A glimpse into the role of Jewish farmers in the South African economy

(Author: Eli Goldstein, Vol. 71, No. 2, Rosh Hashanah 2016)

• Feature image: Emil Lazarus Training Farm, Bethal

Rather than following the style of a historical treatise, this article aims to briefly show how Jews have contributed to and continue to play a role in agriculture and agribusiness in South Africa. Agribusiness is a term used to refer to the peripheral business around agriculture and farming in terms of the supply of inputs to the agricultural process and the processing, marketing and distribution of products emanating from this enterprise. Besides a host of challenges South Africa faces today, the issue of water and food security is one that requires much focus. Can we as a Jewish community mobilise our resources and contribute toward solving these questions?

To do justice to the Jewish contribution would require the publication of a book. Paucity of time and space precludes me from including in this overview the names of many Jewish contributors to farming in South Africa, but this by no means diminishes their impact. Jewish farmers in South Africa today may be far fewer but they still contribute to a large extent to food supply. As we celebrate this 175th anniversary of SA Jewry, we should focus not only on the past, but on learning through it how can we demonstrate our ability to continue helping to fix our country and, more importantly, using modern media, create an awareness of our role.

The perception sometimes exists that Jews have had little, if any association, with Agriculture in South Africa. Nothing could be further from the truth. From the very outset, Jews have played a pivotal role, often in pioneering ventures but also in making their mark in innovative farming practices that brought about a huge impact on local food production and other agricultural products. Our community may be characterised politically through those of its members who featured in the anti-Apartheid struggle, but how much does the general populous know about our role in Agriculture?

While Agriculture’s percentage of SA’s Gross Domestic Product may have fallen in the 21st Century, it still plays a vital role in feeding a continuously growing population. Our links with Israel and its amazing innovations in the field make it incumbent on local Jewry to promote awareness of these practices among South Africa’s existing and emerging farmers. Israel’s miracle in water management is described by Seth M Siegel in his book Let There Be Water – Israel’s Solution for a Water-Starved World. While a number of agricultural and water projects exist, facilitated through the Israel Embassy, a lot more can be done.

Early Days

Many of the published works on South African Jewish history tend to focus on a number of Jewish famers who have been pioneers in this area or have earned the title of ‘King’, such as Mealie King, Potato King, Onion King, etc. Examples include:

The Mosenthal Family, whose members were among the earliest Jewish pioneers in the agricultural export trade and who, inter alia, imported the first Angora goats from Turkey, resulting in the development of the successful mohair industry in South Africa. Originating from Hesse-Kassel, Germany, the brothers were Joseph (1813–1871), Adolph (1812–1882) and Julius (1819–1880). Mosenthal Brothers, started in Cape Town, flourished under the control of the family into the 20th Century. Operating mainly in Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, and Graaff-Reinet, its activities spread throughout the Cape Colony, and later to the then Transvaal.

Jonas Bergtheil (1819–1902) immigrated to the Cape Colony from Bavaria, Germany, in 1834, moving to Durban in 1843. He formed a company to bring settlers from Europe and started the first cotton growing enterprise in South Africa. The Bergtheil Museum in Westville has exhibits focusing on the first non-Jewish German settlers that Bergtheil brought to Natal when he was director of the Natal Cotton Company, showing their contribution to the settlements of Westville, Clermont and New Germany.

There have been a number of attempts to document Jewish life in the local farming scene. South African Yiddish writers have provided a rich tapestry of the lives of Yiddish farmers in the early days and up to about the 1930s. One M Brown, in a paper presented to the Jewish Sociological and Historical Society in November 1948, mentions that out of a then total population of 104 000 farmers, Jews numbered about 800 in 1936 and possibly 1000 in 1948. While less than 1% of the total, their influence was wholly disproportionate, reflecting the common thread of how the extent of Jewish influence in so many walks of life has far exceeded their numbers.

Eric Rosenthal makes mention of the story of Jewish Agriculture in South Africa going back to 1672, when a certain Samuel Jacobson acted as a shepherd, and lists Adam Tas, who carried out small farming operations in the Stellenbosch area. Arthur Markowitz, in the South African Jewish Year Book of 1950, produced an overview of Jewish famers in South Africa. In the wine industry, they included Charles Louis Back, who started viticulture in 1902 and whose grandson, Charles Back, still operates the well-known wine and cheese brands of Backsberg and Fairview. Joseph Sarembock pioneered deciduous fruit growing in the district of Ceres. Theo Kirsch is described as the ‘Plum King’; in the 1950s, he produced an annual average of 350 tons. Max Rose pioneered the ostrich feather industry in Oudtshoorn, the town dubbed “The Jerusalem of Africa” by Yiddish writers such as Leibl Feldman. Before the collapse of the feather industry in the post-World War I era, many Jews were successful in ostrich farming and in the feather trade. There are still Jews farming with ostriches in Oudtshoorn today.