Donald Trump is having an impact on the politics of countries around the world, affecting their own trade and tariff policies, and elections. In Canada, the Liberal Party trailed the Conservative Party by as much as 20% in the polls until Trump imposed huge tariffs and threatened to take over the country as our 51st state. As a result, the Liberals won the election. Germany’s far-right party did well in their election, but not nearly as well as expected, in backlash to the support they received from Trump and in particular Elon Musk.

And in Australia, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was elected to a second term, though his party had been trailing significantly in the polls leading up to the election. Charles Edel, the Australia chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, suggested that the impact of Trump on the results was significant, noting that “There were enough similarities to the Canadian election to suggest that the conservatives’ fortunes fell as Trump’s tariffs and attacks on America’s allies ramped up.”

Australia’s Jewish population currently numbers around 150,000. Mount Scopus Memorial College in Melbourne and Moriah College in Sydney are both co-educational primary and secondary Jewish Day Schools. The University of Sydney and Monash University in Melbourne both have Jewish Studies departments, and there are active chapters of B’nei B’rith, National Council of Jewish Women, and Kadimah (which focuses on Yiddish culture). The Jewish Museum of Australia in Melbourne was established in 1982, and in 1992 the Sydney Jewish Museum opened, dedicated to the Holocaust and Australian Jewish history. There are approximately 80 synagogues in the country. Who were the first Jews to arrive in Australia?

Australia satellite orthographic.jpg is in the public domain via Wikimedia Commons

A. In 1493, the first Jewish immigrants arrived in Perth, having fled the Inquisition in Spain. They quickly established a cemetery, and the first synagogue, Comunidad de los Judíos, was built in 1495.

B. At the same time as massive Jewish emigration from Russia and Eastern Europe in the late 19th century to Western Europe, America, and Palestine, smaller groups emigrated to the East, including a significant number of Jews who settled in Shanghai. In the early 1900’s, a small group of those immigrants sailed to Australia and established the first Jewish community in Canberra.

C. Among the early European settlers in Australia were sailors from Great Britain, who established a penal colony at Botany Bay. Eight Jewish prisoners were among those who were transported to Botany Bay in 1788.

D. The first Australian Jewish community were emigrants from Germany who fled prior to the Holocaust. As the United States and other Western nations refused to take in many fleeing Jews, some managed to find passage to Australia, leading to the founding of the first synagogue in the port city of Brisbane in 1939.

E. On Noah’s Ark, two of Noah’s grandchildren, Lud and Aram, were playing hide and seek by climbing into the pouches of the two kangaroos who were aboard the ark. They did not realize that the kangaroos left the ship after it settled on Mt. Ararat after the flood, and before they knew it, the kangaroos arrived in Australia with their stowaways still on board.

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