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Professor Suzanne Rutland, OAM

PhD, MA (Hons), BA (Hons), University of Sydney, Dip Ed, Sydney Teachers’ College, OAM (Medal of the Order of Australia).
Associate Professor


Sydney born, Suzanne Rutland is Professor in the department of Hebrew, Biblical and Jewish Studies in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences 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 and Schlesinger, 1997, Holmes and Meier, New York, 2001) and her latest publication is The Jews in Australia published in 2005 by Cambridge University Press. She has held numerous leadership positions, including being immediate past president of the Australian Jewish Historical Society, and was convenor of the Australian Association of Jewish Studies 19th Annual Conference, February 2007.

Professor Rutland has recently been awarded an OAM (Medal of the Order of Australia) for service to Jewish education and history through a range of higher education development roles and as an author and academic, and to the promotion of interfaith relations. In 2011 Professor Rutland was listed as one of the 50 most influential Jews in Australia.

Research areas:

  • research into Jewish education in Australia, funded by the Pratt Foundation;
  • Judaism and Islam in Australia;
  • Australia and the Struggle for Soviet Jewry;
  • Jews from the Former Soviet Union in Australia.
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Current projects:

  • Research into Jewish education in Australia;
  • Australian Jewry and Israel;
  • Australian Jewry and China;
  • Judaism and Islam in Australia;
  • ‘Let My People Go: Australia and the Struggle for Soviet Jewry’;
  • Holocaust Memory.
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Books

  • Rutland, S.D. and Rood, S. Nationality Stateless: Destination Australia, Melbourne: American Joint Distribution Committee, 2008.
  • Rutland, S.D. Triumph of the Jewish Spirit: 40 Years of the Jewish Communal Appeal, Sydney: the NSW Jewish Communal Appeal, 2007.
  • Rutland, S.D. The Jews in Australia, Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
  • Rutland, S.D ‘If you will it, it is no dream’: The Moriah Story, Sydney: Playright Publishers, 2003.
  • Rutland, S.D. and Caplan, Sophie With One Voice: the History of the New South Wales Jewish Board of Deputies, Sydney:, Australian Jewish Historical Society, 1998.
  • Rutland, S.D. Pages of History: A Century of the Australian Jewish Press, Sydney: Australian Jewish Press, 1995, 303.
  • Rutland, S.D. Edge of the Diaspora: Two Centuries of Jewish Settlement in Australia, Sydney: Collins Australia, 1988, i - xv, 479, Sydney: Brandl and Schlesinger, 1997, Sydney: Brandl and Schlesinger, New York: Holmes and Meier, 2001.

Chapters in books

  • Rutland, Suzanne D. ‘Seeking Treasure Island: Manpower and Arms from Australia and the South Pacific to Israel, 1948-1950’, in Bacon, Gershon C., Baumgarten, Albert, Barnai, Jacob, Waxman, Haim & Yuval, Israel (eds), Iggud – Selected Essays in Jewish Studies, Vol. 2, History of the Jewish People and Contemporary Jewish Society, Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 2009, pp.203-217.
  • Rutland, Suzanne D. ‘Leadership of Accommodation or Protest? Nahum Goldmann and the Struggle for Soviet Jewry’, in Mark Raider (ed.), Nahum Goldmann: Statesman Without a State, New York: SUNY Press, 2009, pp.273-298.
  • Rutland, Suzanne D. ‘Jewish Education in Australia’, in Paul Flexner, Roberta Goodman and Linda Bloomberg, eds, What we now know about research in Jewish Education, Los Angeles: Torah Aura Publications, 2008, pp.441-448
  • Rutland, Suzanne D. ‘Negotiating religious dialogue: A response to the recent increase of anti-Semitism in Australia’, in Elizabeth Burns Coleman and Kevin White (eds), Negotiating the Sacred: Blasphemy and Sacrilege in a Multicultural Society, Canberra: ANU E Press, 2006, pp. 17-30.
  • Rutland, Suzanne D. ‘Why Does Australian Jewish History Matter?’, in Michael Fagenblat, Melanie Landau and Nathan Wolski (eds), New Under the Sun: Jewish Australians on Religion, Politics and Culture, Melbourne: Black Inc, 2006.
  • Rutland, Suzanne D. ‘Who Speaks for Australian Jewry?’, in Levey, Geoffrey Brahm and Mendes, Philip Jews and Australian Politics, UK: Sussex Academic Press, 2004.
  • 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 and New York: Palgrave, 2001, pp 527 – 542.

