History

The Australian Jewish Times was a Sydney-based weekly newspaper serving the Jewish community in New South Wales and beyond. It operated as a companion publication to Melbourne's Australian Jewish News, providing local coverage of community affairs, cultural life, and general interest features from a Sydney perspective.

The archive holds clippings from 1970 to 1985, a period that includes the major Australian sighting waves of the 1970s, the disappearance of Frederick Valentich over Bass Strait in 1978, and the gradual decline of official RAAF interest in UFO reports. The paper's coverage reflects how these events filtered into Sydney's community press during a particularly active period for Australian UFO research.

Significance

Paired with its Melbourne counterpart in the archive, The Australian Jewish Times provides a Sydney perspective on the same cultural moment. Together, the two publications illustrate how UFO-related stories circulated through Australia's community press networks during the 1970s and early 1980s, a period when civilian UFO organisations in both cities were at their most active.

The collection's end date of 1985 coincides with the RAAF's decision to cease formal UFO investigations, marking a turning point in Australian official engagement with the subject. These clippings capture public reaction to aerial phenomena during the final years of government involvement, providing a snapshot of community-level interest that broader circulation papers often overlooked.