Contact Us:
Phone: 9523 0888
​Email: showcase@bbvic.org.au​

The B'nai B'rith Showcase is a member of, and has accreditation with,
The Association of Eisteddfod Societies of Australia Inc.

This is the only Jewish Showcase in Australia and fulfills a specific need - it does not replicate what any other Jewish organisation is doing.  Jewish musicians are enabled to compete in an officially recognised Showcase; as most are held on Shabbat, this competition acts as a bridge through all streams of Judaism - covering Primary, Secondary and Tertiary levels (ages 8 - 25).
 
Register now and you too can be part of this exciting event!

​Please see the attached files on the right for sign up information or phone the B'nai B'rith Office on ​
​(03) 9523 0888 or email showcase@bbvic.org.au​

Our Solo Sections are:
Vocal: Classical
Vocal: Contemporary
Hebrew and Yiddish Vocal
Strings: Classical
Piano: Classical
Piano: Contemporary
​Woodwind and Brass
Guitar

In 2019, B’nai B’rith Vic celebrated its 27th year of holding the Jewish Youth Eisteddfod and
rebranded its name to ‘Showcase: Fostering Jewish Musical Talent’.
Its first chairperson was Rosalie Maller and its second was Esther Gross, who guided the project through until 2012, when ill health forced her retirement. Until then, it remained a special project of B’nai B’rith Unit Re’ut.
Andrew Kolb took over the chair of the Eisteddfod in 2014, and retired at the end of 2019.
During those 6 years, the Eisteddfod grew to 8 Heats namely: Classical Vocal, Contemporary Vocal, Hebrew and Yiddish Vocal, Woodwind, Classical Strings, Guitar, and Classical and Contemporary Piano.
It was also exciting to see a rapid rise in school ensemble participation.
There were performances from Melbourne’s four Jewish day schools: Mount Scopus Memorial College, Bialik College, King David School and Leibler Yavneh College.
Showcase is made possible by the generosity of the many donors and sponsors, including B’nai B’rith Victoria, the Pratt Foundation and Glen Eira City Council.
The Australian Jewish News kept people informed of our activities via advertising and featured articles.
The Rt. Hon. Sir Zelman Cowen was our distinguished patron. After his death, Lady Anna Cowen AM accepted the offer to become our new patron. This year, she will be joined by Mr
Doug Heywood OAM as Joint patron.
2020 is not like any other year that we have previously faced. The COVID-19 pandemic has forced us to try new options: Zoom meetings and Online Showcase 2020.
Who could have predicted this only 3 months ago? 2020 will certainly be a different type of Showcase without ensemble participation.
On behalf of the Showcase Committee I would like to thank our new chair Judy Firestone.
We cannot do this without community help and support. Together we can be triumphant.

​Andrew Kolb
Chair of Showcase (formerly Eisteddfod) 2014-2019

Patron: Lady Anna Cowen AM
Email: artcomp@bbvic.org.au

HOW TO ENTER
1. Register your entry by 18th June 2021
2. Submit your artwork by 18th July 2021
3. Awarding of prizes 25th July at 2:00 PM     ​​
See below for further details.

1. Register your entry
Registration closing date is 18th June 2021. Entries can be registered by students or their art teachers. Please click Here to see the Conditions of Entry.
Click Here to register your entry.
​
2. Submit your artwork
Physical delivery of artworks at the Glen Eira Council gallery (Corner Glen Eira and Hawthorn Roads, Caulfield) is required on Sunday 19th July between 1:00 PM and no later than 5:30 PM.  Please note that late entries will not be accepted.

​3. Awarding of prizes
Announcement of winning entries and presentation to prize-winners will take place at the Exhibition opening ceremony at the Glen Eira Council gallery, commencing at 2:00 PM on Sunday 25th July 2021.
An online version of the competition catalogue will be available on this website from 22 July 2021.  The exhibition will be open to the public from Thursday 22 July through to Sunday 8 August 2021.  Artworks, together with participation certificates, are to be picked up from the Town Hall Gallery on Monday 10 August between 1:00 PM and 5:00 PM.
​
Sponsors
B’nai B’rith Victoria gratefully acknowledges our numerous sponsors whose generous financial support makes this competition possible.  They are listed below and are also featured throughout the catalogue.

