(Author: Gwynne Schrire, Vol. 65 #1, Pesach 2010)
Jews living in the British Colonies in the 19th Century were generally proud to be British citizens. They appreciated being able to live in peace, religious tolerance and security and were satisfied to accept the institutions and practices that British citizenship entailed. This included acceptance of the British concepts of religious leadership, which centred very much on the person of the rabbi of the Great Synagogue in London. The latter was recognised and deferred to as the chief rabbi and, from 1845, was officially designated Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the British Empire.1 Among the Chief Rabbi’s functions was the appointment of rabbis, even to places as far from London as the Cape Colony or New Zealand.2
In 1804 the Batavian Republic, through Governor de Mist, established freedom of worship at the Cape, but it was not until 1841 that there were sufficient Jews for the first Jewish minyan to be organised. Following the establishment of Tikvath Israel, the fledging Society of the Jewish community of Cape Town, on 26 September of that year, it was decided to import a Sefer Torah through trading contacts in Frankfort. It was then discovered that without the permission of the Chief Rabbi, Dr Solomon Herschell, no Sefer Torah could be sent to the Colony.
Unfortunately, the Chief Rabbi died before permission could be obtained. The new congregation then launched a collection for a memorial prayeroffering in his name, collecting £3 on behalf of the Cape Town and Grahamstown communities. In the meantime, they managed without the Sefer Torah.
Since their arrival in the Cape, the handful of Jewish settlers had had no contact with any halachic authority and there was much they did not know. Indeed, it was not easy to be Jewish in the Cape Colony at that time. There was no Sefer Torah, no tallit, no rabbi, no mohel, no shochet, no mikveh, no kosher food and no cheder. There was no one to assist with dietary advice or requirements; members had to conduct services to the best of their abilities and weddings had to be performed by a Christian minister. In 1843, the Tikvath Israel committee agreed that they should keep in touch with the new Chief Rabbi, Rabbi Dr Nathan Marcus Adler. When they had problems, they would write to him and after about three months, depending on the weather and the availability of ships, would receive his reply.
After struggling like this for a further two years, Benjamin Norden and Nathan Birkenruth suggested that an approach be made to officials in England or Germany for a minister. However, the committee turned down their proposal. A rabbi, they believed, was a luxury the small congregation could not afford.3
In 1846 R E Joseph, a qualified mohel, arrived in Cape Town. That solved one problem. He brought with him letters from Chief Rabbi Adler advising them to get a minister as soon as possible and acquire a synagogue. That caused another problem, and the financial implications split the community. Finally, they agreed to purchase a property to serve as a synagogue and to that end bought two houses and a store at the corner of Bouquet Street and St Johns Street adjoining the Lodge De Goede Hoop.4 Today a plaque on a building marks the site.
In June 1848 Aaron de Pass (whose brother, Elias, was the congregation’s Honorary Secretary), arrived at the synagogue on his return from a visit to England, carrying two letters from the Chief Rabbi and a parcel containing a Sefer Torah. One letter advised that Mr. P Salaman had kindly donated the Torah; the other urged them to get a rabbi from England.
