History and Achievements

THE INFORMATION SHOWN HERE AND ON THE FOLLOWING PAGES HAS BEEN EXTRACTED FROM "THE HISTORY OF B'NAI B'RITH IN AUSTRALIA & NEW ZEALAND - 1944-2004" by GARRY FABIAN.

Today, B’nai B’rith has spread into 51 countries around the world, and holds NGO consultative status at the United Nations, including representatives at UNESCO in Paris, the UN Commission on Human Rights in Geneva, as well as at UN headquarters in New York - the only Jewish organisation to do so. 		 

Over a century-and-a half ago, a group of a dozen German-Jewish immigrants met on New York's lower east side to help others like themselves. They chose the name B'nai B'rith for their organisation - Hebrew for "Children of the Covenant". They could scarcely have imagined at the time that out of this meeting would grow the largest Jewish community service organisation in the world.

It was a difficult time for American Jews, many of them immigrants from a wide range of countries and backgrounds. From the start, the overriding principle of B'nai B'rith was and still remains its inclusivity - regardless of a person's shades of religious conviction, economic circumstances, country of origin, political beliefs, everyone is welcome, as long as he or she is Jewish.

B’nai B’rith started in Australia in 1944 with the institution of Sydney Lodge, followed shortly by Melbourne Lodge in 1945. In New Zealand, the first B’nai B’rith group was established in Wellington in 1960, and another the following year in Auckland.