A Jewish Walk of Auckland New Zealand Preview

In 1841, pioneering merchant, David Nathan and founder of the Jewish community in Auckland decided to set up a mercantile store in the city newly chosen to be the fledgling government’s capital. He had previously set up a store in Kororareka, where it was said, “…he had immediately endeared himself to the Maoris by his absolute integrity and good humour.” When the new capital moved to Auckland, Nathan decided to follow suit.

The local Iwi, Ngati Whatua had invited settlers to share the land with them in 1840, after the paramount chief Te Kawau, and six other chiefs had travelled to the Bay of Islands to meet Governor Hobson. On 20 March, Te Kawau and other chiefs of Ngati Whatua of Orakei signed the Treaty of Waitangi. By September, the British flagstaff was raised at a point which is now the top of Queen Street, and Auckland became the capital of New Zealand.

Ngati Whatua of Orakei agreed to hand over approximately 3000 acres of land for a township to be established. The details of the sale of the land were to be worked out later. As more settlers arrived, more and more land was required. Thousands of acres were sold by Ngati Whatua of Orakei to the Government and, over a couple of years, to private settlers. The tribe probably believed that these sales meant that both parties, themselves and the buyer, then belonged to the land together. Later, Governor Grey decided that much of the land should not have been sold to private settlers, so most of it was bought or simply taken by the Crown, without compensation.

The Crown paid £341 for the original land handed over for the settlement (3000 acres). Six months later, just 44 acres of that land was resold by the Government to settlers for £24,275. The money was used to build roads, bridges, hospitals, and other services for the new town. The early development of Auckland was paid for by profits made from the sale of tribal land of Ngati Whatua of Orakei.

On 19 April 1841, David Nathan’s Uncle, Moses Joseph, helped to purchase a section on the corner of Shortland and High Street to set up a business, bidding at the first sale of town sections in Auckland on 19 April 1841. He purchased two acres for £365-4-0. Due to his experience in the Bay of Islands, Nathan had a good idea of the kind of merchandise a new settlement required. And he and his wife Rosetta lived in the attic above the store.

L.D. Nathan writes in As Old as Auckland, “In the 1840s, in fact right up to the period of the Land Wars, the local Māoris (sic) were very friendly. They bought freely from the storekeepers and some were employed building raupo whares and clearing fern on the settlers’ sections. When there was a race meeting or a regatta in which canoes took part or any other celebration they flocked to town from their pas as far away as the Waikato”.

Sadly, by 1854 all that remained of Ngati Whatua land was a 700-acre Orakei block, the papakainga of the hapu.

After a long battle with the Crown, the Government agreed with the Waitangi Tribunal's findings. It paid $3 million to Ngati Whatua of Orakei to assist with housing and other development. It passed a new law, the Orakei Act 1991, to recognise the rights of Ngati Whatua of Orakei under the Treaty of Waitangi.

In 1842, early Jewish settlers to Auckland, David Nathan and John Israel Montefiore, successfully applied for 0.4 hectares of land on the Karangahape ridge (then on the outskirts of town) for the placement of a cemetery which opened under an official Crown Act on the 24th November 1843.

The House of Flackson was founded by Jewish immigrants, Barnett and Rachael Kay, who emigrated to New Zealand in 1912, initially to manufacture woollen gabardine raincoats.

Colin Kay, was the 34th Mayor of Auckland from 1980 to 1983, and also served as Chairman of the Auckland City Council for 1986 to 1993 He played a significant role in New Zealand's sporting history well before his political career began.

As a young athlete, Kay was a prominent figure during the 1950 British Empire Games held in Auckland, a major international sporting event that marked New Zealand's emergence on the global athletic stage after World War II.

Born in 1926, Kay was a talented athlete who represented New Zealand. At the 1950 Games, he competed in theTriple Jump and came 9th with a distance of 13.91 meters The event was a defining moment for Auckland, showcasing its organizational capabilities and hospitality, and it left a lasting legacy in the city’s sporting infrastructure.

Kay’s firsthand experience as an athlete at a major international event likely influenced his later advocacy for sports and public recreation as mayor. He led the New Zealand Commonwealth games in Perth, where they won a record of 32 Medals.

