Kesher Talk

Jews in odd places: New Zealand: The Jewish Week turns an investigational eye on Auckland, New Zealand, which wants all sorts of Jews to come and prosper:

The city’s largest synagogue and the B’nai B’rith chapter in recent years have launched separate campaigns to attract Jewish immigrants from overseas, complementing a national recruitment effort that emphasizes New Zealand’s low unemployment and crime rates.

Both B’nai B’rith and the Auckland Jewish Immigration Organization, affiliated with the Auckland Hebrew Congregation, have directed their activities primarily toward the Jews of South Africa, and secondarily to prospective immigrants from Argentina and Israel.

“These people are coming from distressed areas,” says Stan Rose, chairman of the immigration orginazation (www.aji.org.nz). All three countries are undergoing economic difficulties, while Israel is faced with ongoing Arab terrorism.

They are coming, attracted by New Zealand’s booming economy and laid-back lifestyle, to a distant corner of the globe — three hours flying time from Australia, its closest neighbor; 10 from South Africa; 12 from Los Angeles.

Next on Rose’s agenda: an outreach to Jews in the United States.

Unlike Australia, whose unabashed support for the American war in Iraq has made it a possible target of terrorists, New Zealand, which is aligned with the governments awaiting sanction by the United Nations of any involvement in Iraq, is not considered a target.

Rose says New Zealand is an oasis from anti-Semitism. He points to the portside land donated to the congregation by Auckland 140 years ago, and the national prime minister and seven Auckland Jewish mayors claimed by the Jewish community, as signs of the society’s tolerant attitudes.

Another sign: Jewish sites here don’t require armed guards, a rarity in the West.

...Some 230 years after the first Jews arrived here, mostly whalers and traders, the size of New Zealand Jewry, sustained periodically by small waves of people fleeing persecution, has seen little growth for a century. Today’s community is the typical mix of middle-class businesspeople and professionals, as well as high-tech experts from Israel who have come in the last 18 months.

Many young Jews do their de rigueur O.E. — Overseas Experience, post-college backpacking — and don’t come back. “Because there are so few Jewish people, young Jews go to Australia to marry” and stay, says historian Ann Gluckman, editor of “Identity and Involvement: Auckland Jewry, Past and Present.”

... New Zealand, in an attempt to restrict the number of poorly trained immigrants from Asia and the Middle East, has adopted new immigration requirements that favor people from the West with qualifications in such areas as engineering, medicine and information technology, Lipschitz says. The country’s goal is 4,500 to 5,000 newcomers a year.

... While most members of the Auckland Hebrew Congregation, which bills itself as Orthodox, practice a level of observance closer to American-style Conservative Judaism, the community offers a mikveh and the Kadimah College day school. Kosher food is available, and an eruv and kosher bakery are under consideration.

... Jewish immigrants from South Africa, with a common British experience, feel most at home here, many members of the Jewish community say.

Of the estimated 60,000 South Africans who have come to New Zealand in the last decade, about 2,500 are Jewish.

posted by William @ 11/07/2003 08:58:03 AM