Associate Professor Suzanne Rutland

PhD, MA (Hons), BA (Hons), University of Sydney, Dip Ed, Sydney Teachers’ College.
Associate Professor, Chair, Department of Hebrew, Biblical & Jewish Studies


Sydney born, Suzanne D. Rutland (MA (Hons) PhD, Dip Ed) is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Hebrew, Biblical & Jewish Studies in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Sydney. Her major history of Australian Jewry, Edge of the Diaspora: Two Centuries of Jewish Settlement in Australia, was first published in 1988 and has had two subsequent editions (Collins, 1988; Brandl & Schlesinger, 1997, Holmes & Meier, New York, 2001) and her latest publication is, ‘If you will it, it is no dream’: the Moriah Story (Sydney: Playright Publishers, 2003), a history of the largest Jewish day school today in Australia. She is at present working on a new, shorter history of Australian Jewry to be published later this year by Cambridge University Press as part of their series on ethnic groups in Australia. Sydney. She has held numerous leadership positions, including being immediate past president of the Australian Jewish Historical Society.

• Australian Jewry
• The Holocaust and Dutch Jewry
• Jewish Education in Australia
• Modern Israel, including Templer Restitution
• Soviet Jewry campaign and Dr Nahum Goldmann

• ARC/Linkage grant with Professor Sol Encel to study ‘The Political Sociology of Australian Jewry’ which includes spending time undertaking research in Jerusalem and New York in the archives of the American Joint Distribution Committee and the Hebrew Immigrants Aid Society.
• Manpower and arms from Australia and the South Pacific to Israel, 1948 – 1950
• Research into Jewish education in Australia, with specific focus on Moriah College
• Australian Jewry and Israel
• Australian Jewry and China

Books

• Rutland, S.D. Edge of the Diaspora: Two Centuries of Jewish Settlement in Australia, American edition:, New York: Holmes & Meier, 2001, i - xv, 479.
• Rutland, S.D. with Caplan, Sophie With One Voice: the History of the New South Wales Jewish Board of Deputies Sydney: Australian Jewish Historical Society, 1998, I-x, 405.
• Rutland, SD If you will it, it is no dream: The Moriah Story, Sydney: Playright Publishing, 2003.

Booklet

• Rutland, S.D. Jewish Life Down Under: The Flowering of Australian Jewry, Jerusalem, Institute of the World Jewish Congress, Policy Study No 21, 2001, 39.

Chapters in Books

• Rutland, Suzanne D. ‘Creating intellectual and cultural challenges: The Bridge’, in Dacy M., Dowling J., Faigan, S. (eds) Feasts and Fasts: A Festschrift in Honour of Alan David Crown, Sydney: Mandelbaum Publishing, 2005, pp 323-348.
• Rutland, Suzanne D. ‘Who Speaks for Australian Jewry?’, in Levey, Geoffrey Brahm and Mendes, Philip (eds) Jews and Australian Politics, UK: Sussex Academic Press, 2004, pp 29 – 43.
• Rutland, S. D. ‘Intermeshing Archival and Oral Sources: Unraveling the Story of Jewish Survivor Immigration to Australia’, in Hammerton, A.J & Richards, E. (eds.) Speaking To Immigrants: Oral Testimony and the History of Australian Migration, Visible Immigrants: Six, Canberra 2002.
• Rutland, S. D. ‘“The heart-throb rabbi”: Rabbi Lubofsky and Sydney Jewry’, in Eshkolot: Essays in memory of Rabbi Ronald Lubofsky, Melbourne: Hybrid Publishers, 2002.
• Rutland, S.D. ‘A Reassessment of the Dutch Record during the Holocaust’, in Roth, John K. and Maxwell, Elizabeth, (eds in chief), Remembering for the Future: The Holocaust in an Age of Genocide, Volume 1: History, Hampshire & New York: Palgrave, 2001, pp 527 – 542.
• Rutland, S. D., in David Denborough, ed., Working with Stories South Australia: Dulwich Centre Publications, 1999.

