(Author: Joseph Sherman, Vol. 65 #1, Pesach 2010)
(First published Jewish Affairs, Spring 1993)
The history of the Yiddish press in South Africa goes back over a century. The country’s first Yiddish newspaper, Der Afrikaner Israelit, was found in Johannesburg in 1890 by Nehemiah Dov Ber Hoffman, who had the extraordinary foresight to bring with him a full set of Hebrew-Yiddish type when he immigrated to South Africa from NeustadtSugind. This first newspaper, like its many successors both in Johannesburg and the Cape, were very shortlived, but Hoffman continued to be associated with them all for many years.
After the creation of the Union a new Yiddish weekly, Der Afrikaner, was founded in Johannesburg in November 1911 by Solomon Fogelson, and despite the fact that there were at least three other flourishing Yiddish periodicals being published in South Africa at the same time, this paper outlived all of them – and indeed, its founder editor himself – surviving for over twenty years. This remarkable achievement was owing entirely to the tireless efforts of its chief contributor and second editor, Hyman Polsky.
By the early 1930s, many local Yiddish writers were encouraged to feel that there might be a strong enough readership to maintain a Yiddish daily in Johannesburg, and in pursuit of this objective Dr Ben-Zion Almuni, an enthusiastic journalist from Vilna, came out to South Africa. Although Almuni was desperately eager to found a South African Yiddish daily, and managed to raise a considerable sum of money and a large number of subscribershareholders in the two years he spent here, the local Jewish community – in rapid pursuit of English acculturation – was generally indifferent to the idea. Moreover, Johannesburg’s Chief Rabbi, Dr JL Landau, whose influence on South African Jewish life was immense, was himself a powerfully committed Zionist and a vigorous opponent of the kind of militant Yiddishism such a newspaper might promote. While the Zionists were always to be victorious in the struggle for Jewish cultural identity in South Africa, the Yiddishists themselves, solipsistically hard-headed, were divided by rivalries and professional jealousies. Almuni’s project – never in fact to be realized in South Africa – compromised with the establishment in 1932 of a new Yiddish weekly, Der Afrikaner Yidishe Tsaytung, which took over and incorporated Der Afrikaner.
The regular eight pages of this paper were uneconomically produced by handsetting from loose type, and were printed on dilapidated machines, but the hard labour of production was at all times one of love on the part of those devotees who put it together. Chief among these was Shmaryahu Levin, who did virtually everything. When Almuni returned overseas, control of the paper passed into the hands of Boris Gershman, who had originally come to work for Almuni as an advertising canvasser. Excellent as he was at raising money, Gershman was himself not a writer, and the actual journalistic work was done by local writers whose chief contribution was to quarrel with one another and with Levin. It was at this stage in the fortunes of the paper that Gershman persuaded Levi Shalit to become one of its Chief contributors. The history of what happened thereafter is the subject of this interview.
Levi Shalit, who was born in Kuybyshev in Russia, received a traditional Jewish education when his family returned to Lithania after the end of World War 1. He studied at the great yeshivot of Telz and Slobodka, for the work and achievements of which he still feels the profoundest respect. In early manhood, Shalit turned to journalism, at which he showed great aptitude and soon made a considerable name for himself. From early youth, also, he was a committed Zionist, and became a prominent member of the Zionist Council in Lithuania after the Russian occupation in 1940. When the Nazis invaded
Lithuania in 1941, Shalit was interned in Shavel, one of the two ghettos the Nazis established in Lithuania; in 1944, Shalit and his contemporary partisan fighters were rounded up and sent to Dachau. He survived by a miracle and was liberated after nine months by the Allied Army in the spring of 1945. His subsequent connection with South Africa and its Yiddish newspaper forms the chief matter of the conversation which follows [Joseph Sherman – Editor].
Levi Shalit talks to Joseph Sherman about his Life and Work with the Yiddish Press in South Africa
Please describe the history of the newspaper as you remember it.
My association with the Afrikaner Yidishe Tsaytung dates back to 1946, some years before my arrival in South Africa. Boris Gershman, then the owner of the newspaper, visited the survivors of the Holocaust in Germany in 1946 and asked me to write articles for his paper.
