Tanya Joan Plibersek is an Australian politician who served as Deputy Leader of the Labor Party and Deputy Leader of the Opposition from 2013 to 2019. She has served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Sydney since 1998. A member of the Labor Party, Plibersek served as a Cabinet Minister in the Rudd, Gillard and Albanese governments. She is currently the Minister for the Environment and Water in the Albanese ministry since 2022, having previously served as the Shadow Minister for Education and Shadow Minister for Women between 2019 and 2022.
Helen Elizabeth Buckingham is a retired Australian politician. She was the Labor Party member of the Victorian Legislative Council from 2002 to 2006, representing Koonung Province. She is the daughter of former state Labor leader Frank Wilkes, and a former teacher and local councillor.
Mount Scopus Memorial College, commonly known as Mount Scopus, or just Scopus, is an independent Modern Orthodox Jewish comprehensive co-educational early learning, primary, and secondary day school, located in the Melbourne suburb of Burwood, Victoria, Australia. Since 2007, Rabbi James Kennard has been principal of Mount Scopus Memorial College.
The history of Jews in Australia traces the history of Australian Jews from the British settlement of Australia commencing in 1788. Though Europeans had visited Australia before 1788, there is no evidence of any Jewish sailors among the crew. The first Jews known to have come to Australia came as convicts transported to Botany Bay in 1788 aboard the First Fleet that established the first European settlement on the continent, on the site of present-day Sydney.
Prudence Anne Leggoe (née Turnor; formerly Sibree; born 7 August 1946) is former Liberal Party member of the Victorian Legislative Assembly.
Walter Jona was a Liberal Party member of the Victorian Legislative Assembly.
Percy James Clarey was an Australian trade union leader and politician. He served as president of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) from 1943 to 1949 and represented the Australian Labor Party (ALP) in the Victorian Legislative Council (1937−1949) and Australian House of Representatives (1949−1960).
Judaism is a minority religion in Australia. 99,956 Australians identified as Jewish in the 2021 census, which accounts for about 0.4% of the population. This is a 9.8% increase in numbers from the 2016 census.
Australian Jews, or Jewish Australians, are Jews who are Australian citizens or permanent residents of Australia. In the 2021 census there were 99,956 people who identified Judaism as their religious affiliation and 29,113 Australians who identified as Jewish by ancestry, an increase from 97,355 and 25,716, respectively, from the 2016 census,. The actual number is almost certainly higher, because being a Jew is not just about being religious, but the census data is based on religious affiliation, so secular Jews often feel it would be inaccurate to answer with "Judaism". Also, since the question is optional, many practicing Holocaust survivors and Haredi Jews are believed to prefer not to disclose their religion in the census. By comparison, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz estimated a Jewish-Australian population of 120,000-150,000, while other estimates based on the death rate in the community estimate the size of the community as 250,000, which would make them 1% of the population. Based on the census data, Jewish citizens make up about 0.4% of the Australian population. The Jewish community of Australia is composed mostly of Ashkenazi Jews, though there are Jews in Australia from many other traditions and levels of religious observance and participation in the Jewish community.
The Australian Jewish Democratic Society (AJDS), a secular organisation, was formed in Melbourne, Australia, in 1984 to promote free discussion and action on Jewish and general social and political issues. It grew out of a profound concern at the continuing Arab–Israeli conflict, though some of its members had been active on the left since at least the 1930s in Europe. Others had been born in Israel or Australia, or spent considerable time in Israel. Others came out of the anti-Vietnam war and peace movements. Some key members had strong links to the Israeli peace movement, the Jewish left, Labor Zionism, or other Jewish religious and cultural traditions. More recently, members with strong environmental concerns have become active.
The relationship between Judaism and politics is a historically complex subject, and has evolved over time concurrently with both changes within Jewish society and religious practice, and changes in the general society of places where Jewish people live. In particular, Jewish political thought can be split into four major eras: Biblical, Rabbinic, Medieval, and Modern.
David James Southwick is an Australian Liberal politician, and has been the member for Caulfield in the Victorian Legislative Assembly since 2010. Southwick has been the Parliamentary Secretary for Police and Emergency Services and is currently Shadow Minister for Jobs and Employment, Shadow Minister for Events Industry, Shadow Minister for Business Recovery, Shadow Minister for CBD Recovery, Shadow Minister for Small Business and Shadow Minister for Business Precincts. As of 7 September 2021, Southwick is the Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party in Victoria.
Karen Soria is an American-born rabbi. She became the first female rabbi to serve in Australia when she joined the rabbinical team at Temple Beth Israel, a progressive Reform Jewish synagogue in Melbourne, in the 1980s. She later served as a chaplain for the U.S. Marines and the U.S. Navy; she was the first woman rabbi to serve in this capacity for the Marines, and the second in the Navy. After moving to Canada, she became the first woman rabbi to serve as a chaplain with the Canadian Forces.
The Jewish Community Council of Victoria Inc (JCCV) is the main representative body for Victorian Jewry, representing 52 Jewish community organisations and over 60,000 Victorian Jews. The JCCV's mission is to represent the Victorian Jewish community, the largest Jewish community in Australia, and deal with matters that affect its status, welfare and interests. The JCCV was established in 1938 as the Victorian Jewish Advisory Board. It has been known as the Jewish Community Council of Victoria since 1989 and became incorporated in 2000.
The Melbourne Beth Din (MBD) is an Orthodox / Chassidic Jewish court in the city of Melbourne, Australia. Located in Caulfield North, Victoria, it rules mostly on divorces and conversions although it does rule on other matters as well.
Joshua Solomon Burns is an Australian politician. Representing the Australian Labor Party, he was elected as the member for the division of Macnamara in Melbourne at the 2019 Australian federal election.
The Union for Progressive Judaism is an affiliate of the World Union for Progressive Judaism and supports 27 progressive congregations in Australia, New Zealand and Asia. The movement serves about a fifth of the region's affiliated community. The UPJ is represented on the major communal bodies in Australia, such as the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, the Zionist Federation of Australia (ZFA) and Zionism Victoria.
Temple Beth Israel (TBI) is a synagogue affiliated with Progressive Judaism in St Kilda, an inner seaside suburb of Melbourne, Australia. The organisation is a member of the Union for Progressive Judaism, an umbrella organisation for Progressive Judaism in Asia and the Pacific.