We congratulate all our talented young artists whose work will be on display in this year's exhibition.

Last Year's Competition:
Below is a brief video of the opening ceremony from last year’s competition, including the official opening by Glen Eira Mayor, Cr Margaret Esakoff, and announcement of the winning entries in each category.

The window below contains a virtual gallery of the all the entries in the 16 – 18 age group. Please wait a short time for the virtual gallery to load.​

Click HERE to watch a pre-recorded video of all the artworks in each of the three virtual galleries in the 2020 competition.

Click on the following link to display a full list of all the winning entries in last year's competition: Link. ​

Background to the Competition
Morrie Gold was born in 1917 in Warsaw, Poland and immigrated to Australia in 1937.
 
Always a lover of the arts, his work was furthered by his artistic wife, Marie. As an art benefactor he contributed to the National Art Gallery of Victoria. His interest in fostering art in Jewish youth was prompted by watching his grandson's artistic abilities developing. He realised that to encourage the interest and confidence of children in art there must be interaction with the public.
 
Having been a member of B'nai B'rith for some time, Morrie felt it was the right organisation to fulfil his wish of running an Annual Jewish Youth Art Competition.
 
Morrie Gold died in May, 1993.  This annual Jewish Youth Art Competition was established through a bequest left by Mr. Gold to B'nai B'rith.
 
B'nai B'rith has taken up the challenge to organise and hold the exhibition each year.  The competition aims to promote artistic competence and a sense of unity among youth of various sections of the Jewish community.
 
It is open to Jewish youth between the ages of 11 and 18. Entries are divided into age groups 11 to 13, 14 and 15, 16 to 18.  In each age group there are four categories, namely, painting and drawing, mixed media, digital, and sculpture. A fifth category of photography is open to artists aged 16-18. Students enter from Jewish day schools such as Beth Rivkah Ladies College, Bialik College, Leibler Yavneh College, Mt Scopus Memorial College, the King David School, Yeshivah College.  Students from state schools and other independent schools are also encouraged to enter.
 
The artworks are judged by a panel of professionals in the arts industry and prizes are offered in all categories and age groups. Over 200 artworks were submitted in 2020.

 A HISTORIC LUSTIG SCHOLARSHIP “PRESENTATION”

For the first time in its 65 year history, the winner of this year’s Bernard Lustig Memorial Scholarship was announced at a Zoom event earlier this month.

Michaela Glass is a brilliant law student, having graduated last month from Monash with a double degree in Arts and Law, with first-class honours. Winners in the scholarship’s Travel Grant category are judged not only on their academic results, but also on their proven ability to be a student leader. Her referees, foremost amongst them the Hon. Marilyn Warren AC, former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in Victoria, praised Michaela for her enduring efforts as a mentor to younger undergraduates.

Michaela was “present” at the Zoom meeting, but she wasn’t in Melbourne. She was in the Netherlands, on her way to Cambridge University. When the new northern university year begins, she will participate in a highly selective group of post-graduates in a course leading to the Master of Corporate Law Degree. She is interested in the issue of legal control of corporations, to ensure that proper attention is given to privacy and consumers’ rights.

The meeting was opened by BBVic President Dr Benny Monheit and hosted by Raoul Wallenberg Unit, one of the BBVic entities that are committed to major annual donations to the scholarship. Dr Paul Gardner AM, Chairman of the Scholarship’s Trustees, introduced the winner to the meeting. The Lustig family was well represented. Danny Lustig, the nephew of the late Bernard, is one of the Trustees; Eve Lustig, widow of Dr Lew Lustig, founding Patron and Trustee, Bernard’s brother, was also present. A pleasant surprise was to see another nephew, Bernard King-Smith, son of the late Ruth King-Smith, and named in memory of the uncle he had never known, logged in early in the morning from his home in the United States.​

Dr Gardner, whose friendship with the Lustig family goes back to his childhood years, told Preview, “The pandemic is an international disaster of the first magnitude, and its effects have not yet been fully felt. In the meantime, B'nai B'rith and its projects refuse to lie down and die. We do what we can to carry on. Giving up is not an option.”

The B’nai B’rith Victoria Menorah Awards were established in 1978. They are presented annually to worthy recipients who:

• have worked for the welfare of the community, and
• have not previously received a National or State Government recognition Award.

 
Eligibility:

• Menorah Awards will be presented to individuals who have performed voluntary work of benefit to the community, usually over a long period.
• Recipients will usually be members of the Jewish community. Members of other faiths, who have contributed significantly in relation to the Jewish community, may also be considered.
• Nominations must be made on the Menorah Awards nomination form (see attached), obtainable from the B’nai B’rith Victoria office.
• Nominators will be asked to suggest two referees that the Committee may consult. All nominations will be handled confidentially.
• Nominees are not to be informed that they are being considered for an Award until after the selection process is complete. Only successful nominees will be notified.

To close this page, click HERE.
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To close this page, click HERE.

This is the old  art competition page, to view the updated one (26/07/20) click HERE !

   
   Contact: Mark Rubinstein - 0427 433 200
   Email: artcomp@bbvic.net
​   
    HOW TO ENTER:
  1. Register your entry by 19th June 2020
  2. Submit your artwork by 15th July 2020
  3. Awarding of prizes  26th July 2:00 PM     
​  See below for further details.

Category 1 Research Grant   
Category 2 Travel Grant
​
Download the application form / guidelines
Online Application form
​
SIXTY YEARS ON, A LIVING MEMORIAL REMAINS
​
It happened in 1955. Summer holiday period.  Hume Highway. Car, driver, two passengers.  The car swerved off the road and hit a tree.  A common event, a tragedy, more frequent then than today. Two young men died. The woman passenger survived.

The accident ended the life of Bernard Lustig, a brilliant young barrister, winner of the University of Melbourne’s Supreme Court Prize. He was the older son of Adolf and Kate Lustig, German refugees from Nazism who fled to Australia before the war. As the war ended Adolf helped found the first B'nai B'rith lodge in Melbourne. 
 
Bernard followed in his father’s footsteps as a lawyer, although Adolf’s career in Munich was cut short by the Nuremberg Race Laws.  Bernard also became interested in B'nai B'rith in 1951, becoming a founding member of B'nai B'rith Youth Melbourne and one of its earliest presidents.
 
His death generated a thought among the members of the BBY committee.  Let’s establish a scholarship in his memory.  Too ambitious, said some.  But anyone who knew the late Pauline Richter (later Pauline Glass) would testify that this was a young woman who was motivated, capable and persistent.  She won the day.
 
With financial contributions from B'nai B'rith Melbourne Lodge and its Women’s Chapter, the youth group set up a fund later that year, and awarded the first scholarships, to assist capable Year 12 students about to embark on a university course in 1956.
 
Six decades have passed, and the scholarship is now the oldest continuing B'nai B'rith project and the longest running scholarship in the Victorian Jewish community.  As with any project that survives for so long, it has had to change with the times.  The first scholarship was worth ₤50. Today, winners receive $2500. Winners are decided by a long-serving group of trustees comprising senior academics and representatives of the Lustig family.
 
The administration has changed.  BBY Melbourne no longer exists:  the scholarship is now a B'nai B'rith Victoria project.  Instead of treasurers handling a couple of cheques, the scholarship receives some of its funding from an investment fund managed by the B'nai B'rith Charitable Fund (and from numerous individual donors).  
 
Information technology has wrought changes too.  Originally, applicants sent hand-written letters in response to an AJN ad. Now there are detailed guidelines and an extensive application form, submitted by email. Nearly all communications among the trustees are handled electronically.
 
The purpose of the scholarship has also altered since its early days.  The scholarship is now offered in two categories: as a research grant to master’s and doctoral thesis candidates, and as a travel grant to outstanding student leaders at university level, to fund overseas travel to participate in leadership development programs.
 
Some recent winners have travelled to Israel to participate in short courses at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Another worked as a deputy speech-writer for the Israeli Mission at the United Nations in New York. A young medical practitioner was assisted to pursue post-graduate research at Harvard University. One winner was a school counsellor researching for a master’s degree in psychology. In 2019, three scholarships were awarded, to an outstanding law student, to a musician preparing a PhD, and to a philosophy graduate who went to Oxford to write a thesis on ethical issues of artificial intelligence.
 
Applications open in March each year and close at the end of April. Intending applicants can obtain the guidelines and application form from this website. Alternatively, send an email to the B'nai B'rith Victoria Office, council@bbvic.org.au , requesting this material