Yiddish Melbourne: Towards a history (2008). A Second Chance: The making of Yiddish Melbourne
is a detailed study of a community of Eastern European Jewish migrants who arrived in two successive waves; the greatest number of them settled in Melbourne. Initial arrivals were in the 1920s and 1930s, a time of white monoculture. The second wave were Holocaust survivors, predominantly Polish.
...Successful integration and support were orchestrated by Jewish organisations. Skillful self-governance was born from persecution in Europe. The Jewish Welcome Society, established in 1922, was extraordinary. ‘[Its] task was to meet every ship, to find work and accommodation for the new arrivals (a course for learning basic English was also organised) and in general to make the new immigrant who has no one to look after him a little more at home.’
