PhotoExhibit 8
Rev Moses Rintel
First chief minister of the Melbourne Hebrew Congregation 1849-1857 (Bourke Street Synagogue)
The real beginnings of Jewish settlement in Port Phillip (later known as Victoria) date from 1839 with the arrival of the first immigrant ship from England, the "Hope". During that first year, Solomon Benjamin and Michael Cashmore gathered at the home of Mr Lazarus in Collins Street for worship at the time of the Jewish High Holydays. In 1840, their numbers were sufficient to form a "minyan" with the arrival in the Colony of Edward and Isaac Hart, S. H. Harris and Isaac Lincoln. Rev Moses Rintel arrived in 1849 from Edinburgh and served as the first chief minister of the Melbourne Hebrew Congregation till 1886. A small synagogue had been built in 1847 at what is now 472 Bourke Street with the foundation stone for a larger synagogue being laid in March 1855.
Albert Singer