A magnificent house, St Kevins, with extensive gardens, tennis courts, and a ballroom, once stood on this site. It was purchased in 1865 by Charles Davis from Thomas Kevin for £1595, ($220,943.88 NZD; 2024) for his daughter Laetitia and her husband, Laurence David Nathan, son of prominent Jewish merchant David Nathan.

The house had previously been the residence of Governor George Grey after fire consumed his previous residence at Waterloo Quadrant in 1848.

With the wedding and reception in 1898 of Sybil Nathan and Stephen Myers, it became the centrepoint of Auckland’s emerging social landscape. Held in the house’s ballroom, it was one of the most notable "society" weddings of that year. A newspaper observed, "seldom that a wedding occasions such a large amount of interest in Auckland."

In 1915, a very different event was held: a "White Fair" to aid Russian and Polish Jews in Europe. This was an extension, in Auckland, of the appeal by Leopold de Rothschild in England to alleviate Jewish suffering.

St Kevins had been the home of the Nathan family since 1865. David L. Nathan was born there in 1882. In 1909, he married Simone Oulman, who was born in Paris. Three of their five children were born at St Kevins.

The house had been altered and enlarged over the years and ended up as a typical late-Victorian colonial mansion: partly stone, partly wood and built on many levels. It had a huge billiard room and also boasted a large bathroom, complete with a Shanks copper bath of monstrous dimensions that came with shower, spray, plunge and wave functions, and its own califont.

The stables at St Kevins were in Poynton Lane behind the Pitt St Methodist Church. The terraced garden was very fine, going right down to the Myers Park valley. (Description by L.D. Nathan, D.L. Nathan’s son.)

The Nathans auctioned the house in 1918 and moved to a property called The Hill, in Manurewa.

The present arcade was constructed in 1924, on a strip of land that enabled passage between Karangahape Road and Myers Park. Designed by W. A. Cumming, the arcade was built of ferroconcrete (concrete reinforced with steel) and brick, with a tiled entrance twenty feet wide. Its elevated position made it a very popular attraction, especially for well-to-do Aucklanders, with its tailors, dressmakers, tea rooms, and photography studios. One New Zealand Herald advert compared it to Oxford Street in London.

That glamour and popularity gradually faded after World War II, and by the 1970s, the arcade was looking tired and "forgotten". Its restoration by Glamuzina Architects in 2016 revived it.

This Moses Statue in Myers Park was originally commissioned by the department store Milne & Choyce on Queen Street in 1971 to celebrate their centenary. It was then gifted to the City of Auckland and erected in Myers Park on 9 September 1973.

The statue, a full scale replica of Michelangelo’s Moses in San Pietro church in Rome, was made from marble from the same quarry as the original. (The city declined an offer of a replica of Michelangelo’s famous sculpture, David, in Florence, which was also exhibited in the department store in 1970.)

The Myers Park statue depicts the ancient Israelite prophet, Moses, after ascending Mount Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments from God. A possible mistranslation in the Hebrew Bible of Moses "shining" after gaining his knowledge on Mount Sinai, to "horns", may be why Michelangelo included what appear to be horns in his sculpture.

Michelangelo’s original Moses statue was commissioned in 1505 by Pope Julius II for his tomb. However, Moses’ prominent position in Judaism drew many Jews to view the statue, even though it was in a Christian Church. Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574), the Renaissance art historian, wrote, "May the Jews continue to go there, as they do in crowds, both men and women, every Saturday, like flocks of starlings, to visit and adore the statue."

The Greys Avenue complex was opened on 8 September 1968 to accommodate the growing Orthodox Jewish population of Auckland.

The architect John Goldwater, son of architect Albert Goldwater, was a congregation member himself. John knew the community’s needs, but faced the question of what a twentieth-century synagogue in the Southern Hemisphere would look like, in that he was designing a communal centre for a subculture, not a public building. Thus, the synagogue is placed back from the roadside wall beyond a partially visible large forecourt, a kind of community gathering place. Goldwater’s conception and design were influenced by Medieval Sephardic synagogue complexes such as he had seen in Spain, with open spaces concealed by strong outside walls.

