Academy Fellow

The prominent academic historian and scholar, Professor Emeritus William D. (Bill) Rubinstein, died suddenly in Melbourne on the 1st of July at the age of 76 years. 

Bill was born in Brooklyn on 12 August 1946, the elder of two brothers, both of whom became academics. His Polish-born father’s family were Bundists (secular Jewish socialists), but his American-born mother was unusually for Jews a registered Republican, and also a strong Anglophile. Her passion for British history and conservative politics were strong influences on Bill’s life trajectory.

Bill and his wife of 56 years, the British-born historian, Dr Hilary Rubinstein, met just after the Six Day War of 1967 in a history class at Swarthmore College, Pennsylvania, where Hilary was an international exchange student and Bill a fourth-year history undergraduate and also President of the student Conservative Club. Bill completed his post-graduate study attaining MA and PhD degrees at John Hopkins University in Baltimore where his professorial supervisor complimented his high scholastic output by remarking that ‘he had enough energy for 10 men’. He then worked as the London-based researcher on a Lancaster University history project. In 1976, Bill moved with Hilary and their baby son Paul to Canberra where he worked on a project directed by Professor Frank Jones. In 1978, the family relocated to the brand new Deakin University in Geelong where Bill had attained a lectureship, and later held a personal Chair. Later in 1995, he accepted a Chair of History at the University of Wales in the seaside resort of Aberystwyth where he and Hilary increased the permanent Jewish population to three persons. They returned to Australia in 2013.

Bill was a prolific researcher who authored over 20 books and hundreds of articles on a range of topics. He specialized in the examination of major British wealth holding and holders, and interrogated the changing political and ideological alignments of Jews in the modern world. He was also an activist intellectual. In Australia, Bill became involved in the pro-Israel advocacy group known as Australia/Israel Publications (AIP), actively partnering with the prominent journalist Sam Lipski and the Labor Party figure (later longstanding member for Melbourne Ports) Michael Danby. He also formed close associations with prominent Jewish community leader Isi Leibler and the iconoclastic conservative intellectual Frank Knopfelmacher. In partnership with Leibler, Bill played a key role in the formation of the Australian Institute for Jewish Affairs, a think tank which significantly advanced the intellectual and research output of Australian Jewry.

Bill also acted as Chair of the Victorian Jewish Board of Deputies Anti-Defamation Committee, and was additionally Foundation Editor of the Australian Jewish Historical Society’s Victorian Journal, and one of the founders and second President of the Australian Association of Jewish Studies. He wrote a regular column for the Australian Jewish News, and contributed to a range of journals including the conservative Quadrant Magazine. He was an elected Fellow of both the Australian Academy of the Humanities and the Australian Academy of the Social Sciences. 

Beyond Australia, Bill served as President of the Jewish Historical Society of England between 2003 and 2004 which delighted him as a Brooklyn boy able to follow in the footsteps of such luminaries of Anglo-Jewry as Lucien Wolf and the great historian Cecil Roth. He wrote for prominent US-based journals such as First Things and Commentary, and established connections with noted historians such as Sir Martin Gilbert in the UK, and Arthur Schlesinger Junior in the USA.

On a personal note, I first met Bill in 1989 when he visited my small flat in the Melbourne suburb of Northcote to discuss his political dissection of the left-wing Melbourne Jewish Council to Combat Fascism and Anti-Semitism (which existed from 1942-70) on which I had recently published a short history. On the surface, we made unusual friends. Bill was an unapologetic ‘right-wing Tory’ and strong supporter of the State of Israel, and I was, particularly in those days, a very ideological Leftist working for the Australian Jewish Democratic Society that was idealistically attempting to reconcile Israeli and Palestinian national claims via a negotiated two-state solution. But we bonded quickly over a mutual interest in how diverse political, historical and cultural factors informed contemporary Jewish community views on a range of issues. 

And that friendship was typical of Bill. He encouraged inclusion rather than exclusion in Jewish communal organisations, and had a wide circle of friends from varied political backgrounds. He expressed strong and often highly controversial opinions, but never took exception when people disagreed with him. He was intellectually confident and informed by a large body of evidence, but never arrogant. He was an exceptionally honest and generous person who was always willing to help and mentor younger colleagues to build their research careers. The world will be much the lesser for his absence. 

Written by Professor Philip Mendes, Monash University

Adjunct Professor, Monash University

• William D Rubinstein (2004) The All Time Australia Rich List Book. Sydney: Allen & Unwin.
• William D. Rubinstein (2004) Genocide: A History. London: Longman.
• William D Rubinstein (2003) Twentieth Century Britain: A Political History. London: Palgrave Macmillan.