Publisher's Synopsis
In April 1933 the Nazis began persecuting German Jews in earnest. In June 1933, the Australian Minister for the Interior was warned by the Federal Cabinet to avoid a "serious influx" of Jews seeking to escape Nazi Germany. Despite this warning, a steady stream of Jews entered Australia and the Jewish population of Victoria expanded rapidly.;Rodney Benjamin tells how a small community organized itself to find accommodation, work, financial assistance and English language training for the four major influxes of Jewish immigrants between the 1920s and the 1950s. Out of the organizations which formed to meet these demands grew a multi-faceted ethnic welfare agency.;Benjamin traces the development of an organization run almost entirely by volunteers to a professionally staffed welfare agency supported by a small army of volunteers. He follows the change in focus from migrant settlement to a broad based community service which provides care for the disabled and the elderly, job skills training and comprehensive counselling services. The many power and ideological struggles are examined, as is the position of the organization in the wider context of Australian society.