You were living in Munich at the time?
Three months after the liberation, on 1 May 1945, of the concentration camp Dachau, I established, in Munich, Undzer Veg (Our Way), the weekly newspaper of the liberated Jews in Germany. It appeared in eighty thousand copies. Boris Gershman actually suggested reprinting those of my articles which had been published in Undzer Veg in the Afrikaner Yidishe Tsaytung.
So that was your first connection with South Africa?
The first, but not the only one and not the decisive one. In 1947, a delegation of the SA Jewish Board of Deputies, comprising Max Greenstein, Max Spitz and Mr Osrin, visited the Jews in Germany who had been liberated from concentration camps, on behalf of the SA Jewish War Appeal campaign, conducted under the auspices of the Board. Its purpose was to help Jewish war victims. The American Joint Distribution Committee, active among the survivors, gave a reception for the South African delegation. The director of the ‘Joint’ invited me to come and say a few words ‘as a Litvishe Yidn …’ I seemed to find particular favour with Max Greenstein, and the delegation invited me to come to South Africa to open the War Appeal campaign, which was to start in three to four months’ time. Max Greenstein spoke then with Dr Leo Schwartz, in Paris, the General Director of the ‘Joint’ in Europe, and requested his help in facilitating my going to South Africa for that special purpose.
Did you agree to the proposition?
I was not then particularly interested in the South African delegation’s suggestion. I was preoccupied with events in Eretz Yisrael and I went there a month or so later. While I was in Israel, I received a telegram from the headquarters of the ‘Joint’ in Europe, informing me that the War Appeal campaign in South Africa was to open in 1948, and asking me to go there. There was still a war going on in Israel and all my thoughts were occupied by it. It was an agonising time. Nevertheless, friends were urging me to accept the invitation and go to South Africa for a few weeks. After some deliberation, I agreed and returned to Germany to obtain the necessary visa.
But you didn’t really come to South Africa then, did you?
No, I did not. This was shortly after the time that Malan and the National Party had gained power in South Africa. The South African Mission in Frankfurt acceded to the Joint’s request for a visa for me thinking, evidently, that like other ‘Joint’ workers, I was an American citizen. When it transpired, however, that I was a Displaced Person, and my ‘passport’ consisted of a piece of paper issued by the American Military Command in Germany, the SA Mission refused the visa they had formerly promised. The ‘Joint’ was prepared to give a guarantee that I would not remain in South Africa longer than the duration of the campaign, but to no avail. The mission in Frankfurt was adamant. No visa for a Displaced Person, since there was no place to deport him to should he choose to remain in their sunny land … And I was supposed to be leaving for Johannesburg the very next day, on a KLM flight – the only one that was operating, at the time, on the Europe-South Africa route.
So that put paid to your visit planned by the South African delegation?
I’m afraid so. Not having been eligible for a visa, I couldn’t have boarded the plane.
I flew back to Israel on the next flight out.
So when did you finally come?
Well, there’s another story attached to that. One day, in 1951, while on my way from Nahalal to a nearby kibbutz, I was very nearly killed by a car speeding towards me and then suddenly stopping beside me. The driver go out, greeted me warmly and asked me, without any further ado, whether I would still be interested in coming to South Africa for a Board campaign. It was Max Spitz, though I didn’t recognise him at first. This was very difficult time in Israel, I was tired and weary, and I said yes … In no time at all, Max Spitz attended to all necessary formalities and I was on my way to Johannesburg to launch the campaign, not of the War Appeal any longer, but that of the United Communal Fund.
Did that pave your way to the newspaper?
I addressed Jewish communities throughout the country. The campaign achieved great success and the Board asked me to stay longer than was first planned, and certainly much longer than I intended to stay. All the while, I contributed articles to the Afrikaner Yidishe Tsaytung. There was no one then to write the leading articles, and I was asked to do that, too. I remember one particular time when Boris Gershman woke me up at dawn saying that he needed my presence in the printing works at once. The newspaper was ready, but something of importance had just occurred in Israel and a new leading article was imperative. Would I please come immediately? The car was already on its way to fetch me … So, my association with the paper was really a continuous one, since that day in Germany when Boris Gershman approached me. The newspaper was, during my early days in Johannesburg, functioning well on the administrative side, but the entire editorial staff consisted of one person only, Shmaryahu Levin. He had worked for the newspaper for a very long time and was a fine, upstanding man.
