Susan Bures
“What a blessing to grow up in this country! We are so fortunate to be Australians.”
I was born in the County of Uxbridge, London in 1946.
In early 1948, my father, his cousin and business partner came to Australia first. My mother, baby brother and I followed six months later.
Fortunate to be Australians
I've said to my children on many occasions that they have two blessings. One is that their great-great-great-grandparents left Europe for London. The other is that their grandparents left England for Australia. What a blessing to grow up in this country! We are so fortunate to be Australians. To me, I get a lot of naches out of being an Australian.
Passionate about helping others
I desperately want to pass onto my children that sense of the need that those of us who are comfortably off have to donate our time and donate our money to help other people.
It doesn't have to be people within our community, it can be all sorts of things. That sense of charity, in the English word, is something that I think is very important to Jews, and most Jews are, I think, very charitable, both financially and in terms of their own time that they give as volunteers. I want to extract these meanings out of Judaism and pass those on as best I can.
Key Migration Wave - British 10 Pounder
The British 10 pounder is a reference to British Immigrants who arrived in Australia under the £10 assisted passage scheme between 1945 and 1960. Many on the £10 Poms were Jewish Immigrants from London’s East End working-class, which was the centre of Jewish migration from Eastern Europe at the turn of the twentieth century.
Listen to Susan's Eat, Pray, Naches stories
Full transcript available here
Migration
Listen to Susan talk feeling blessed that her father and his business partner decided to leave London for sunny Australia after the War and start their men’s clothing manufacturing business Anthony Squires in St Marys.
Eat
Susan’s mother wasn't much interested in cooking and tended to rotate the same 10 meals, but her father was great at preparing a Jewish favourite called latkes – Jewish potato pancakes!
Pray
Listen to Susan talk about the Jewish vales she wants to instil in her children and grandchildren and how she feels being part of a synagogue community is most important.
Naches
Susan is glad she can follow in her father’s footsteps and contribute and volunteer in many ways for the Jewish community and the greater community.