LAYING OF THE FOUNDATION STONE AT THE
KEW JEWISH CENTRlE, MELBOURNE
ON 25TH AUGST, 1963
Speech by the Prime Minister, the Rt. Hon, Sir RoberCt Menzies
Mr. Chairman Your Excellency and Ladies and Gentlemen and
Boys and Girls You notice that I haven't tried to compete with
my predecessors who had the game of naming all the people
who ought to be named to perfection ( Laughter) and as I am
quite an amateur in these matters, I will just begin by
saying Sir" l. It is a very great pleasure for me and for my
wife to be here. I don't need to tell you that. I have had
the privilege in quite a few parts of Australia of attending
the opening of Jewish Community Centres schools, homes and the
like tbut do you know, this is the first tire I was ever asked
to attend one in my own electorate ( Laughter). In factl you
are entitled to gaze on me today with a certain amount of
suspicion ( Laughter). Elsewhere it was quite all right; they
weren't my electors, but this morning, I am exposing myself
to great risk. I lived in Kew for many years. I have a great
ambition to live there again before I die, though of course,
the speed with which I can achieve that result will depend
very largely on what happens to me at the hands of people like
Senator Cohen and Maurice Ashkanasy ( Laughter)
You have just been reminded of the story of so
many of you and so many of your friends. It is one of the
dreadful chapters in European history and in world history,
but it means something to so many of you to have come up out
of the house of bondage and into a free land, because this is
a free land. This indeed, I am happy to say, is a land of
tolerance, It won't mean that you won't meet a few intolerant
people. There are some people who are even intolerant of me.
Very hard to believe ( Laughter). But this, as a land, as a
community, is a place of tolerance.
I just referred to your very distinguished
colleague and office-bearer Maurice Ashkanasy. I don't wanat
to do him any damage but, Sir, he was a pupil of mine when he
went to the Bar. I taught him practically all the law that
he has now forgotten, ( Laughter) And he is a great friend of
mine, We are always delighted to see each other, but I gather
that he is on the opposite side to mine, politically, Now
this is good. We dontt want too many people to be on the
opposite side, but it is a very good thing. It is a very good
thing that we should live in a community, isn't it, in which
political opposition and personal friendship can dwell happily
together. And this is of tremendous importance to the whole
of Australia and particularly, if I may say so, of importance
to you, You are, many of you, so near to the bitterness of
intolerance persecution by intolerant people that it's not
so easy, perhaps, for you to realise the true quality of this
community very quickly, But I say to you these memories will,
I hope, fade. They wontt be hold in a direot sense by children,
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2
More and more everybody will come to realise that this is a
country in which every community may form part of a greater
community and that a tolerant one.
Now, of course, toleration is a very good thing.
Perhaps it isn't enough. A man may be tolerant because he is
indifferent, because he doesn't care what happens to the other
fellow, and so although it's good, it isn't everything. In
reality what makes a contribution to a nation like Australia
is the service of people who have enthusiasm and faith, who do
believe in something. They are not tolerant because they are
indifferent, They are tolerant because they have a passionate
belief in their hearts. And that's why the religious significance
of this occasion is not to be overlooked, Indeed, this is at
the very centre of it. I don't imagine that anybody in what
I will call for this purpose, the Jewish community woulA wish
that all Jews should live in one place together anA that all
Scotsmen should live in another suburb all together with nobody
else. I dot know how you would get on but I would becor~ e
awfully tired of Scotsmen, No, no. ~ ie don't want this. We
dont want to have a sort of colonial system established and
therefore it is a very good thing that we should be all of us
in our various origins distributed in the community but we
must retain our right to get together from time to time for our
common purposesI not thereby losing our sense of general
obligation as citizens but gathering in the church of our faith,
meeting the people of our faith refreshing ourselves from time
to time at the very fountainheaA of the things that we believe in.
You know, I made a lighthearted reference just
now to Scotsmen, Nov been made an authentic one recently by
being given the Order of the Thistle. Nothing could be more
Scottish than that. Well you know as well as I do that there
are two races in this world who are suspected by ill-informed
outsiders of being moan. ( Laughter) the Jews and the Scots,
the truth of course being that they are both diligent in
business and may therefore stand before kings and that they
are diligent in business, successful perhaps more than most
more than some, and with the greatest capacity for generosity
that can be found anywhere around the world. This is a proud
thing to recall. I always admire immensely whenever I go to
any Jewish establishment as I will call it in Australia how
this family feeling, this instinct, this sense of responsibility
for other people in your community as if they were all members
of your family how this is maintaining itself and what a great
contribution it is making to Australian life,
You know, yesterday afternoon, I had the great
honour of opening a very large building in Monash University
a building which they have named after me, and I said something
about the naming of the University. Every young member of your
community ought to feel inspired by the contribution made by
great, great Australians like Monash and like Isaacs. These'
are outstanding examples of what can be done.
Now, I've said something and I won't say very much
more, I've said something to you about not establishing separate
communities in a physical sense, maintaining your community
relations but contributing to the community in the broad sense,
adding threads to the structure of the community. This I
believe is of tremendous importance. There are a lot o1 people
you will encounter who think that we all ought to be the sqme,
that there ought to be a species of drab uniformity, that they
all ought to be like meg so to speak, that they all ought to
be like you, so to speak. This passion for uniformity is not
to be encouraged. What we need in Australia is that every
person coming from some particular race or faith who comes into
the Australian community should retain his quality in that sense
but should add it to the qualities of all the other people in
the community so that finally we get a powerful structure, a
self-respecting structure, a community of high ideals and of
clear faith and of generosity and of understanding.
Therefore, be yourselves I say this to the more
newly-arrived be yourselves at all times, but also be
something broader than that, a member of a community to which,
given health and strength, you will make some notable contribution,
I am delighted that this centre is being established
here. I could see at a glance as we came along this morning
that you had established already a pretty considerable command
over the local Council. I saw treble parking in the street
( Laughter) and somebody said~ in my party, " Now, look at that.
That seems remarkable." I said, " Oh, no: Bill Birrell, the
Town Clerk, will be there," ( Laughter)
I won't detain you any longer. This is a very
happy occasion for you and I must say, a very happy occasion
for me. I ask God to bless you in your enterprise. May it
succeed beyond your dreams.