Treasures of Old Jewish Sydney: a book review by Anne Sarzin
Dr Jana Vytrhlik’s remarkable book, Treasures of Old Jewish Sydney: The story of a visual heritage, is an impressive contribution to knowledge on this subject, which she has researched for almost a decade.
Author Dr Jana Vytrhlik with Rabbi Dr Benjamin Elton, who has written the foreword to her book
Prague-born Jana Vytrhlik is a Jewish art and architecture historian and Judaica specialist with a PhD in Art History from the University of Sydney. Jana worked in the Jewish Museum in Prague, the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney and is presently leading a curatorial review of the A.M. Rosenblum Jewish Museum at The Great Synagogue Sydney.
Chief Minister of the Great Synagogue Sydney, Rabbi Dr Benjamin Elton, writes in his foreword to the book that Jana Vytrhlik, in her role as Curator of the Rosenblum Museum at the Great Synagogue, has ensured that the museum and its collection are both safe and productive. ‘I am confident that this book will not only add considerably to Australian Jewish historiography but, in particular, build up resources in the somewhat neglected field of Australian Jewish art and architectural history.
‘We now understand better than ever before that all aspects of a society or a community have to be studied in order to understand it. How the Jews of Sydney understood and projected their identities through their objects is an important area that needs further research, and Dr Vytrhlik has taken us further in the right direction.’
Dr Vytrhlik pays tribute to Rabbi Elton, whose guidance, enthusiasm for the subject and collaboration as a knowledgeable art historian helped her understand the Anglo-Jewish roots of Australian Jewish art and architecture. Interestingly, she attributes the source of her own passion for these subjects to her initial discovery of and quest to identify the Great Synagogue’s rare silver Torah finials, or rimmonim, brought to her attention by Sydney silversmith Michael Routier.
‘lt has developed into a force that has ruled my life,’ Vytrhlik says. ‘The Dutch silver rimmonim, until recently regarded as precious but of mysterious origin, have now become the Sydney rimmonim, or Judaica Australiana, at the centre of new historical and art historical connections, both local and international that would otherwise have remained undiscovered.’
Dr Vytrhlik lived most of her life in Prague, emigrating to Australia in 1986, when she began her study of the rimmonim. ‘In writing this book, I have come full circle,’ she states. ‘Only now, the tragic past of Jewish Prague has been traded for the largely unexplored visual wealth of the Australian Jewish past.’
The book, with its wealth of full-page, high-quality illustrations, is based on Vytrhlik’s doctoral thesis submitted to the University of Sydney, which was jointly supervised by Dr Anita Callaway and Professor Suzanne Rutland. It relates the story of the author’s journey from Prague to Sydney, and the detailed introduction includes notes on Australian Jewish history, Jewish artists and early historical synagogues erected in Sydney, such as the York Street and Macquarie Street synagogues. The book also lists art collections and museums; and the bibliography will assist future researchers interested in the fields Vytrhlik covers comprehensively and with scholarly attention to detail.
The book will be featured on 14 July at the Great Synagogue, following Dr Vytrhlik’s presentation of the annual Falk Lecture at 10.30 am, which honours the late Rabbi Leib Aisack Falk, Minister of the Great Synagogue from 1923 to 1957. He served as a British Jewish chaplain with the Jewish Legion in Egypt and Palestine from 1918 to 1921. In 1942, he became senior Jewish chaplain to Eastern Command, a position he held until his retirement from military chaplaincy in 1952.
Copies of the book are available at the Sydney Jewish Museum.
