Rate My Professor Suzanne Rutland

A renowned Australian Jewish historian, Rutland's research specializations encompass Australian Jewish history, the Holocaust (Shoah), Soviet Jewry, antisemitism, Jewish education, and Special Religious Education in multicultural Australia. Her major publications include Edge of the Diaspora: Two Centuries of Jewish Settlement in Australia (1997), The Jews in Australia (Cambridge University Press, 2005), Let My People Go: The Untold Story of Australia and Soviet Jews, 1959–1989 (co-authored with Sam Lipski, Hybrid Publishers, 2015)—which jointly won the 2016 Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Australian History—Lone Voice: The Wars of Isi Leibler (Hybrid Publishing and Gefen Books, 2021), and Special Religious Education in Australia and its Value to Contemporary Society (co-authored with Zehavit Gross, Springer International Publishing, 2021). In 2008–2009, she received a government grant from the Australian Prime Ministers Centre for research on Australia and the campaign for Soviet Jewry. Rutland was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) in 2008 for services to higher Jewish education and interfaith dialogue. She has held significant roles including past president and patron of the Australian Jewish Historical Society, president of the Australian Association of Jewish Studies, Sydney editor of the Australian Jewish Historical Society Journal since 1991, member of Australia’s delegation to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) Education Working Group and Committee on Antisemitism and Holocaust Denial, and advisory board member of the Freilich Project for the Study of Bigotry at the Australian National University. Her work has advanced Holocaust education programs for government schools with large Muslim populations, combated religious bullying, and promoted interfaith understanding through Special Religious Education.