(Author: Steven Mark Katzew, Vol. 72, No. 1, Pesach 2017)
Much has been written about the ten Springboks who make up a so-called ‘Minyan’ of Jewish rugby players who have represented South Africa in the international arena. This statistic certainly ranks high in the annals of Jewish life in South Africa. The careers of most of these players spanned eras of complete domination of the sport at international level by South Africa. Such was their influence that, according to popular legend, it was once regarded as an imperative to select a Jewish Springbok as a lucky omen for the team.
With this kind of influence at the highest echelons of the game, it is not surprising that there has been a wellspring of Jewish rugby players, coaches, selectors and referees at all levels of the game in South Africa and, on the media side, statisticians and commentators too. This is not well documented, however, and it is therefore necessary to resort to word of mouth to acquire information on Jewish participation and involvement, from school level through to university, provincial age group, and club and open provincial rugby.
It was originally my intention to cast the net far and wide in order to provide a full picture of Jewish involvement in the sport at all these levels in a single article. However, I soon realised that it would be impossible to trace from oral sources an accurate account of the phenomenon. Indeed, so far back in time and so great are the numbers that even if I were to confine myself to open level provincial players, I would risk doing an injustice to players and other personalities whom I would almost certainly overlook. The period under review would need to extend at least as far back as 1931, with the selection for the upcoming tour of the British Isles of the first-ever Jewish rugby Springbok, Morris Zimerman, at the time a student at the University of Cape Town and a member of its rugby football club. The elevation of the first Jewish rugby player to international level is an indication of at Steven Mark Katzew is a Johannesburg-based advocate. He grew up in Virginia and attended High School in Welkom, Orange Free State, going on to study Law at Rhodes University, Grahamstown. He has contributed articles on South African Jewish sporting personalities in Soul Sport, a Jewish-interest sports magazine published in Johannesburg. least a sprinkling, and probably more than that, of other Jewish players at provincial or club level at around the same time, or even from before, of whom little or no information would be available from current word of mouth sources. Moreover, chance word of mouth encounters are by nature often offhand and unreliable.
With this in mind, I decided to confine myself to my own personal reading and encounters to serialize for publication the achievements and stories of randomly selected Jewish participants in rugby in South Africa who did not make it to international level but who nonetheless left their mark on the game. Hopefully, as the list grows in print the reader will pick up the thread of a much greater picture.
Undoubtedly, foremost amongst Jewish provincial rugby players outside of those who gained Springbok colours is the Free State’s Henry Joffe. By all accounts, he was a towering figure in South African rugby in the immediate post-World War II era and was desperately unlucky not to have become a Springbok. Just how close he came to playing for his country is recorded by Andy Colquhoun and Paul Dobson in their book The Chosen: The 50 greatest Springboks of all time (first published 2003, 2nd edition 2011). What emerges from the book is that Joffe was the selectors’ preferred choice for the flyhalf berth against the 1949 All Blacks until the eve of the First Test in C a p e Tow n . (From a Jewish perspective, it is a fascinating to consider that two of the ‘Minyan’ of Jewish Springboks, Cecil Moss and Okey Geffin, made their Test debuts in this series, the first to take place in the post-World War II era, and that had Joffe been selected as well, which was not a remote prospect ahead of the first test, a staggering 20% of that Springbok XV would have been Jewish).
Testament as to how good a player Joffe really was is that the man whom the selectors ultimately opted for instead of him in the pivotal flyhalf position was none other than Hansie Brewis, whom Colquhoun and Dobson rank twentieth in their list of greatest Springboks of all time, and whom they have also included as their reserve flyhalf (to Naas Botha) in their Greatest Springbok XV of all time. The following extracts from pages 107-108 of the book (2011 edition) are a harsh reminder of the old adage that the dividing line between success and failure, greatness and ordinary, overwhelming joy and abject disappointment is sometimes heartbreakingly hairbreadth:
By the time of those 1949 trials Brewis was 28 …. He’d made his name … although it appeared that a test career might elude him as the trials week ended with Free State’s Henry Joffe being the only flyhalf of the seven to attend who was nominated in the test ‘probables’ squad by the selectors….
…Joffe was discarded before ever pulling on the Springbok shirt following a 9-9 draw between his province [Free State] and the tourists [the All Blacks] two weeks before the first test.
He was replaced in the selectors’ minds by Western Province’s Dennis Fry but following Province’s 6-3 defeat [by the All Blacks] on the eve of the first test in Cape Town, he too fell out of favour. Both Joffe and Fry never did win a test cap. So in came Brewis, whose greatest qualification by that time was that he had had the good fortune not to have yet faced the All Blacks …
Henry Joffe in the match between Free State and the visiting New Zealand All Blacks, 1949. The All Black player is probably Eighth Man Lachie Grant.
So there you have it from the mouths of two of the most highly respected authorities on the game in South Africa with no cause for Jewish bias – Henry Joffe lost out on the opportunity of a Test cap by virtue of the chance misfortune of having played for Free State in a drawn match against the tourists prior to the First Test. Why, one may ask, was a draw against the mighty All Blacks reason to have doubts about the suitability of Joffe as the continued incumbent flyhalf in the Springbok ‘probables’? Did he simply have a rare bad game in that match, which is certainly not evident from the result? The answers to these questions are lost in the mists of time and thus we are left with a Minyan of exactly ten and an outsider who had a nail-bitingly close look-in.
Further testament to the esteem in which Henry Joffe was held is the following obituary on him that appeared in Beeld on 22 August 1992
Dr HENRY JOFFE (67), Junior Springbok-losskakel van die jare vyftig wat 43 keer vir die Vrystaat van 1947 tot 1951 gespeel het, is eergister skielik in Johannesburg oorlede.