The Sefer Torah was received with delight and a thank-you letter was despatched to Mr. Salaman, but the financial worries remained. After arguing for a month, the congregation agreed to ask the Chief Rabbi to send a rabbi. They specified that they could not pay him more than £100 a year, but would defray the cost of the ocean passage and provide free quarters. They also requested a tallit and a Code of Law.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row] Rev Isaac Pulver, 1803 – 1873 In time, the answer arrived. The Chief Rabbi recommended Rev Isaac Pulver, minister of the Cheltenham Hebrew Congregation, for the post. At a special meeting, it was agreed that the Tikvath Israel congregation would bring out Rev Pulver, his wife and children. Rev Pulver would not have to repay the passage money and a furnished house would be provided for his family until a house attached to the synagogue was ready. On 8 August 1849, Rev Pulver arrived in Cape Town as the reader, shochet and mohel for the young Cape Town Hebrew Congregation. A delighted Benjamin Norden held a reception at his home to welcome their first minister, at which another letter from the Chief Rabbi was read out. This instructed the Jewish community of the Cape to give heed to the Minister’s government. Rev Pulver then delivered a short address exhorting the community to assist him “in carrying out the laws for establishing the true religion of the G-d of Israel”,5 and a month later, on 15 September, he consecrated the first synagogue in South Africa. However, the Chief Rabbi’s instruction to heed the minister’s government proved an onerous burden for the few Jewish colonists living in the Cape Colony. The congregation had become used to living without following the demands of halachah and found it difficult to observe the mitzvot, many of which had fallen into abeyance. This included the observance of kashrut. Before Rev Pulver’s arrival, no kosher meat had been obtainable. The local Jews either ate treife meat, or did without. As the first minister to a pioneering community established only eight years earlier, and one that had been managing comfortably to live a life independent of religious authority, Rev Pulver had a difficult task. Naturally, he was a religious man. Naturally, he observed the commandments and expected to live, as he had before, in a community of like-minded Orthodox Jews. He therefore found the ways of his congregation a considerable culture shock. In as much as his community found it difficult to cope with the sudden religious expectations imposed on the assimilated life style to which they had become accustomed, Rev Pulver found it difficult to cope with the non-Orthodox life style prevalent in his congregation. What he wanted – a mikvah, matzah, kosher meat – his community did not want. Friction was inevitable. At first, the committee tried to assist him. A special sub-committee was set up to discuss building a mikvah, 6 but apathy and lack of money put paid to that. A supply of matzah was imported from England for Passover. With regard to kosher meat, arrangements were made with a firm of butchers for their new minister to practice Shechita. For the first time, it was possible to obtain kosher meat in Cape Town. However, the supply of that meat was a problem. It was one thing to buy matzah as a one-off purchase, but agreeing to commit oneself to buying more expensive kosher meat on a regular basis was a different matter entirely. To adapt an idiom, you can lead a congregation to water but you cannot make it drink. Rev Pulver had endless trouble getting kosher meat, and when the meat was available, the congregation did not want to buy it. Without the support of the community, it proved difficult for him to provide a constant supply of kosher meat to the few who did want it.7 There were no freezers, and when there were no customers, the butcher was left with decomposing meat. As a result, butchers were unwilling to provide kosher meat. This was a serious problem for Rev Pulver and his family. The very prospect of being compelled by circumstances to keep a table that was not strictly kosher was a source of the greatest pain to the good man, who was, above all, an orthodox Jew. On the other hand the Colonists, from the circumstances of their lives, could not regard the rigid observance of Jewish ceremony with the same reverence, or attach quite the same importance to it as he did.8 So the Rev Pulver entered into negotiations with local Muslim butchers, who appreciated his problem and were willing to allow him to kill sheep (although rarely, if ever, a bullock).9 It is of interest to see the degree of co-operation and friendship that existed at this time between the Jewish and Muslim communities in Cape Town. Differences in expectations between the minister and his small congregation (some thirty men with their wives and families) and money problems caused tension, and the congregation accordingly