Goldwater’s innovative work made an immediate impact beyond the Jewish community; being recognised as an architecturally and significant heritage building, with a Category B Listing.

Until recently Kadimah School also occupied the Centre.

It was updated in 2010 by Richard Goldie, with alterations to the synagogue. Six new classrooms were constructed in what had been the synagogue’s upper level. The reconstructions were awarded an Auckland Architecture Award in 2010.

The Synagogue and Centre served the community for fifty-four years until a move in August of 2023 to the current location at 514 Remuera Road in Auckland East.

When it opened in 1948, this building was unique in Auckland as affordable multi-storey accommodation for low-income workers, challenging the common belief that New Zealanders should have houses on quarter-acre sections in the suburbs.

Two Central European refugee architects, employed on state housing projects, brought their knowledge of interwar, modernist, mass housing to New Zealand: Friedrich Neumann (later Frederick Newman) a Jewish refugee from Vienna, who arrived in January 1939, and Ernst Plischke, also from Vienna, who had fled Austria in 1938 as his wife, Anna, was Jewish.

The Council purchased the land for the flats in 1941, as part of a redevelopment of the area, which included slum clearance. The new buildings were immediately praised as a "stimulating contrast" to the dilapidated buildings nearby, providing sun, better light, and welcoming porches in yellows and red for the fortunate tenants.

Another example of this early modernist architecture, also designed by Neumann, can be seen at 44 Symonds Street, which borders the Auckland University campus. Other tradition-minded architects in New Zealand often opposed such modernist buildings.

These flats, with a beautifully curved front façade, were opened in 1948 by Bob Semple, the Labour Minister of Housing at the time. It was a major public event. Neumann's socialist ideals were integral to these new architects’ views on building and the needs for a better society.

Arthur Myers was the third Jewish mayor of Auckland, serving from 1905 to 1910. His legacy includes funding a central city park, Myers Park, and a free Kindergarten there.

In 1912, he donated £9000 to the city to transform an overgrown gully into a 2.4-hectare central city park, part of a larger scheme to enhance the civic landscape with green public spaces. The park opened in 1915, appropriately named Myers Park after its donor. At the opening ceremony, Myers announced that he would also donate the necessary funds for a free kindergarten in the park, as at the time, there was a growing concern for underprivileged urban children. Myers was closely involved in the decisions about how the kindergarten should be designed and run.

When opened in 1916, the kindergarten was regarded as the "finest in Australasia", assisted by its miniature aquarium and aviary.

Arthur Myers was much admired for his acts of charity. In 1909, following his retirement, before he set out to tour Europe, 10,000 Auckland citizens gathered in Albert Park to bid him farewell.

This Statue of Sir Dove-Myer Robinson (1901-1989), by sculptor Toby Twiss, commemorates the longest-running mayor of Auckland, who served two terms (1959-1965 and 1968-1980).

Robinson, a colourful character affectionately called "Robbie," was one of Auckland's six Jewish mayors. A visionary in many ways, he was one of the first environmentalists to attain high political office; he entered politics by petitioning for a royal commission to investigate waste practices in Auckland.

The result was the introduction of more recycling and composting by councils across New Zealand. In 1944, his opposition to a plan to dump Auckland’s effluent into the Waitemata Harbour made Robinson well-known in politics.

He became president of the Auckland Drainage League, which fought the proposal and led to the first oxidation ponds in New Zealand. In the 1960s and early 1970s, his push for better public transport, a bus-rail rapid transit plan, became his primary concern, although the plans never came to fruition. He argued that more cars led to suburban sprawl and clogged city streets. Robinson’s environmentalist stance also included strong opposition to French nuclear weapons testing in the Pacific. In 1983, political scientist John Roberts called Robinson a “unique phenomenon” who “seems… to owe nothing to anyone but himself.”

This statue was unveiled in 2002 following a campaign by his niece Dame Barbara Goodman to commemorate 100 years since Robinson’s birth.

Before the arrival of European settlers, this was a Māori pā site, Te Horotiu.

