The Bnei Akiva Yeshiva and the founding of Yeshiva College

Among the first students were Ben Isaacson, Mendy Katz, Walter Serebro, Baba Davidowitz, Alec Bassin, Mike Wolfson, Pinky Fisher, Joey Rosenbaum, Joe Simon, Natan (Nossy) Super and Eliyahu Illos. Illos, who came to South Africa with his parents from Israel in 1951, remembers that Rabbi Kossowsky taught Gemara, Rabbi Baruch Rabinowitz Tanach and Shulchan Aruch (Chayei Adam) and Rabbi L Singer Mishna. The remaining three groups met at the Beth Hamedrash Hagadol. Joe Simon recalls that he and his fellow Bnei Akiva members walked long distances to attend shiurim. There was no question of any of the students studying full-time at this early stage, but it was stated from the outset that the intention was to develop the institution into an all-day Yeshiva.

As recounted by Mendy Katz, those early Yeshiva bachurim, pioneering idealists as they were, were also very much influenced by the popular culture of their contemporaries and hence existed in two distinct worlds:

Parallel to this world, we had the world of Dandy, Hostspur, and Beano comics, Rockfist Rogan hammering the Nazis, cricket, blazers of Athlone High School, Billy Bunter of the lower fourth and his creampuffs, the bugles and drums of the famous Athlone Band, the songs of Nat King Cole and Dean Martin and Gerry Lewis movies. Our teachers had to put up with all of this

Wolfy Pimstein later recalled that his motivation for joining the Yeshiva had deep Zionist roots. As a Dati Zionist, he believed that in order to play his part in the rebuilding of Israel as a Torah-observant Jew, he needed a deeper knowledge of Judaism than what the local Chedorim could provide.

Jewish leaders locally and overseas received the news of the first South African Yeshiva “with joy and enthusiasm” according to the Zionist Record. Letters of congratulation were received from Israel, the USA and England. One such message came from Chief Rabbi Isaac Halevy Hertzog of Israel: “I sincerely hope and pray that your Yeshiva will produceTalmidei Chachamim – distinguished Jewish scholars, who will to some extent fill the awful vacuum which has been created and will play their part both in Israel and in the Diaspora in reviving a true spirit of Judaism”.

Mizrachi leader Zeev Gold expressed the hope that the success of the Yeshiva would bring about “the badly needed and long overdue” religious revival in South Africa: “The fact that in South Africa where there is such a great need for a Yeshiva the initiative should have been taken by young South African-born people is extremely commendable and you deserve every blessing”, he said. The Yeshiva would be responsible for realising the highest Mizrachi ideal, which was the spreading of the study of Torah. He expressed the hope that the students might one day come to “continue their studies in Zion, where they will play their important role in the spiritual development of Israel”.

Parktown premises, 1953-1956

The first three years of the Yeshiva Ketanah, now called the Bnei Akiva Yeshiva, were spent alternating between temporary premises in Doornfontein and Berea. Clearly, it was not the ideal way to run an institution for which so many had such high hopes, but at this early stage there was no prospect of actually acquiring a property. The solution was happily provided by the Mirkin-Seeff families, who in November 1953 made their spacious home and grounds at 8 Victoria Avenue, Parktown, available rent-free to the Yeshiva. It placed the Yeshiva on an entirely new footing, paving the way for the appointment of a full-time Dean and the enrollment of the first “full-time students” (in the sense that they physically lived at the Yeshiva and attended daily afternoon classes). The one-and-a half acre property today forms part of the campus of the Johannesburg College of Education. It had dormitory facilities for full-time students if required.

With the premises issue so felicitously settled, and by now sufficiently established to qualify for a small monthly allocation from the United Communal Fund, the institution was now ready to proceed to the next step, that of establishing itself as a full-time Yeshiva while continuing to provide programmes for part-time students. By mid-1954, plans were afoot to turn the Parktown headquarters into a fully staffed Yeshiva Centre, with live-in students who would continue their secular education at local schools and universities but be based at the Yeshiva and devote a certain number of hours to Talmud and cognate subjects. In July, Rabbi David Sanders arrived to take up the post of dean of the Bnei Akiva Yeshiva. He would hold that position for the next eight years.