Articles

• Rutland, Suzanne D. “Buying out of Matter”: Australia’s Role in the Restitution
  for Templer Property in Israel’, The Journal of Israeli History: Politics,
  Society, Culture, Vol 24, No 1, (March 2005), pp 135-154.
• Rutland, Suzanne D. ‘1948 and the Creation of the State of Israel: a watershed
  period for Australian Zionism’, The Australian Journal of Jewish Studies,
  Vol XVIII, (2004), pp 97-124.
• Rutland, S.D. ‘Postwar Anti-Jewish Refugee hysteria: A Case of Racial or Religious Bigotry?’ Sojourners and Strangers, Journal of Australian Studies, No 77, (2003) pp 69-79.
• Rutland, Suzanne ‘Perspectives from the Australian Jewish Community’, Lilith: a feminist history journal, II, (2002), 87-101.
• Rutland, Suzanne D. ‘Postwar Jewish “Boat People” and Parallels with the Tampa Incident’, Australian Journal of Jewish Studies, XVI (2002), 159-176.
• Rutland, Suzanne D. ‘Subtle Exclusions: Postwar Jewish emigration to Australia and the impact of the IRO Scheme’, in The Journal of Holocaust Education, Vol 10, No 1, (Summer 2001), pp 50 –66.
• Rutland, S.D. 'The State of Jewish Education in Australia's Jewish day Schools', Australian Journal of Jewish Studies, 14 (2000), pp. 78 –100.
• Carey, Hilary M., Breward, Ian, O'Brien, Anne, Rutland, Suzanne D., Thompson, Roger, 'Australian religion review, 1980 - 2000, Part I: Surveys, Bibliographies and Religions Other Than Christianity', The Journal of Religious History, Vol 24, No 1, (October 2000), pp 296-313.

Other

• Rutland, S. D. ‘Menasseh ben Israel’ and ‘The Netherlands’ in Michael Terry, ed., Readers Guide to Judaism, Fitzroy Dearborn, 1999
• Rutland, S.D. ‘Jewry in Australia’, Davison, Graeme, Hirst, John and Macintyre, Stuart, eds, The Oxford Companion to Australian History, Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1998

Jewish Civilisation, Thought and Culture
The Australian Jewish experience
Evolution of Judaism in the New World

Supervising theses in Australian Jewry, the Holocaust and Jewish education in Australia.

Presented at a variety of conferences in Australia and overseas, including the Association of Jewish Studies, Los Angeles, 2002; Beyond Camps and Forced Labour, Imperial War Museum, London, January 2003; Negotiating for the Sacred, Australian National University, may 2004; Australian History Association, Newcastle, July 2004, invited panellist on post World War II migration to Australia; Monash University Conference on Antisemitism, February 2005; papers accepted for Interfaith and Jewry and China, University of Shandong, May 2005, Jewish Education Conference, Tel Aviv University, June 2005, and the World Union of Jewish Studies, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, July 2005. In addition, have been convenor, committee member and presented at conferences of the Australian Association of Jewish Studies

Within the Jewish community I have served as:

• Chair of the National Advisory Committee on Jewish Education for Australia, for the World Zionist Organisation, from 1995 - 1999;
• Member of the Education Sub-Committee, New South Wales Jewish Board of Deputies;
• Honorary Secretary and Academic Chair of the Joint Committee for Jewish Higher Education;
• Past member of the Jewish Communal Appeal (JCA) Board of Governors;
• Trustee and Council Member, Mandelbaum College;
• Member, Academic Advisory Committee, Melton Adult Education Program, Shalom Institute, University of New South Wales;
• Australian coordinator of the Winter Institute for Educators from Abroad, Yad Vashem, Institute for Holocaust Studies; and
• Education Consultant of the Committee of Management of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ).