Melekh Ravitsh

The Man

In 1933, the Yiddish writer and poet Melekh Ravitsh traversed the Australian outback from Adelaide to Darwin in search of a homeland for millions of European Jews threatened with annihilation. Melekh Ravitsh (born Zekharye-Khone Bergner, in Poland in 1893) was a dreamer, a fabulist, a luftmentsh, a Don Quixote-type character on a quest to relocate a dispossessed people.

The Journey

Entirely on his own initiative, Ravitsh travelled across the desert in a mail truck with an Italian driver and a young Indigenous person, Angus, as his guide. His journey began in Adelaide and traversed all the way to Darwin, taking in all the lands and spaces in between. He closely observed all the locals he met, from depression-era towns to remote Aborginal enclaves, spoke with authorities, and collected data about the climate and the land. He left convinced that the Territory could accommodate one million Jewish refugees who could make the desert bloom and exploit its treasures.

However, like many Europeans of the time, Melekh began this journey with the incorrect notion of “Terra Nullius”in relation to the outback. Through his encounters with first nations peoples in the territories he explored this notion was challenged, and his ideas changed. Learning about the history of Australia's first nations peoples, Melekh discovered commonalities between the experiences of European jews, and the horrors that had been inflicted on Aboriginal communities through the colonisation of Australia.

Would he be able to forge strong enough relationships with the indigenous people of the land to help make his dreams a reality? And how could a new “homeland’ be created on lands already occupied by the worlds oldest communities?