Articles

  • Rutland, Suzanne D. ‘Creating effective Holocaust education programmes for government schools with large Muslim populations in Sydney’, in Zehavit Gross and E. Doyle Stevic (eds), ‘Policies and Practices of Holocaust Education: International Perspectives’, Vol 1, PROSPECTS: Quarterly Review of Comparative Education, Vol 40, Issue 1, 2010, pp.75-91.
  • Rutland, Suzanne D and Encel, Sol, ‘No Room in the Inn: American responses to Australian immigration policies, 1946-1954’, Patterns of Prejudice, Vol 43, No 5, December 2009, pp.497-518.
  • Rutland, Suzanne D and Encel, Sol, ‘Smaller Jewish Communities in Australia’, The Jewish Journal of Sociology, vol 51, parts 1&2, 2009, pp.1-30.
  • Rutland, Suzanne D. ‘“Buying out of the Matter”: Australia’s Role in Restitution for Templer Property in Israel’ The Journal of Israeli History 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’, Australian Journal of Jewish Studies, Vol. XIX, 2004.
  • Rutland, Suzanne ‘Postwar Anti-Jewish Refugee Hysteria: A Case of Racial or Religious Bigotry?’ Sojourners and Strangers, Journal of Australian Studies, No 77, 2003, a fully refereed international journal published by University of Queensland Press on behalf of Australian Studies, Curtin University of Technology, in association with the International Australian Studies Association and the Australian Public Intellectual Network, pp 69-79.
  • Rutland, Suzanne D. ‘Postwar Jewish “Boat People” and Parallels with the Tampa Incident’, Australian Journal of Jewish Studies, XVI, 2002, 159-176.
  • Rutland, S. D. ‘Intermeshing Archival and Oral Sources: Unraveling the Story of Jewish Survivor Immigration to Australia’, in Hammerton, A.J and Richards, E. (eds.) Speaking To Immigrants: Oral Testimony and the History of Australian Migration, Visible Immigrants: Six, Canberra 2002.
  • 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.
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Areas of teaching and research supervision:

Teaching:

  • Jewish Civilisation, Thought and Culture;
  • the Australian Jewish experience;
  • evolution of Judaism in the New World.

Supervision:

  • Supervising theses in Australian Jewry, the Holocaust and Jewish education in Australia.
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2007 Conference activity:

  • 'Styles of Leadership in the Australian Jewish community: the case of the Campaign for Soviet Jewry', with Professor Sol Encel, 'Jewish Leadership Throughout the Ages, 19th Annual Conference, Australian Association of Jewish Studies, Mandelbaum House, University of Sydney, 11-12 February.
  • 'The Development of Jewish Education in Australia', National Association of Professors of Hebrew 25th Annual Conference, University of Sydney, 2-4 July.
  • 'The Australian Story', panel at the International Conference of Christians and Jews, Shalom College, University of New South Wales, 9-11 July.
  • 'Jews and Muslims 'Downunder': emerging dialogue and challenges', Conference on Jews and Muslims in the World of Islam, Bar Ilan University and the University of Maryland, Washington, 26-28 August.
  • 'Campaigning for Soviet Jewry in Australia', International Conference 'The Jewish National Movement in the USSR: Awakening and Struggle, 1967-1989, Nevzlin Center, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 26-28 December.
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Other professional contributions:

Within the Jewish community Associate Professor Rutland has 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;
  • Education Consultant of the Committee of Management of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ).
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