Who were some of the journalists and writers that contributed to the newspaper at the time?
Overseas journalists like Leneman in Paris, Harendorf in London, Schneiderman in New York, Itzchaki in Tel-Aviv. Local contributors included YS Yudelowitz, Chief Rabbi Louis Rabinowitz, Rabbi Romm, Michael Ben Moshe and, of course, Shmaryahu Levin. He was in love with his job and with newspapers in general. He originated from Vilna and was steeped in its Jewish atmosphere. He was fond of saying that the smell of printing ink was his equivalent of oxygen. Towards the end of 1953, tragedy struck. Boris Gershman passed away. I wrote the obituary at the request of the family. Mrs Gershman, whom I knew very well, asked me to go on writing the leading articles on a permanent basis.
Who owned the newspaper, after Gershman passed away?
The Gershman family, as part of their printing business. After a short while – five or six months – Mrs Gershman suggested that Levin and I should buy the newspaper.
And you bought it?
A family matter made it necessary for me to remain in South Africa for some while, I accepted Mrs Gershman’s offer and bought the paper, in partnership with Shmaryahu Levin. Slowly, we began building up our own printing press, brought linotype setters from Israel to do the Yiddish setting when no local operators could be found. And so we became independent. The newspaper grew in esteem and status.
Who were, by then, the contributors?
We endeavoured to have more locally flavoured contributions, but we did not neglect overseas writers either. The poets H Leivick, Jacob Glatshteyn and Chaim Grade, the writers Isaac Bashevis Singer and Mordkhe Shtrigler, to mention but a few, were regular contributors. Many prominent Hebrew writers and poets appeared on our pages in translation. The Afrikaner Yidishe Tsaytung became not just a journalistic publication, but a literary one as well. In all, these were twenty years of work which gave real and true writer’s pleasure and satisfaction.
Does that mean that there was a large enough readership to support the newspaper?
Of course. Still, no newspaper can survive on readership alone. We set up an efficient advertising department which supplied what the subscriptions were unable to. But the lively readership and the positive response we were receiving from our publication gave us the necessary impetus to work.
Could you say how many readers there were at its best?
At its best, four to five thousand copies were printed.
A week?
Sure. It was a weekly publication, same as the other Jewish publications in English.
This is from about 1954 to about 1970/75?
That’s right.
And in that time you built up your own printing press?
We had a printing works and editorial and administrative offices. It became an address known and visited by many. The place was 100 Market Street, Johannesburg. We found the right people to work for us, we found the adverts, we distributed the newspaper through the CAN and directly to our subscribers.
How many people did you employ at the time?
I think between fifteen and twenty. Two years after purchasing the newspaper, we bought a property where we housed the printing works and the offices of the newspaper.
So the printing that was done on the premises was that of the newspaper only? You didn’t take in any outside work?
Not much. We brought out four big issues a year: for Rosheshone, Peysekh, Israel’s Day of Independence and Chanukah. Together, between 800 and 1000 pages a year.
In Yiddish only?
At first in Yiddish only. Later on, half of each Festival Issue was published in English. The weekly paper, however, remained exclusively in Yiddish.
I understand that the newspaper was very Zionist minded, pro-Israel, while the majority of the readers were perhaps otherwise inclined. Is that true?
Not exactly. Most of the readers were actually Zionist sympathizers. The tragedy was that the organised Yiddishists were so hardened in their old pre-war anti-Zionistic attitude. It amounted to a sort of farce, with overtones of deep irony. Imagine Jews who came from Europe, trying to bring to life a far leftist ‘revolution’ in South Africa! This inevitably resulted in a rift between the newspaper’s ideology as propagated by us and that of the organised Yiddishists. In my capacity as the newspaper’s editor, I did try not to antagonise them, but to no avail. I was, after all, outspokenly and actively an avowed Zionist and have been all my life. The Afrikaner Yidishe Tsaytung was supporting both the Zionist cause and the local Zionist Federation. That had already begun in Gershman’s time.
