Shmuel Rosenkranz: devoted to his family and the community

Fred Antman

Ron, a passionate father-in-law to Leon, adoring grandfather and great-grandfather, and caring brother. The loss of his daughter Judith through ill health and the loss of his wife Betty devastated him.

Making his living in the clothing business, Shmuel set his sights on involving himself with leadership roles serving the Jewish community.

His communal career spanned about 60 years as he became the president of organisations including the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, the Jewish Community Council of Victoria (formerly the Victorian Board of Deputies), the United Jewish Education Board, the State Zionist Council, Bialik College and the Jewish Holocaust Centre (JHC).

As president of the JHC he spoke to secondary school and university students, ensuring that they all heard of the tragic events of the Holocaust where six million of our people were brutally murdered by the Nazis.

With his ongoing achievements he received numerous awards for his lifetime voluntary work, including the Sir John Monash award, a B’nai B’rith Menorah award, and a multicultural affairs ward. He was an eloquent speaker, always in demand to speak to school groups and public forums.

My contact with Shmuel began when he presided as president of the Elwood Talmud Torah Synagogue. He spent 13 years in that capacity, then handing the baton to me. I spent the next 23 years as president under the helm of the dynamic Rabbi Chaim Gutnick. With Shmuel’s help and wisdom we created the golden years of Elwood.

It seems coincidental that two great Jewish leaders passed away almost on the same day: Shimon Peres, a leader of the world Jewry, and Shmuel Rosenkranz, a leader of Australian Jewry.

Shmuel grew up at a time when Austria associated itself with the Nazi era. lt was a time when Jewish citizens living in Vienna experienced waves of antisemitism and were persecuted physically and verbally, seeing synagogues desecrated, Jewish shops and homes demolished, and the beastly attack in November 1938 – Kristallnacht – which Shmuel witnessed. It was an event that was deeply embedded in Shmuel’s mind throughout his entire life.

Shmuel’s parents recognised that Jews living in Austria had little future and began the search for safer havens, travelling to Melbourne, Australia, which then became Shmuel’s home. Once there, he became an ardent Zionist busying himself forming a youth group called Habonim. It was there that he met a girl by the name of Betty Alexander and together they gathered together young Jewish youths, instilling in them Zionist ideals. This love partnership lasted for 63 years.

Shmuel was a devoted husband, loving father to Judith and

Shmuel and I enjoyed a lifelong friendship. We laughed together and we cried together and our bond was strong. His passing is not only a monumental loss to his family and to me, but a huge loss to the entire Jewish Australian community.

Fred Antman was a close friend of Shmuel Rosenkranz. This is an edited version of the obituary that was first published in the Australian Jewish News, based on a eulogy delivered at a minyan for Shmuel.