At that time, some Jewish families moved from the Eastern Suburbs to Strathfield in order to distance themselves from a possible Japanese attack on the harbour or on Kingsford Smith Airport. Others preferred to live in Strathfield because they had business interests in places further afield, such as Parramatta. One family, the Pearlmans, actually had a business just a little beyond Strathfield railway station, at 2a The Boulevarde.
Dave and Vera Pearlman apparently lived above the shop and their home became the community’s birthplace. Initially, its rooms were used for children’s Sunday School classes under the auspices of the N.S.W. Board of Jewish Education. The classes were conducted by Miss Gerda Bruck and Miss Laura Boaz, the latter continuing to do so well into the late 50s. It was only natural, therefore, that when the High Holydays arrived, the parents of those children would gather in the same place to pray and to erect a Sukkah in its backyard. As these efforts required additional personnel, the informal group of parents became “The Strathfield Parents & Citizens’ Auxiliary of the N.S.W. Board of Jewish Education” and an honorary secretary, Mrs Fanny Robinson, was appointed [see letter at the foot of the page]. The embryonic community had not quite reached the stage of appointing a president but an eminent lawyer, Simon Isaacs, filled the role. In his 1949 letter [see letter at the foot of the page] to the Great Synagogue we find the first use of the term ‘The Centre’ to refer to the Pearlman’s premises. One of the definitions of the word ‘centre’ that we find in the dictionary is “a building or place used for a particular purpose or activity” and this is surely the sense in which Simon was using the word.
Fast forward for a moment to the 50s, when the community called itself “The Strathfield and District Hebrew Congregation”, and then on to the 60s, when it became “The Strathfield War Memorial Synagogue”. And now rewind to ‘The Centre’, which it always was.
Thus ‘The Centre’, which originated as an outgrowth of the N.S.W. Board of Jewish Education, became a magnet for all the Jewish families in a huge catchment area that extended right across the outer Western and South-Western Suburbs. So many gravitated to ‘The Centre’ that larger premises were required. This led to the purchase of the old mansion at 19 Florence Street, when the founders – the Pearlmans, Robinsons, Isaacs, Greenbergs and others – were joined by younger families. How that was accomplished is a story that belongs to the 50s.
This text is not presented as an authoritative history of the 1940s. However, as it was compiled by consulting reliable sources[1], it may point the way towards a fuller account of the community’s development during those years.
Geoff Toister, Mevasseret Zion, July 2014
[1] Sources:
The answer lies in the genesis of the community in the early-1940s. At that time, some Jewish families moved from the Eastern Suburbs to Strathfield in order to distance themselves from a possible Japanese attack on the harbour or on Kingsford Smith Airport. Others preferred to live in Strathfield because they had business interests in places further afield, such as Parramatta. One family, the Pearlmans, actually had a business just a little beyond Strathfield railway station, at 2a The Boulevarde.
Dave and Vera Pearlman apparently lived above the shop and their home became the community’s birthplace. Initially, its rooms were used for children’s Sunday School classes under the auspices of the N.S.W. Board of Jewish Education. The classes were conducted by Miss Gerda Bruck and Miss Laura Boaz, the latter continuing to do so well into the late 50s. It was only natural, therefore, that when the High Holydays arrived, the parents of those children would gather in the same place to pray and to erect a Sukkah in its backyard. As these efforts required additional personnel, the informal group of parents became “The Strathfield Parents & Citizens’ Auxiliary of the N.S.W. Board of Jewish Education” and an honorary secretary, Mrs Fanny Robinson, was appointed [see letter at the foot of the page]. The embryonic community had not quite reached the stage of appointing a president but an eminent lawyer, Simon Isaacs, filled the role. In his 1949 letter [see letter at the foot of the page] to the Great Synagogue we find the first use of the term ‘The Centre’ to refer to the Pearlman’s premises. One of the definitions of the word ‘centre’ that we find in the dictionary is “a building or place used for a particular purpose or activity” and this is surely the sense in which Simon was using the word.
Fast forward for a moment to the 50s, when the community called itself “The Strathfield and District Hebrew Congregation”, and then on to the 60s, when it became “The Strathfield War Memorial Synagogue”. And now rewind to ‘The Centre’, which it always was.
Thus ‘The Centre’, which originated as an outgrowth of the N.S.W. Board of Jewish Education, became a magnet for all the Jewish families in a huge catchment area that extended right across the outer Western and South-Western Suburbs. So many gravitated to ‘The Centre’ that larger premises were required. This led to the purchase of the old mansion at 19 Florence Street, when the founders – the Pearlmans, Robinsons, Isaacs, Greenbergs and others – were joined by younger families. How that was accomplished is a story that belongs to the 50s.
This text is not presented as an authoritative history of the 1940s. However, as it was compiled by consulting reliable sources[1], it may point the way towards a fuller account of the community’s development during those years.
Geoff Toister, Mevasseret Zion, July 2014
[1] Sources:
- Correspondence with Ms Esther Morrish, the daughter of Simon Isaacs.
- Interview with Mr Malcolm Isaacs, the son of Simon Isaacs.
- The two letters below from The Archives of the Australian Jewish Historical Society.
- Group photograph above supplied by Ms Merrylin Goodman, daughter of Phillip Goran, president of the synagogue during the 50s. A framed, original print of the same photograph was once kept in the minister’s office of the synagogue.
- Danny Rosing’s reference, on this site, to “a small garage near Strathfield railway station”.
- Written declaration by a person who had "started Sunday School at [the] Pearlman's in the 1940s".