started to shrink. Frustrated, Rev Pulver wrote to Chief Rabbi Adler for advice. At the same time, he took the opportunity to ask him to find him a position in Australia, where there were settled Jewish communities. Services had been held in private homes there since the 1820s, the first formal congregation was established in November 1831 by Rabbi Aaron Levy and the first purpose-built synagogue was built in Sydney in 1844.10 Amazingly, the copy of the Chief Rabbi’s reply to Rev Pulver in the Cape Colony has survived in America, where it was recently discovered in the Jewish Theological Seminary Archives in New York by historian Dr Adam Mendelsohn.11 This was a remarkable find because, seventy years earlier, Chief Rabbi Dr JH Herz had informed Louis Herrman that none of the correspondence between the early Cape Town Jewish community and the Chief Rabbi was extant.12 Fifty years later John Simon confirmed this, having investigated the archives of the Chief Rabbinate, the Mocatta Library at University College and the Landau Archives at the Hebrew Library looking for such correspondence and found that nothing from the period between 1841 and 1885 had survived.13 The letter reads as follows: April 12 561014 Rev I Pulver Cape Town My dear sir, It was with greatest anxiety that I expected from you particular statements about your reception and the congregational affairs in Cape Town. But though the delay was long, I was the more gratified by the principle points of your letter of December last. I could not but feel the greatest satisfaction from the facts that you have succeeded in finishing and consecrating the synagogue before the yomim tovim, and in convincing nearly all the community of the holiness of the Sabbath and of the duty of its strict observance. I therefore highly regret with you, that the political agitation,15 which prevailed in your colony during the last months, has thrown a general disharmony into the general unanimity of our brethren, and threatens to prevent the steady progress of the congregational welfare. Under these circumstances it is my most anxious wish, that a reconciliation agreeable with Mr Norden (whose influential example is, I confess, of the highest weight, may be effected); and the same way as I expect, you will make your most decided exertions in order to produce that desirable result, I shall not omit any possible effort in my power to contribute to that aim, for which I have already begun the first steps, and which I shall earnestly prosecute. With the same regret I deplore the difficulties you find in providing the congregation with a proper shechitah. But it has always been the glory of our faith, that its followers have not been deterred by difficulties however unsurmountable [sic] they might appear. You will as little destroy one of the pillars of Judaism, as I can give my sanction to it; and therefore I hope you will not be discouraged, if I do not allow [you] to use the meat killed by the Malay Priest under any circumstances which is against the mitzvah chaf-vav-lamed-yud-nun.16 But on the other hand there is no objection to allow the Malay Priest to say whatever formula he pleases provided that you will perform the shechitah according to our rite. Perhaps you may succeed on making an arrangement on this basis. It is with great pleasure that I acquaint you that a subscription in aid of the funds of your congregation has been prepared here by Mr De Pass and that the amount will be transmitted to your wardens as soon as it may have led to a certain result.17 Although the office at Sydney is not yet occupied, I hope you will not abandon your present situation – even if there is more prospect for you to obtain the situation at Sydney than there really is – as you must feel that your leaving Cape Town would bring a dangerous crisis into the whole existence of your congregation, and as I feel convinced, that all the difficulties and the unpleasantness of your position (which, I hope, may have considerably decreased by the happy termination of the political differences in your colony) will be removed with the aid of G-d and with the moral courage on your part, which boldly looks at difficulties, when great and holy aims are to be reached. With my most fervent wishes for the welfare of your congregation especially, which may flourish and joyfully grow under the protection of the Almighty, and of the whole colony in general.18 Accordingly, the Rev Pulver made arrangements with the Malay priest, and when he managed to slaughter an ox or a sheep he informed the handful of congregants that he knew would be interested in buying kosher meat. That caused more trouble because those who had not been offered a supply felt slighted and complained to the committee. The committee asked for a written explanation. Rev Pulver explained that he had made the arrangements with the Muslim butcher because he could not get a regular supply of meat from the butchers with