From Australia’s Jewish Past
Julia Rachel Rapke – feminist and civil rights activist
Julia Rapke
Julia was born on 11 February 1886 in Christchurch, New Zealand. She was the daughter of Ralph Levoi, an insurance agent from London, and his Melbourne-born wife, Miriam. Julia attended Wellington Girls’ High School before moving with the family to Melbourne. On 28 November 1906 at the Synagogue, St Kilda, she married Abraham Bernard Rapke, a 28-year-old tobacconist from Poland. They had two sons and a daughter.
By the mid-1920s, Julia had entered public life, initially in charity work as the secretary of the Maternity Patients’ Convalescent Home in Melbourne. She became politically active and became secretary of the Victorian Women Citizens’ Movement (VWCM), the state affiliate of the Australian Federation of Women Voters. At the same time, she became a delegate to the National Council of Women of Victoria and convened in 1931 the standing committee for voting and citizenship rights. In 1929 she was appointed a special magistrate at the St Kilda Children’s Court and a justice of the peace. As founding president in 1948 of the Women Justice Association of Victoria, a position she held for two years, she brought together influential and public-spirited women to lobby for the welfare of women, adolescents, and children.
Although she was committed to a non-party political organisation for women, Julia was a conservative in state and national politics. She joined the Brighton Beach Branch of the Australian Women’s National League speaking in support of the All for Australia League during the Depression and campaigned periodically for the United Australia Party. In 1937 she considered standing for the Victorian legislature as a party candidate, rather than an independent feminist, because ‘parliament legislates for the community as a whole’. As one of three women admitted, she was part of the Constitutional Club’s Model Parliament in the 1930s and held the positions of Prime Minister and Governor General. She was convinced that the value of this organisation as a political training ground was essential, and she went on to form the widely publicised women’s model parliament in May 1946 and took a leading role in tutoring the participants in public speaking, parliamentary procedure, and debate.
Julia resigned as secretary of the VWCM in 1931, although continued as international corresponding secretary and represented the movement on the Australian Federation of Women Voters Board (AFWV). As an AFWV delegate, Julia became secretary of the Australian Pan-Pacific Women’s Committee, (APPWC) and secretary/treasurer of the Australian Joint Standing Committee of the Women’s Federal Organisations, which later became the Australian Liaison Committee (ALC).
The APPWC and the ALC coordinated the participation of Australian women in international conferences. In addition, the ALC advised the Commonwealth government on the appointment of appropriate women to international bodies—particularly the League of Nations—and provided ministers with information for reports on the position of women in Australia. Using her experience on these many organisations she was associated with, Julia began a series of addresses titled ‘Women in Affairs, National and International’ on Melbourne’s radio station 3LO, and delivered a paper on ‘Women’s Work for World Peace’, in 1937 at an international conference. In 1946, owing to their inactivity during World War II, the APPWC and the ALC were disbanded on her recommendation.
Julia was elected president of the VWCM in 1936 and the vice-presidency of the AFWV and held the latter position until 1957. She delivered two speeches to the AFWV conference in 1936 on ‘Women and Household Employment—Economic Aspects of Women’s Rights and Equalities’ and ‘Legal Domicile of Married Women’, indicating the range of her interests in women’s issues. Her extensive contact with the nation’s leading women, and a strong sense of the significance of their efforts, stimulated her to interview and to write short sketches on eighteen of them between 1938 and 1940. These papers are housed in the National Library of Australia and provide valuable insights into Julia herself plus her subjects. Among the women, another amazing Jewish woman, Ruby Rich, had a major influence on Julia and became her confidante.
Julia’s husband died in 1940 and she seemed to find consolation in expanding her public role. She served as vice president of the Council for Women in War Work and as a member of the Coordinating Committee for Child Welfare in Wartime., although more of her energy was devoted to the Victorian International Refugee Emergency Council and the Australian Open-Door Council. She also assumed the federal secretarial responsibilities of the Women’s International Zionist Organisation (WIZO), thereby extending her internationalism. Maintaining her disgust of war and violence, she led a broadly based women’s protest movement against the atomic bomb in 1946.
While she was deeply committed to assisting Jewish refugees and internees, Julia remained intensely diligent and occasionally came into conflict with Ida Wynn, WIZO’s Federal President at the time. Ida lamented that Julia ‘was not able to steep herself in WIZO, that she was interested in Zionism ‘only in the most impersonal way’, and that she devoted too much time to other organisations. Julia felt that Jewish women needed to be encouraged to play a larger part in national affairs.
In the months before World War II ended, Julia concentrated on strengthening feminist organisations in Victoria to increase women’s influence on postwar reconstruction. Between March and June 1945, Julia convened meetings with representatives of the VWCM, the Women for Canberra Movement, and the League of Women Electors. The three bodies merged to form the League of Women Voters of Victoria. At the inaugural meeting in August 1945, Julia was elected as president and resumed the presidency of the Women’s Justice Association at the same time. Although not easy for her, she felt she had reached the pinnacle of her career in the four years that followed.
The LWV and AFWV experienced internal conflict over the content and origin of the prominent women’s activist, Jessie Street’s Australian Woman’s Charter. Julia, Ruby Rich, and Bessie Rischbieth, an influential early feminist and social activist, were against Jessie Street in this Cold War battle for leadership of the women’s movement in Australia. Julia’s ability to determine the position of the LWV had been undermined by the presence of Chartists on the league’s executive. ‘I hate not knowing who I can trust’, she wrote to Ruby.
Julia remained on the LWV Board after her term as president concluded in 1949 and she found that the weight of her public activity began to shift. In 1947 she organised WIZO’s second national conference, followed in 1952 when she became the national president for two years. By 1954 she became the federal president, a position she held until her death. She had brought to these positions a wealth of experience in organisation, public speaking, leadership, and lobbying. WIZO ‘rose to its greatness’ under her.
Julia’s daughter Betty passed away in 1954, and following this tragedy, she travelled for a ten-month trip to Europe and Israel. The journey had special sadness and served to affirm her faith. While in Israel she was invited to join WIZO’s World Executive and later served on the executive of the Zionist Federation of Australia and New Zealand. Within her own St Kilda Synagogue community, she felt she had failed to gain the franchise for women.
In 1957 Julie was awarded an OBE, particularly for ‘raising the status of women’ and for improving ‘the care and treatment of underprivileged children and delinquent youth’. Survived by her sons, she died on 9 October 1959 in Melbourne. A wing of the Ida Wynn Children’s Centre at Mount Carmel, Haifa, Israel, was named after her.
The AJHS acknowledges the following references in the preparation of this story:
Australian Dictionary of Biography – Judith Smart, National Library of Australia, Wikipedia, Australian Women’s Registry, WIZO Victoria
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