History of the Jews in New Zealand

Jews of New Zealand
יהודיי ניו זילנד‎

Star of David hot cross buns for sale at the Kosher Deli, Auckland Hebrew Congregation, Remuera, Auckland
Total population
7,500 – 10,000
Regions with significant populations
Auckland, Wellington
Languages
English, Hebrew, Yiddish
Religion
Judaism
Related ethnic groups
Israeli New Zealanders South African New Zealanders

New Zealand Jews, whether by culture, ethnicity, or religion, form with Hawaii (8,000–10,000), the joint-second largest (7,500–10,000) Jewish community in Oceania, behind Australia (118,000).

The Jewish community in New Zealand is composed predominantly of Ashkenazi Jews. Other Jewish ethnic divisions are also represented and include Sephardi Jews, Mizrahi Jews, and Bene Israel. A number of converts to Judaism make up the New Zealand Jewish community, which manifests a wide range of Jewish cultural traditions and the full spectrum of Jewish religious observance. Though they are a small minority, they have had an open presence in the country since the first Jewish immigrants began arriving in 1829. New Zealand has had three Jewish Prime Ministers or premiers, Julius Vogel (1873–1875), Francis Bell and John Key (2008–2016).^[1]

The first Jewish settlers in New Zealand were Anglo-Jewish traders. Small numbers of Anglo-Jewish immigrants followed, some subsidized by a Jewish charity in London which had a mission of caring for the poor and orphaned young people in the community. These "subsidised" Jewish immigrants were also intended by their benefactors to be devout members of the fledgling Jewish community in Wellington, to which the respected English business leader Abraham Hort, Senior, was sent from London to organise along London religious lines. The difficulties of life in early colonial New Zealand, together with historically high rates of intermarriage, made it hard to maintain strict religious observation in any of the new congregations.

Following news of gold rushes, Jewish immigrants poured in from new lands such as Germany, and then moved on when the boom was over. These immigrants, and others from Eastern Europe faced an increasingly stringent immigration policy throughout the end of the 19th and mid 20th century, but Jewish New Zealanders and their descendants have continued to contribute in business, medicine, politics, and other areas of New Zealand life, at the highest levels, and the spectrum of Jewish religious observance continues in communities throughout the country.

The New Zealand Jewish Council, established in 1981, acts as the representative body of Jewish communities in New Zealand. It responds to antisemitism in New Zealand and the New Zealand government's foreign policy and attitudes towards the State of Israel and the Middle East.^[2] A 2022 survey of antisemitism in New Zealand focussed attention on several areas of concern such as Holocaust denial and left-wing antisemitism.^[3]