The plan for a Jewish homeland in Tasmania

[Violet_Crumble]

Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Broadcast: 18/01/2010
Reporter: Conor Duffy

During the Second World War, a Melbourne businessman drafted a plan to relocate persecuted Jewish Europeans to the remote south-west coast of Tasmania. Critchley Parker Junior died while he was surveying the boundaries for the new state and his vision was never realised. But as documents from the Tasmanian Archives show, his proposal had the support of Tasmania’s Premier and may well have gone ahead. A new book by Richard Flanagan is revisiting Parker’s plan.

Transcript

TRACY BOWDEN., PRESENTER: The story of the establishment of the State of Israel is one of the most hotly contested events of the 20th century that historians have written thousands of books on the subject.

But one chapter in this story that's been forgotten is at the height of the Nazi slaughter of European Jews a Melbourne businessman was drawing up plans to establish a Jewish Homeland on the remote south-west coast of Tasmania.

Now the little known story of the Critchley Parker Junior, and his plans for a 'new Palestine' at Port Davey are attracting attention with an American professor and one of Australia’s best novelist turning this extraordinary tale into a book.

Conor Duffy reports from Hobart.

CONOR DUFFY: Port Davey in Tasmania's far south-west lies on the lonely edge of the world. Its home to stunning mountains, thick untamed rainforest, wild rivers and unspoilt coastline.

RICHARD FLANAGAN, AUTHOR: The odd thing is that Port Davey, to this day, remains one of the remotest, wildest places on Earth. That um, it never really changed.

CONOR DUFFY: But this wilderness could also have been the unlikely site of a Jewish homeland. In the early 1940s the son of a wealthy Melbourne businessman Critchley Parker Junior fell in love with a Jewish journalist Caroline Isaksson. Struck by the plight of Jews in Europe he became a champion of their cause.


http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2010/s2795292.htm#

The video's off to the right hand side of the page. It's really interesting and worth watching...

[LuvNewcastle]

1. It's beautiful down there.

I could see myself living there.

[Violet_Crumble]

2. I've been there a few times and it's a bit too remote for me...

I think it might be right in the middle of a world heritage area nowadays...

[paulsby]

3. me too

and GREAT surf, albeit a bit chilly

[azurnoir]

4. interesting story

albeit IMO the plan would have been ultimately rejected

[Violet_Crumble]

5. Yeah, I don't think it would have gotten off the ground...

For a start, it sounds like the Tasmanian Premier was agreeing to a community being establihed, and not a state. One thing that's never changed over time is that state governments don't have the power to give bits of Australia away. And the Zionists weren't looking for somewhere to establish a community - they already had a community established in Palestine by that point, so it was always bound to never get past the dreaming stage...

[shaayecanaan]

6. There was also a plan to establish a Jewish homeland in Western Australia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kimberley_Plan

Actually, it was taken seriously by many in Australia. The northwest is an underpopulated area now and was even more so then, despite its good agricultural prospects.

The settlers probably overplayed their hand in suggesting that they could build a state or quasi-state there, rather than simply moving there on the basis that they would have local autonomy which the government would no doubt have given them.

As hare-brained as these schemes were, they do seem beset with rather less problems than is/was the case with setting up Israel in former Palestine.

[bemildred]

7. And Kenya, IIRC.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Kenya