Background
Isaac Alfred Isaacs was born on August 6, 1855 in Melbourne, Victoria. Son of the late Alfred Isaacs of Auburn, Victoria.
Isaac Alfred Isaacs was born on August 6, 1855 in Melbourne, Victoria. Son of the late Alfred Isaacs of Auburn, Victoria.
Born in Melbourne, he was first educated by his parents and then in the local schools. He was a good pupil, but his inquiring mind took him off to the mining camps, where he learned to speak the languages of the gold diggers. His mother was an ambitious and dominating woman who had a strong influence over Isaacs throughout his life. From 1870 to 1875 he worked as a teacher in local schools, and then studied law at Melbourne University, graduating in 1883. In the course of his studies, he developed an amazing memory skill; he was able to quote from memory not only the general nature of documents, case law, legal theories, and judgments, but also their details.
In 1882 he began practice at the Victoria bar and built up what became one of the most extensive private legal practices in the state. During his years at the bar, Isaac was an active freemason, and in 1889-1890 was the first grand registrar of the United Lodge of Victoria.
From 1892 to 1901 Isaacs served as a member of the Victorian legislative assembly; from 1893 he held the post of solicitor-general and from 1894 the post of attorney-general. He was active in support of social legislation, the control of gambling, and women’s suffrage. He advocated the federation of the states of Australia and was a member of the commission that framed the commonwealth constitution (1897-1898).
In 1901 he was elected to the first federal Australian parliament, was involved in the organization of the federal judicature, and in 1906 was appointed a justice of the federal high court, in which he served until appointed chief justice of Australia in 1930. In 1931 he was the first Australian-born person to be appointed governor-general of the Dominion of Australia and held the post until 1936.
After he retired in 1937, Isaacs wrote pamphlets and scholarly articles on biblical and religious subjects, and he published a series of articles on Jewish ethics prior to the Christian era. He wrote a weekly column for the New South Wales Hebrew Standard and for other Jewish and non-Jewish newspapers and periodicals.
Isaacs was secretary of the Melbourne Jewish Young Men’s Russian Relief Fund and was instrumental in founding the United Jewish Education Board, holding the post of president for a short time. However, from the mid-1890s he had little official connection with Jewish religious or other community organizations. Although he did not attend synagogue regularly, he was acutely aware of his Jewishness. Isaacs was deeply interested in Jewish religious doctrine and writings, and studied and wrote on such matters extensively. In public life he was very sensitive to anti-Semitic attacks and responded to them angrily.
Although his opposition to Zionism began in the 1920s, since he saw Zionism as posing complications of dual loyalty, only after his retirement did he speak out against political Zionism, calling the public protest made in 1941 against the British White Paper policy in Palestine as “un-Australian.” In 1943 he published a series of articles in the Hebrew Standard denouncing political Zionism, claiming that Jewish nationalism had no validity since Jews were Jewish by religion only, and were citizens and nationals of Australia and other countries. He called those who opposed this view no less than traitors. However, the majority of the Jewish community vehemently objected to Isaacs using his standing in the non-Jewish community to express a minority opinion.
Throughout his long public career, Isaacs showed kindness and friendliness to people in diverse walks of life. However, he was a determined, ambitious, and unrelenting man, which made him a controversial figure. He had a tendency to verbosity and his speeches were replete with references based on his wide reading in science, religion, and literature.