Sign up for Weekday J and get the latest on what's happening in the Jewish Bay Area.

An Aboriginal elder who protested the “cruel persecution” of the Jews by the Nazis will become the first indigenous Australian to be honored by Yad Vashem.

A memorial garden in honor of William Cooper of the Yorta Yorta tribe will be unveiled at the national Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem on Dec. 15.

Cooper was 77 when he led a small march to deliver a petition to the German consul general in Melbourne just weeks after Kristallnacht. Although Cooper and his Australian Aborigines League were denied entry to the consulate on Dec. 6, 1938, their protest did not go unnoticed, even though they were half a world away from Europe.

He died in 1941 at the age of 80.

Researchers at Yad Vashem have spent the past year verifying the details of Cooper’s protest, after Albert Dadon, founder of the Australia Israel Cultural Exchange, was inspired to leave a lasting legacy following a recent visit to Israel with an Aboriginal activist.

Trees were planted last year in the Martyrs’ Forest near Jerusalem in recognition of Cooper’s protest. — jta