Gallery - Jews

It’s a matter of custom, habit and genuine belief.

– Barbara Treister is asked if it’s hard to be faithful to the kosher rules in New Zealand

I buy it from the kosher butcher, bring it home and in vessels set aside especially for that purpose, I soak the meat for half an hour so that the blood is taken from it. Then rinse it, and on a draining board place it and salt it thoroughly with common salt for an hour, and after that, rinse it again so that the blood is completely taken from it because we believe that blood is life and we ought not to partake of life.

– Barbara Treister on preparing meat under kosher rules

Being Jewish is more a way of life rather than a religion. You sort of practice it everyday, not just go to church on Sunday and be done with it for the rest of the week.

– A young boy at the start of this documentary, on Judaism

We have to be strict. Somebody must show an example.

– Rabbi Rosenfeld on being strict of the rules of Sabbath — like not driving to the synagogue (not driving on sabbath)

Its hard to be a Jew anywhere. In New Zealand, it’s easy to call yourself a Jew. There’s no discrimination. There’s no anti-Semitism. You can get up and call yourself a Jew and you don’t have to be scared of the consequences. But it’s not easy to live as a Jew in New Zealand, and that’s the difference — because to live as a Jew there’s a lot more to it than just calling yourself a Jew — it’s a complete way of life.

– Mr Fliegn when asked if it's hard to be a Jew in Aotearoa

I don’t think there’s any clash, personally. When I’m in New Zealand, my allegiance is to New Zealand, but I can’t change the fact that I’m a Jew, and all that it means to me, no matter how much I try. Luckily there hasn’t been a clash and I don’t think there ever will be. But the fact that I’m a New Zealander just doesn’t alter in any way the fact that I’m a Jew.

– A Mr Fliegn when asked if where his allegiance lay as a Kiwi-born Jew — to New Zealand or to Israel

It’s so much part of me that if I married a non-Jew, I’d have to totally ignore all my Jewishness, and it’s so much a part of me that I think it’s impossible.

– Ms Phillips on why she won't marry a non-Jew

There has been slight anti-Semitism in New Zealand, but I think it has always come from overseas. It hasn’t been a native anti-Semitism. It has been rubbed off from world conditions. During the Wall Street collapse, during the Great Depression; when there has been opposition to immigration in different forms. Those have been odd examples of anti-semitism, but it has been really inconsequential.

– Mr Pitt asked by interviewer about anti-Semitism in New Zealand

I think that it will continue to exist — perhaps not to the orthodox extent which it exists at the moment, but there is life in the community as long as people remain concerned.

– Teenager Gail Triester on whether the Jewish community in New Zealand will continue