whom the congregation had negotiated as they had complained that the kosher meat remained unsold. Offended that the Rev Pulver had made his own arrangements unilaterally, the committee ordered him to visit every married member of the community to get them to sign a document promising that for a year they would buy kosher meat only. The indignity of going door to door to compel his community to buy kosher meat – in other words, having to go to every member to beg them to carry out a practice that for them, as Jews, should have been automatic – was too much for Rev Pulver and he refused. The committee fined him ten shillings and threatened to suspend him from his office. Against his will, he then prepared a document that read as follows: We, the undersigned members of the Jewish community in Cape Town do hereby bind ourselves to take cosher (sic) meat for Twelve months commencing from the date hereby from …..in order to enable the Vestry to enter into a contract for the regular supply thereof Cape Town, Cape of Good Hope.19 He took this to all the married members of the congregation. The result could have been predicted: Signed: A de Pass, Phyllis Sloman, S Rudolf, RJ Joseph, B Jacobs, A Alexander Remarks: Mrs Wolff will take cosher meat but will not bind herself without the consent of Mr Wolff who is absent from town Mrs M Hart will take meat but will not sign any document Mr J Mosenthal refused to sign Mrs S Marcus will give no answer Mr N Moss, no answer.20 The President and secretary then complained that Rev Pulver had not gone to them to ask for their signatures. He explained that he had not thought it necessary seeing that they were the ones who had given him the order.21 This pettiness, for him, was the last straw. The following week, some two years after his arrival in Cape Town, he handed in his resignation, in which letter he stated his complaints clearly: My principal reasons for wanting to leave this congregation are first, that I cannot get kosher meat, secondly that I cannot as a Jewish parent bring up my children in a place where so little regard is paid to the principles of our Holy Religion; and thirdly, that, notwithstanding nearly two years’ trial to live as economically as possible, I could not make my income meet my expenses.22 The Congregation, in self-righteous indignation, and in the knowledge that they would have to face the wrath of the all-powerful British Chief Rabbi (to whom they suspected that Rev Pulver had already written) tried to defend itself. After Rev Pulver’s departure, they sent the following letter to Chief Rabbi Adler: 18 June 1851 In consequence of no reply having been received from the Revd J Pulver in answer to a letter of the General Meeting dated 15th June 1851 in answer to his of the 12th Inst. respecting the three separate reasons given for his resignation, it was resolved that the following record be entered in the minutes. To the first that “I cannot get kosher meat”, The Vestry in reply state that Mr Bindemann of the Shambles No 2 was willing to allow the Shochet to kill at his shambles for 12 months conditionally that the community takes meat for said period Mr Van Reenen of Shambles No 3 was willing to allow the Shochet to Slaughter the whole of his cattle if the same was done – at 5 ‘o clock in the morning instead of 11 ‘o clock as heretofore. To the Second Reason, that “I cannot bring up my Children in a place were [sic] so little regard is paid to the Holy Religion”, The Vestry is desirous of recording the following facts – That they commenced operations [sic] are in order to support and establish in this Colony the Holy cause of the religion of their forefathers whom at no time did their number consist of more than 20 members the greater part of which were single men. Yet the following was the result of their labours. They purchased a Burial Ground and erected a Stone wall around it at own expense of £400. They built a maltar [sic] house which cost £110 -, purchased the Synagogue which cost £800 – put on a new roof at an expense of £200, fitting up the Synagogue £150.0.0, Furniture £40 and Sundry Charities £100. The above expenditure of £1800 has been met by the few members before referred to, with no other papible [sic] reason but that of establishing the cause of their Holy Religion.23 They also justified the meagre stipend their minister had received by pointing out that in addition to his salary of £100, Rev Pulver had received as donations his tailor’s bill of £15, his hatter’s bill of £1/13s, a donation of three-month’s rent from B Norden Esq. plus occasional stores. As a good-will gesture they agreed to donate £25 towards his travelling expenses and his supporters contributed as well. Rev Pulver agreed to continue with his duties until their departure some months later and conducted the first Jewish marriage in a South African synagogue, that between Isaac Saul Solomon, tailor and Frances Amelia Sloman.24 It is of