Walt Secord revisits historic Broken Hill Synagogue
NSW Parliamentary Friends of Israel deputy chair and State Labor MP Walt Secord last week paid a visit to the historic Broken Hill Synagogue and its museum in far western NSW.
Walt Secord and Margaret Price
The 111-year-old Broken Hill Synagogue, now run as the Synagogue of the Outback Museum, is managed by the Broken Hill Historical Society. It was purchased by the society in 1990 and was restored.
Mr Secord and his wife, Julia, were hosted by synagogue museum coordinator Margaret Price, one of the three editors of the book The Jews of the Outback. The other editors were Dr Suzanne Rutland and Leon Mann.
The synagogue’s foundation stone was laid on 30 November 1910, and the building was first consecrated for worship on 26 February 1911.
Originally, the Jewish community came to the region as merchants in the silver mining industry from the 1880s and stayed until the 1960s. Most had origins in Ukraine, Lithuania, Poland and Russia. Today, their descendants live in Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide. During the 1920s, it grew to around 250 members and had a rabbi. The Jewish community declined in the late 1940s and 1950s, and the synagogue finally closed its doors as a place of worship in 1962.
Mr Secord said: “It is a modest but beautiful synagogue – and the museum has the honour of being the most remote Jewish museum in the world.”
“It was a real stepping into the past and reminds us that there was once a vibrant Jewish community in the outback. Many of the community members became merchants and civic leaders in Broken Hill. Life at the time would have been very tough as Broken Hill had little water and mining was an incredibly dangerous occupation.”
Walt Secord at the Broken Hill Synagogue
Mr Secord was in far western NSW to talk to local hoteliers, local government leaders and miners in Broken Hill and White Cliffs. He also visited Wilcannia. It was Mr Secord’s second visit to the synagogue. In 2017, he also visited the synagogue and its museum.