Albert Barracks, a barracks for British soldiers, was built there in the colony's early years because of its elevation and proximity to Government House on Waterloo Quadrant.

When Wellington became the new capital and the last of the British regiments decamped from the barracks in 1870, the first mayor of Auckland, Philip Philips, who was Jewish, preserved the land as a public park. He was commemorated by a plaque inscribed with "A man of vision who helped secure the land now known as Albert Park for the city", which has unfortunately been lost.

This house, originally known as ‘Wickford’, was designed by John Currie in an Italianate style and completed in 1906 for Alfred Nathan and his family. In 1932, when the Nathan family moved out, it became a private hospital. Later, it was acquired by the University of Auckland. In 2017, the Category A heritage-listed building underwent extensive restoration and renovation, including a modern extension at the back of the building. The original sandblasted glazing, moulded ceilings, and carved mantelpieces were all retained, resulting in a New Zealand Architecture Award the following year.

Alfred Nathan was the son of David and Rosetta Nathan of Bella Vista and the brother of David Laurence Nathan of St Kevins. Alfred was a successful businessman, and he and his brother took over the family business, L.D. Nathan and Company, when their father retired in 1875.

Alfred, like his father and brother, was deeply religious and became president of the Auckland Hebrew Congregation in 1900, and between 1916 and 1931. He was also honorary president of the Auckland Zionist Society for many years. Like his father before him, Alfred Nathan was a president of the Northern Club further along Princes Street, across from the old Synagogue. Originally erected in 1866-67 as an Italianate style hotel, the Northern Club quickly became a prestigious gentlemen’s club where the social elite of Auckland met to form networks.

This building, plastered brick in an Italianate style, was designed by architect William Hammond (1830-1907). It was originally called Park House before being renamed Pembridge by Arthur Hyam Nathan (1847-1905), a nephew of David Nathan, who lived at the house until his death.

Arthur came to Auckland in 1864 to take up a sales department position at his uncle David Nathan’s firm, L.D. Nathan & Co. Ltd. In 1880, he founded his own firm, A.H. Nathan, trading in general merchandise, which included his own tea range, “Arthur Nathan’s ‘Reliable’ Teas”, and exporting kauri gum.

The Jewish Davis family lived here: Moss Davis (1847-1933), his wife, Leah Davis (1845-1941), and their children. After initially boarding in the building, Moss Davis bought the property after two years and named it Hamurana.

They had first lived in Nelson, with Davis continuing his father’s business of selling hops and barley to local brewers. In 1884, Davis became a partner with Samuel Jagger in his Auckland brewery, Hancock and Company, and shifted to Auckland.

In 1900, when Jagger died, Moss became the brewery's sole owner. The family then expanded their business into hotels, owning the Grand Hotel on Princes Street and hotels in Rotorua. Lazarus Goldman (in his History of Jews in New Zealand) named Moss Davis “a pioneer in the expansion of the hotel and brewery industry.”

Leah Davis, whose business acumen was astute, was also influential in his business. Leah donated much of her time to philanthropy and charitable organisations and was lauded as a “pioneer” in this work. They sold the property when Moss and Leah left for England in 1910.

By 1871, Auckland’s Jewish population had risen to 309, and the Emily Place building had become too small for the congregation. A new synagogue, initially planned for an Alten Road site, was finalised for the current site on the corner of Princes Street and Bowen Avenue, originally occupied by the Albert Barracks guardhouse. The architect Edward Bartley’s design mixed the Mooresque and the neo-Romanesque, a mode common in late nineteenth-century synagogue architecture – for instance, the then recently opened Garnethill Synagogue in Glasgow was similar.

The synagogue’s interior has a painted ornate ceiling and incorporated a gallery for women. David Nathan laid the foundation stone on 18 December 1884, and Rabbi Samuel Goldstein consecrated the building on 9 November 1885. The synagogue's positioning on an elevated corner lot with a wide view of downtown Auckland and the harbour suggests how comfortable the Jewish population felt in the colony.

The Princes Street Synagogue served the community for eighty-three years before moving to the larger Greys Avenue premises. After this shift, the building lay seemingly abandoned before the City Council sold it.