interest that Frances Amelia’s mother was one of those prepared to bind herself to purchasing ‘cosher’ meat. Rev Pulver also conducted the 1851 Rosh Hashanah services, but his resignation had caused such ill feeling that the small congregation held two separate services, one conducted in the synagogue without a minister and the other in another venue with one. As for Rev Pulver, he moved to Melbourne with his family and became assistant minister to the Rev Moses Rintel. It was a good move. He was well accepted and when a new synagogue was planned two years later in Bourke Street, he was asked to serve on the Building Committee. By 1854, there were complaints in the community that the supply of kosher meat was not adequate – is it unreasonable to suspect the complaints emanated from the Rev Pulver? – and the committee decided to appoint a suitable person as shochet. The person appointed was Rev Pulver, from 16 October 1854 at a salary of £250 per annum. This was more than double his salary in Cape Town (where, moreover, far more had been expected of him, even if members of the congregation had paid for his hats and suits).25 In 1853, Rev Rintel proposed to the Synagogue Board that they ask Chief Rabbi Dr Adler to set up a Bet Din consisting of himself and Rev Isaac Pulver. The proposal was turned down, but when Reverend Samuel Herman arrived in February 1864 the Chief Rabbi created an Australian Beth Din in Melbourne comprising Rev M Rintel, Rev Pulver and Rev Herman.26 After five years as shochet, Rev Pulver resigned to become the second reader and secretary of the Melbourne Hebrew Congregation’s school. With three ministers, the kosher meat supply was ensured and he no longer needed to slaughter the meat himself. The following year, he served on a School Board to consider opening a Jewish day school and started services in St Kilda, a suburb in Melbourne where many new Jewish immigrants were settling. In 1871, he moved on to Tasmania to become minister of the Hobart Hebrew Congregation. He died there two years later, aged seventy. Rev Pulver had left Cape Town for three reasons – he could not get kosher meat, he could not as a Jewish parent bring his children up in a place where so little regard was paid to the principles of Judaism and he could not come out on his salary. In Melbourne, he was able to fulfil all his requirements. He was able to get kosher meat, his salary was considerably increased and his children were brought up with a thorough knowledge of Judaism. Indeed, his Australian-born son Louis in due course became the headmaster of the East Melbourne Hebrew School, serving there for seven years before moving to Sydney as headmaster of the Sydney Jewish Day School from 1885 –1896. Louis Pulver was described as “a heaven born instructor of youth”. When he died, the following poem in his memory appeared in the Jewish Herald: … Mourn we today, A greater loss doth fill Our hearts with grief. Gone is the presence kind – The teacher, rarely gifted to instil The love of G-d in childhood’s budding mind Who from the mouth of babe and suckling strove To stablish strength in Jacob’s southern tents…27 It is a pity that the fledgling community in Cape Town could not offer the facilities or the supportive environment to enable it to benefit from this learned man and his son. The Chief Rabbi had predicted that a “dangerous crisis into the whole existence of the [Cape Town] congregation” would result from the departure of Rev Pulver, and he was right. For a period, it looked as though the hope of Tikvath Israel would disintegrate entirely. The Chief Rabbi waited another seven years before suggesting it was time for the congregation to find itself another minister, and in 1859 he sent out Rev Joel Rabinowitz. Either the community had learnt something or it was a better match, because Rev Rabinowitz was to serve the Tikvath Israel congregation for 23 years. In 1863, he also consecrated the first purpose-built synagogue in Cape Town (now the SA Jewish Museum), which was designed in an Egyptian style by an architect called Mr Hogg It is of interest that the first purpose-built synagogue in Australia, the York Street Synagogue in Sydney (consecrated 1844) was also described as “a very pleasing structure of the Egyptian Order”28 and that the Australian synagogues built in the 1840s in Hobart, Launceston and Adelaide were likewise built in the distinctive Egyptian style of architecture.29 The author wishes to thank Dr. Ute ben Yosef of the Jacob Gitlin Library and Larry and Michael Rubinstein from Australia for their invaluable help in accessing material for this article. Gwynne Schrire is Deputy Director of the Cape Council of the SA Jewish Board of Deputies. She is a regular contributor and a member of the Editorial Board of Jewish Affairs and has written, co-written and edited various books on aspects of local Jewish and Cape Town history. 
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