Monash Memo - 19 September 2001

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Commitment to Jewish Centre

The vision for the future of the Australian Centre for the Study of Jewish Civilisation was reaffirmed last week with a major function that attracted prominent members of Melbourne's Jewish community.

Guests including former Governor-General Sir Zelman Cowen and Dr Henry Krongold CBE AM and Mrs Dinah Krongold attended the Faculty Gallery at the Caulfield campus on 9 September to hear speakers including the recently appointed director of the centre, Professor Andrew Markus.

Other speakers at the event were Arts faculty dean Professor Homer Le Grand, centre chairman Emeritus Professor Louis Waller AO, and a major benefactor of the centre, Mrs Lorraine Topol.

In a heartfelt address to guests, Mrs Topol said the centre, established in 1992, would become a beacon in the landscape of Jewish civilisation in Melbourne, in Australia and beyond.

"I have read Professor Andrew Markus's blueprint for the next phase, and I have had opportunities to hear him speak of projects and plans," Mrs Topol said.

"I know that those plans and those projects, which will lead to graduate programs and to broader and deeper scholarship, must have strong support to occur. Our Jewish community must embrace it and support it."

She said that as the centre grew, it would be able to offer community education in a variety of ways and that real advances had been made since 1992.

"It has struck roots in music and education, and established firm connections with the largest and most famous centres of Jewish learning in Israel. It also has links with scholarship in Europe and North America," Mrs Topol said.

"It is with real pride that my daughter, Sheryl, and I have made a donation to this most deserving, innovative and important department of Monash University through the Benjamin Slome Charitable Foundation, which has been set up in honour and in memory of my father. The donation is made in my mother's name, Joy Waller, a as way of honouring her."