The building then became an ANZ bank. Now, it is owned by the University of Auckland for its alumni offices.

The first Hebrew School was in the basement of the adjacent synagogue.

On 26 February 1914, the foundation stone for a new Hebrew School was laid behind the Princes Street Synagogue by N. A. Nathan. The building on the site now is a later modernist one, designed by Albert Goldwater, which housed the school until the new Orthodox synagogue was opened on Greys Avenue in 1968.

Since the school closed, the building has had several occupants – for instance, a leading art dealer, the Trish Clark Gallery, was based there for a long period until five or so years ago.

It is now owned by lawyer Greg Shanahan, who is also the Consul for the Czech Republic in Auckland. It was used for the launch of the Jewish Online Museum, now Jewish Lives.

A large and splendid Star of David is incised into one of the building’s rooms.

Old Government House was built when Auckland was the country’s capital. The current quasi-neoclassical structure replaced an earlier wooden building, which burnt down in 1848.

The third governor of New Zealand, George Grey (1812-1898), had close relationships with the Auckland Jewish community when he lived in or near Auckland, both during and after his Governorship. Rabbi Goldstein (1852 – 1935), who lived nearby at 4 Waterloo Quadrant, was a good friend and ran the committee to erect Grey’s statue in Albert Park after his death.

Grey was also a friend of the Keesing family (6 Waterloo Quadrant), who inspired him to learn Hebrew. In 1891, antisemitic pogroms in the Russian Empire led Grey to lobby the New Zealand Government to send a memo of protest to the Russian Czar: that “all exceptional and restrictive laws which afflict his Jewish subjects may be repealed, and that equal rights … may be conferred upon them.” This action by Grey brought New Zealand to the international political attention map as a “courageous, democratic and humanitarian” nation.

Just two years later, however, when five hundred Russian Jews sought refuge in New Zealand from these pogroms, objections were triggered. The Auckland Star wrote: “No one who has seen the Jew in Russia can wonder that they want to get rid of a creature so clannish and so dirty, who is so entirely bent on making a little money simply for himself.” Although Auckland Jews, such as David Nathan, were embraced and celebrated, in part, it was because they were seen as British Jews. Non-British Jews were not so welcome, it seems.

This building dates back to 1863. Originally called Bella Vista for its views of the harbour, it was the home of Jewish merchant David Nathan (1816-1886). London-born, and from an Orthodox family, he was a prominent figure in both Auckland's nineteenth-century Jewish and wider Auckland communities.

Nathan was one of the first settlers here, moving quickly to the new capital (Auckland) to sell his goods from a tent in Commercial Bay. His marriage to Rosetta in October 1841, in Kororāreka, was the first Jewish wedding in New Zealand, and their daughter, Sarah, the first Jewish birth.

Known for his integrity and trustworthiness in trade, Nathan was sought after by both Māori, looking to trade produce, and the British military, looking for supplies. His business logo was the Jewish Star of David with an N inside. In 1857, Nathan gained a contract with Shaw Savill Shipping and was also a major kauri gum trader.

He set up the Auckland Savings Bank in 1847, was a founding member of the Auckland Chamber of Commerce, and on the City Council in 1854-55. Having founded the Auckland Hebrew Congregation in 1843, Nathan’s final public appearance was to lay the foundation stone of the new Princes Street Synagogue.

Where the Pullman Hotel now stands was once the home of the Dutch-Jewish family, the Keesings. Henry Keesing (1791-1879), his wife Rosetta (1797-1862), and their children migrated first to England and then to Auckland in 1843. Henry established a profitable store, London House, on Shortland Street, one of the finest in the settlement for imported hardware and clothing. He had been a tailor in England and continued this in Auckland, with his sons opening further shops there. Keesing also thrived in real estate, owning several buildings and sites across Auckland. Rosetta Keesing’s contributions to Auckland's Jewish community were so great that she was regarded as its “grandmother”.