Dr. Joffe was ná die SA rugbyproewe van 1949 in Pretoria die nasionale keurders se enigste losskakel in die groep van 32 spelers met die oog op die toetsreeks teen die All Blacks.
In die Vrystaat se wedstryd teen die All Blacks op Kroonstad het hy egter nie aan die verwagtinge voldoen nie en Hansie Brewis van Noord-Transvaal het die kans as losskakel gekry om te ontwikkel in een van Suid-Afrika se heel grotes.
Toe Brewis gister van Joffe se dood verneem het, was sy kommentaar: “Sy spel was soos dié van Cliff Morgan van Wallis. Met sy spoed en swenklope het hy in die 1949-proewe gemaak net wat hy wou .
“In daardie proewe was daar net een losskakel, en dit was Henry Joffe,” sêdie beskeie Brewis. Joffe was lid van die Junior Springbokspan wat in 1950 in die destydse Rhodesië getoer het. Hy laat sy vrou, Ann, en vier seuns, drr. Michael, Charles, Jack en Ivan, agter. Charles het as student aan Wits vir Transvaal se Rooibokke gespeel.1
The accomplished sportswriter Chris Greyvenstein, in his monumental Springbok Saga: A Pictorial History from 1891 (second edition, 1981), describes Hansie Brewis as the best flyhalf of his era (p139). Further on (p161), he rates Cliff Morgan, the Welsh flyhalf in the 1955 Lions team, as one of the most brilliant players ever to visit South Africa.
The 1950 Junior Springbok touring side to Rhodesia. From the top, l-r: D Retief, J Bekker, H Morkel, G Dannhauser, W Koch, E Dinkelman, S Fry, R Boyes, W Louw, H N Walker, A du Plooy, A Hummel, J Ochse, S Pienaar, H Joffe, G Woodward, Att Horak (Manager) E Norton (Captain), D Fry, O Haarhoff, A Keevy, G Muller, M Gillmer
Such is the honour given to Henry Joffe – Hansie Brewis, the greatest flyhalf of the late 1940s-early 1950s era, which was Joffe’s era too, likening Joffe’s speed and side-stepping to that of Cliff Morgan, a flyhalf of a slightly later era who is rated as one of the most brilliant players to ever visit our shores.
Perhaps in the end that compliment paid by Brewis to Joffe trumped the lost nod of the Springbok selectors.
I know of no other Jewish players who came close to selection for the Springboks. There may well have been players in the distant past who narrowly missed out on selection whom I do not know of. I have received unconfirmed reports in the course of random discussions with informants of Jewish players who should have become Springboks but didn’t, but no concrete evidence.
Abe Hummel of Griquas was selected together with Henry Joffe in 1950 to play for the Junior Springboks, which by definition also made him a strong candidate for higher international honours. The name Aubrey Luck has come up enough times from the mouths of reliable sources to convince me that he must certainly have been in the mix for international honours around the early 1960s. He played scrumhalf for UCT, Villagers and Western Province and represented W.P. Universities against the touring All Blacks in 1960. Ken Resnick played, as hooker, for Transvaal, but was more often than not an understudy to Robbie Barnard, who was a Springbok. This suggests that Resnick was up there with the best and may well be considered unlucky not to have gained Springbok colours.
But there were many Jewish rugby players who represented their provinces at different levels.
As a foretaste, stories abound like those of one of my co-congregants at the Chabad of Lyndhurst shul, Monty Isserow, who played prop for Transvaal Under-20 alongside two other Jewish players, Dennis Cohen and Doug Smollan, on a tour to Rhodesia in 1965. The first match of the tour was in Bulawayo against Rhodesia Under 20. Shortly into the game, tempers flared between Monty and the Rhodesia Under-20 hooker, Ivan Margolis. Blows were exchanged and the Jewish Rhodesian referee on the day, a Mr Lazarus, intervened and called Isserow and Margolis aside for a private chat. “Not nice for two Jewish boys to fight. Please no more of that!” he told them firmly.
The stories are endless. My mind is filled with the names of Jewish players spanning the Thirties all the way through to the professional era commencing in the Nineties, testimony to the wonderful association of South African Jewry with the great, passion filled sport of rugby which so fires the imagination of participants and enthusiasts alike.
Steven Mark Katzew is a Johannesburg-based advocate. He grew up in Virginia and attended High School in Welkom, Orange Free State, going on to study Law at Rhodes University, Grahamstown. He has contributed articles on South African Jewish sporting personalities in Soul Sport, a Jewish-interest sports magazine published in Johannesburg.
NOTES
- “Dr Henry Joffe (67), Junior Springbok flyhalf fromthe 1950s who played 43 times for Free State between 1947 and 1951, passed away suddenly in Johannesburg yesterday. Following the 1949 SA rugby trials Dr Joffe was the selectors’ sole flyhalf in the group of 32 playersconsidered with an eye to the upcoming test series against the All Blacks. In the Free State match against the All Blacks at Kroonstad, however, he did not fulfilexpectations, and Hansie Brewis of Northern Transvaal gained the opportunity, as flyhalf, to develop into one of South Africa’s all-time greats. On learning of Joffe’s death yesterday, Brewis commented, “His playing could be likened to that of Cliff Morgan of Wales. With his speed and sidesteps, he did pretty much what he liked in the 1949 trials”. Said the self-effacing Brewis, “In those trials, there was only one flyhalf, and that was Henry Joffe”. Joffe was a member of the Junior Springboks who toured the then Rhodesia in 1950. He is survived by his wife, Ann, and four sons, doctors Michael, Charles, Jack and Ivan. As a student at Wits, Charles played for Transvaal’s Rooibokke” [the Transvaal ‘B’ team].