Were you connected with Israel throughout your editorship of the Afrikaner Yidishe Tsaytung?
I used to visit Israel frequently once we established ourselves, and would remain there for extended periods of time. I always made sure that the articles I wrote while I was in Israel would reach the newspaper in Johannesburg in good time for its weekly publication. I would go to the airport and find someone willing to take it along and forward it, immediately upon arrival, to our offices. If the piece was urgently needed, Shmaryahu Levin would come to the airport himself to collect it at once. As I mentioned before, these were twenty wonderful years for me, filled with work which gave me deep personal satisfaction. And then, like everything in life, the newspaper began its decline. Readers, mostly readers. With the decline in readership came also the decline of love and devotion and so the necessary impetus.
So when did you finally decide to shut down the newspaper?
In 1985.
Could you tell me something about your decision which, I’m sure, was not easy one?
Three things happened almost simultaneously. The readership declined, due to natural causes; Shmaryahu Levin fell ill; and the economic situation in the country changed for the worse. Advertising was not so easily obtainable any more. Still, it was the drop in readership subscriptions which was the decisive factor. It was not worth while any more going on publishing a newspaper for five to six hundred subscribers, however loyal these might be.
In the good times of plentiful readers, would you say, in comparison with the prevalence of Yiddish in the world, that South Africa had a good tradition of the language?
Unfortunately not.
Why so?
Probably due to the fact that the first Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe had no profound Yiddish cultural background.
How far, do you think, it is true to say that Yiddish in South Africa was always a struggling language, that people were not really keen on Yiddish?
I wouldn’t say it struggled when I first came to South Africa. The language of the street was, naturally, English and the new immigrants wanted to learn it. They particularly wanted their children to learn it, even though it caused a great deal of estrangement within families. Even the committed Yiddishists thought that it was enough for Yiddish to satisfy only themselves. Their children they brought up in English.
Do you think it a pity?
I’m certain it is. I think the children would have been culturally richer, being brought up in both cultures instead of just one.
And today, would you say that the young South African Jewish person has a grasp of the two cultures?
Not really. Not as we understand it.
What about Yiddish in Israel?
Yiddish in Israel is not struggling any more as it did once. Hebrew has taken over in most spheres of Israeli life.
Was this a conscious effort on the part of the Zionists?
It was so perhaps, years and years ago. It was a normal enough reaction and development. After all, it is such a small country and the will for a complete renewal was so great. As in the old way, the classical way, instead of answering you directly, I’ll tell you a story. I was walking with the Yiddish poet, H Leivick, in the streets of Tel-Aviv in 1952, and he was expounding to me the necessity of Yiddish. I was younger and cheekier then, and I told him to look at all the various people passing in the street, coming from all corners of the globe, among them many places where Yiddish was unknown. ‘Do you want to begin now to teach them Yiddish?’ I asked him. And Levick answered: ‘What did they bring with them, those who came from Pakistan, from Aden and other like places? How much culture, Jewish culture, have they brought with them? So why not Yiddish? We did have, and we brought with us, a language specifically ours and a culture of a thousand years of Jewish history.’ It was perhaps a good answer but on a level which did little for the people we saw passing us in the street. It neither reached them nor did it translate into an incentive for them. They had to learn Hebrew to get by in daily life, to earn a living.
So do you see any future for Yiddish?
Yes, but on a different, very high level. Yiddish is nowadays taught in many universities. I regularly receive letters from Jewish intellectuals written in a beautiful literary Yiddish. Not kitchen Yiddish but Shabes Yiddish, and so it shall remain. A few hundred years ago, a Jew was not allowed to study at Oxford, but today, Oxford – of all places – has a big centre for the study of Yiddish.
So you think positively about the future of Yiddish?
As a language of the Jews in the street, no. But then, there is no Jewish street, as we knew it, any more.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