The large Keesing family were involved in music and the arts, including conducting the Synagogue’s choir. Henry Keesing was the first president of the Congregation in 1851, and his son Ralph conducted the first services. Another son, Barnet, who had preceded the family to Auckland in 1838, sold lemonade and ginger beer to offset the growing sale of alcohol in Auckland. Their daughter Hannah Keesing (1823-1909) married Asher Asher (1826-1899), another early Jewish settler of Auckland and the first Superintendent of the First Volunteer Fire Brigade in 1848. Hannah’s sister Harriet married Asher’s brother Joel.

The Grand Hotel operated from 1889 to 1966 and was one of Auckland’s premium hotels. It was owned, through Hancock and Company Limited, by Moss Davis and later his sons Ernest and Eliot. At its opening, the hotel hosted the Earl and Countess of Onslow during their visit to New Zealand.

Major William Skinner, a Welsh-born architect, designed the hotel, and John Currie, who had also designed Wickford on Princes Street, made additions at the rear of the hotel. In 1901, a fire destroyed much of the building. Afterwards, the hotel had to be completely rebuilt, incorporating the front and side façades that had survived.

The Davises owned several hotels throughout the country. A prohibition of alcohol following the 1908 election, affected their hotels severely. They lost seventeen licensed hotels without compensation. Eliot Davis reminisced, “this had a very serious effect upon Dad’s health. The fruits of a quarter a century’s hard work seemed to have gone up in smoke.” Ernest Davis, later mayor of Auckland (1935-1941), became a “master tactician” against the growing prohibition movement. In 1987 the Grand Hotel was demolished, except for its façade on Princes Street, which was retained as frontage for a 15-floor office tower.

The Gallery occupies the street-level spaces of Auckland University’s Kenneth Myers Centre for the Performing Arts. The building was originally designed in the early 1930s for the 1YA radio broadcasting studios, the predecessor to Radio NZ. Its architecture is idiosyncratic, a kind of neo-Romanesque cum Orientalist style, with fortification-like walls well suited for sound recording. In 2000, the University of Auckland bought the building from TVNZ. It restored it, assisted by funding from Douglas Myers, the grandson of the twentieth mayor of Auckland and benefactor, Sir Arthur Myers. The “Kenneth” of the building’s name came from Arthur’s son and Douglas’ father.

Gurshon (Gus) Fisher (1920-2010), the owner of a leading Auckland fashion business, funded the gallery – thus its name. Fisher came from a Jewish immigrant background: his parents’ origins were from Loyev, on the east bank of the Dnieper River, about 90 km northeast of Chernobyl, well-known for its toxic antisemitism. Fisher’s fashion business, El-Jay, was very successful. For instance, it had an arrangement with Christian Dior (France) to create their “New Look” designs in New Zealand (indeed El Jay became the longest holder of the Dior licence anywhere in the world). This, in turn, was quickly popular in New Zealand and helped usher a new world of fashion here away from conservative British trends. Gus Fisher was also a major benefactor in the medical field, besides the arts, for which he became, in 2009, an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit.

Mortimer Hirst Optometrist started as a partnership between Douglas Mortimer and Jewish refugee Eugen Hirst (previously Hirschberger). Since 1950, the business has continued in High Street, as well as in three other Auckland locations. In 1939, Hirst migrated from Czechoslovakia to New Zealand because of the Nazi invasion and the rapidly worsening conditions for Jews.

When he first came here, he continued his work as a dental technician. His entrepreneurial disposition was soon active: He introduced specialised American dentistry techniques and technology, including crown and bridge work and the use of porcelain in reconstructions. He adapted his knowledge of molds to optometry, creating the first contact lens in the country. Such was the success of this innovation that Hirst then began exporting contact lenses.

His and his people’s experiences of virulent antisemitism before, during, and after World War II led to his fervent support for Zionism and the creation of the state of Israel. (For many years, the Zionist Federation of New Zealand had offices in nearby Achilles House.)

Eugen Hirst was awarded an O.B.E. in 1991 for his work in the development of contact lenses in New Zealand and for his service to the Jewish community.

The current building on the corner of Commerce and Custom Streets was built in 1903 on reclaimed land (the original shoreline being Fort Street) as a kauri gum trading post for L.D. Nathan & Co. The Nathans were prominent in kauri gum trade, with more than half of it going through their firm.