About

There is a proliferation of Holocaust and Jewish museums in cities around the world. In Australia, there is a Jewish museum in Melbourne and Sydney, and a Jewish Centre in Perth. Adelaide has also identified a need for a Jewish museum.

Ideally we would hope to establish an institution where items reflecting the heritage of Adelaide’s Jewish community can be gathered, displayed and preserved for the future. However, for the present, it has been determined that a virtual museum documenting Jewish Adelaide would not only create a focus for the community, but obviate the necessity to obtain the substantial funding necessary to maintain

 all the activities associated with running a museum. While acquisitions of Judaica are occasionally made, and donations of objects are always welcome, this is not actively encouraged.

Australia, where freedom of religious expression is guaranteed, represents a refuge for Jews escaping religious persecution or political upheaval.  There are a great many stories of Jewish life that should be recorded, from the extraordinary to the ordinary, and many people have already made public their remarkable life stories in the collection of narratives in the Book of Life section of the website.

While the Museum focuses on contemporary life, it has also started the process of documenting the history of Jewish Adelaide, beginning with the establishment of the Jewish community in the 1840s. Through the State Premiership of Mr Vaiben Solomon in the late 1890s and the period of Jewish Lord Mayoralty in the 20th century, ours is a significant contribution to South Australia’s history.

With the creation of the virtual museum we hope to enhance the knowledge base, and engender appreciation and understanding of Jewish life and culture in a wider audience.

Today, the Adelaide Jewish Museum can be referred to as a virtual museum.  Building up a collection of objects is a slow process. We intend to use the website as a forum for documenting interesting objects of Judaica within the community, as well as documents and general objects relating to the lives of the Adelaide Jewish community. However our major focus is the collection of human stories of the community, both of the gnereration of holocaust survivors and theoir children.

In effect, community collecting is a solution to the problem of museum collecting: the museum collection exists externally, with community responsibility for looking after and insuring their own objects. The community is invited to submit images of items, photographs and documents in their personal collection together with captions for inclusion on the site.

July 2003 – Original Woodcut for the Shanghai Journal by D.L Bloch
March 2004 – Pesach plate – Aizen family
March 2004 – Channukah Menorah – Bermeister
March 2004 – Pesach plate – Cohen family
March 2004 – Ritual brass bowl
March 2004 – Channukah menorah – Trubik
March 2004 – Kiddush cups
March 2004 – Migration Museum banner