b'110774 in order to save his business, opened an inn. He struggled to A PRAYER BOOK (Tfilat Laderech) PRINTED BYsurvive the chaos of the 1848 revolution, the 1852 cholera JOHN MONASHS GRANDFATHER IN 1868, WITHepidemic and the mental illness of his wife. His cousin Moritz PRESENTATION INSCRIPTION TO COLIN BENNETT,Monasch, a Breslau bookseller, helped him through. He was MONASHS GRANDSON, IN 1942 continually preoccupied with the problem of providing dowries A pocket-sized prayer book (Prayers for the Road, being thefor his five daughters. The eldest married Benzion Behrend, a order of prayers for the whole year), printed in the town ofscholar-translator and communal activist whom Baer-Loebel Krotoschin (near Breslau, then in Prussia, now Wroclaw, intook into the businessdisastrously. The next married Poland), by B.L. Monasch & Co., 1868. the eminent scholar, Heinrich Graetz (181791), of Breslau University; his eleven-volume history of the Jews (185375) is With a hand-written dedication on the inside of the front covera classic pioneer work.To Colin Bennett at the day of his Barmitzvah, from BertholdBaer-Loebel employed a tutor for two years to instruct his Monash, Melbourne, the 22nd August, 1942. elder sons in religion, Jewish learning and Hebrew, but they John Colin Monash Bennett (1929 - 2022) A gentle articulateshowed little inclination to become scholars. Nevertheless he man: journalist, film critic of The Age for 25 years, horse riderretained some hopes for his second son, Louis, born on 5 April and instructor, pianist, talented portrait artist. 1831. For a year he sent him to the high school at Glogau, John Monashs grandfather, Baer-Loebel Monasch (1801Silesia, but when the cost proved too much he brought him - 1879) was a learned publisher and printer. His memoirsback to the local high school. Louis eventually found work as have were titled The life, labours, joys and sorrows of B.L.a clerk in a Berlin trading-house, and resolved to make the MONASCH, bookbinder, printer, publisher and inn-keeper offamilys fortune by migrating to the Australian goldfields; he Krotoschin in the province of Posen. may also have been escaping from his familys orthodoxy. He Geoffrey Serle, John Monash, [1982] at page 1 arrived in Melbourne on the Johan Caesar, travelling cabin class, on 31 January 1854. His Berlin employers had allowed John Monash, destined to become Australias most famoushim 2000 marks worth of goods on credit. Although by now, soldier, was born on 27 June 1865 at West Melbourne. Hismore than two years after the gold rush began, the colony parents, Louis and Bertha, were recent migrants to Victoriawas glutted with speculative imports which had to be sold at from Prussia. Louis registered the birth at the East Melbournesacrificial prices, Louis managed to make a start in partnership synagogue as well as with the government registrar; thewith Louis Martin, also from Germany. He remained in official certificate was wrongly dated 23 June. Melbourne and did not get to the goldfields. Like most of the Several generations of Johns paternal ancestors had lived ingold-rush migrants he had intended to return home after a the town of Krotoschin, Posen province, Prussia (Krotoszyn,few years - yet, as early as 25 April 1856, Louis Monasch, Poznn, in modern Poland), some forty miles from Breslaumerchant, native of Prussia was naturalized in the presence (Wroclaw). Since the fourteenth century Krotoschin had aof Mr Justice Sir Redmond Barry, his stated purpose being Jewish community, which survived mass slaughter in 1656to establish himself for life in Victoria. Soon he anglicized his and fires in 1774 and 1827 which destroyed their quarter. Aftername by dropping the c, as later did two brothers in Australia the absorption of Posen into Prussia in 1793 the community,and some of his American relatives.largely of small craftsmen, continued to prosper modestlyMartin & Monash traded as commission agents and general and, while broadly identifying itself with German culture,merchants in Flinders Lane West from 1854 to 1858, moving maintained its reputation as a centre of Jewish scholarship.then to Little Collins Street West. Louis lived on the premises In 1850 almost one-third of the town of about 7500in company with Emil Todt, a capable sculptor, until early in people were Jewish. 1862 when they all took a villa at St Kilda. For some time from Johns grandfather, Baer-Loebel Monasch, was a learned1858 Louis was secretary to the Deutscher Verein (German publisher and printer. Baer-Loebels father, Loebel HerzAssociation) and his office became a clearing-house for (Louis), had been a schoolmaster and teacher of the Talmud. Incommunication and gossip among German migrants. The 1855 Baer-Loebel began to compile the story of his turbulentbusiness prospered. In 1861 he wrote home to ask for his life, labours, joys and sorrows. He wrote these reminiscencessixteen-year-old brother Max to help him, sending the passage in stylistically poor German. He preferred to write and speakmoney; Max arrived in December with Albert Behrend, Louis Yiddish, was learned in Hebrew and probably had only aeldest nephew. The business dealt in wholesale fancy goods smattering of Polish, the language of the aristocracy and theand toys, mostly from Nuremberg and Frankfurt, combs, peasants. Born in 1801, he had been a delicate child and neverbrushes, paper and envelopes, Bohemian glassware, cutlery, became robust. Despite his parents determination to makeconcertinas, flutinas, Berlin embroideries, tobacco pipes, him a rabbi, he trained and was licensed as a bookbinder. Thesnuff-boxes, playing cards, all kinds of beads.thread of misfortune which wound through his life beganLouis returned to Europe early in 1863 to buy goods, to see his when, at eighteen, he was swindled out of his savings. Whenfamily again, and to find a wife. He was shocked to learn the he was twenty-two he married his first ardent love, Mathildefull extent of his fathers financial troubles: Baer-Loebel had Wiener, of the Sdfeld family which had arrived in Posen inhad to pay off many of the debts of his sons Isidor and Julius, 1684 after banishment from Vienna. Three of her ancestorsthe latter having been imprisoned for debt. Louis promised to had been scholar-rabbis and officials of the Krotoschin Jewishcontinue supporting his father and was loyally to do so, but community; Max Nordau, the sociologist, was her first cousinBaer-Loebels troubles were by no means over. His beloved once removed. Baer-Loebel was one of thirteen children, allwife died in 1864. Rumours of the wealth of his rich son from but three of whom died in infancy, and he and Mathilde hadAustralia inflamed his creditors and he had to sell his house. another thirteen. Their descendants in Australia were to beBut he managed to marry off his remaining daughters; the much less prolific. youngest inherited his printing works and her husband carried By the early 1830s Baer-Loebel was established as a printer.on the business. Well before his death in 1879 [note that He acquired a variety of fine Hebrew types, and proceededSearle has the incorrect date of 1876] Baer-Loebel had proudly to publish famous scholarly editions, in Hebrew and German,paid off all his debts. Only two of his children remained in of the Pentateuch, a twelve-volume Bible, prayer books,Posen: four had migrated to Australia and two to the United a standard Hebrew edition of the Jerusalem Talmud, andStates. Other Monasch relatives also migrated to Australia, the Torah in eighteen volumes with German and YiddishAmerica, Holland and France. Krotoschin and its environs translations. He took the lead in rebuilding the Krotoschinbecame an economic backwater and by the close of the synagogue about 1845 and often acted as cantor. Althoughcentury its Jewish community had almost entirely dispersedat one stage he had thirty-six employees his finances were$1,5002,500constantly precarious: about 1847 he became insolvent and,'