Sketch of the East Melbourne Synagogue
The first time I attended synagogue was in 1985 in Melbourne at the old East Melbourne Synagogue when I was 21. At Melbourne University I had become friends with a young Jewish man who had become a Baali Teshuvah and returned to the practice of Orthodox Judaism. He invited me to come with him to a Jewish wedding at the East Melbourne Synagogue.As an avid royalist I was very impressed to see the Prayer for the Queen and the Royal Family on marble tablets near the Ark. If my memory is correct the prayer for the Royalty was in English on one side of the Ark and in Hebrew on the other side. I was equally pleased later when I attended the Sabbath service and the only prayer read in English in the Shul was the prayer for the Queen and the Royal Family. In this very Anglo-Jewish synagogue where the rabbi ( Rabbi Mattus Honig) wore long black robes and a black pill box hat I felt very much at home. I recently came across some photos on Flickr of the East Melbourne Synagogue including the English prayer for the Queen and Royal Family.
I have very fond memories of Rabbi Honig and the way he led the Hebrew Synagogue service in a sedate Anglican-style way in his black priest-like robe. He seemed so graceful as he approached the Ark as if he was about to unveil the Holy of Holies itself. The congregants were Orthodox but in the English way rather than the strict Eastern European manner. The women did not wear wigs but had their natural grey hair which they covered with a hat during the services. The women also shook ones hands unlike the more frum Jews who I was to become involved with later that year (1985) through the Melbourne University Rabbi Michael Katz. The men carried their umbrellas and prayer books to Shul on the Sabbath and some of them caught the tram there. Rabbi Honig died in 1996 and was the last of the old-style Anglo-Jewish rabbis.
The Synagogue today
Jewish Prayer For the Royal Family