Recording Rabbi Sanders’ contribution to the growth of Yeshiva College, The Yeshivite of 1978 stated: “His energetic labours yielded remarkable results, and the magnificent complex in Glenhazel that now houses the Yeshiva College is a tribute to his guidance and energy”. Like his successor, the future Rosh Yeshiva Rabbi A H Tanzer, and the first Rosh Yeshiva of the College’s Yeshiva Gedolah Rabbi Azriel Goldfain, he was a Telz graduate. He hailed from an established rabbinical family, with one grandfather, Rabbi Shlomo Aaron Wertheimer, being a noted Biblical commentator and the other a rabbi in Jerusalem. Still a young, unmarriedy bochur himself when he arrived (he subsequently married Edith, sister of Rabbi Shlomo, Issy and Natie Kirsh), he was passionate, dynamic and deeply committed, probably just the right man at the right time at this pivotal time in the institution’s history.

At the time of Rabbi Sanders’ arrival, some fifty students were attending the Yeshiva’s classes, mainly schoolchildren, but with groups at Wits University and the Medical School as well. Rabbi Sanders was to be assisted by the Rosh Yeshiva Rabbi Kossowsky, Rabbi Baruch Rabinowitz, Rabbi Joseph Bronner and other voluntary lecturers.

In singling out those outstanding individuals who played the leading roles in establishing Yeshiva College and seeing it through the difficult formative years, the name of Rabbi Bronner stands high on the list. Not forgetting Rabbi Kossowsky’s crucial pioneering role, cut short by his early death, and the outstanding contribution of many other individuals over shorter periods of time, he was one of an elite handful of dedicated lay leaders who can be said to have rendered the most sustained and valuable service to Yeshiva College over the years. A diamond merchant by trade, his involvement with the institution extended to delivering shiurim, fundraising, serving as chairman of the Yeshiva College council from 1958 to 1962 and thereafter as president into the 1990s. Equally important was the contribution of his wife, Leila Bronner, after whom the girls high school was named in 1980.  Among other things Dr (later Professor) Leila Bronner, a lecturer in Hebrew at various institutions in Johannesburg, was the co-founder and first chairlady of the Ladies Committee of the Yeshiva. Dr Bronner was a graduate of the Beth Jacob Teachers’ Seminary of America as well as of the University of the Witwatersrand.

Selecting four of the more advanced students, the Yeshiva embarked on the experimental project of a full-time Yeshiva in August 1954. The Zionist Record of 26 November of that year features a report and a rare photograph of the Yeshiva in action, showing the four youngsters, Wolfy Pimstein, Eliyahu Illos, Nossy Super and Mendy Katz attending a shiur by Rabbi Sanders. It was an image of Jewish youth that few South African Jews had been exposed to up until then outside of nostalgia-generated retrospectives of shtetl life. The prevailing image of a Talmud scholar was that of a wizened, white-bearded old man; the Yeshiva was challenging the stereotype.

The four idealistic teenagers, who by committing themselves to a permanent, regulated live-in learning routine on the Yeshiva’s premises effectively comprised its pioneering class, went on to follow widely differing career paths. Each, however, remained committed to the Jewish values and ideals that had motivated their decision in the first place. Mendy Katz went into the rabbinate. After leaving South Africa, he learned at the Telz and Baltimore Yeshivot and went on to become Senior Ram at Kfar Ha’roeh, near Hadera.

Nossy Super, who came from a Shomer Shabbat home in Warmbaths, went on to teach Hebrew at the Hebrew Teachers’ Seminary. Wolfie Pimstein studied agricultural engineering at Pretoria University and Eliyahu Illos studied chemical engineering. Mendy Katz remembers that Illos, a gifted mathematician, was considered “one of the biggest brains” at Athlone and a big catch for the Yeshiva.

For the four live-in students, the day’s programme was a lengthy one. After getting up for davvening at 06h30, they would attend school in the mornings (all four went to Athlone Boys High), return to the Yeshiva in the afternoons for lunch, complete their homework (supervised by Rabbi Sanders) and then commence learning with Rabbi Sanders, usually finishing late at night. Several of Rabbi Sanders’ talmidim, in a joint letter to the Zionist Record some years later, paid warm tribute to their rebbe’s dedication, whether it meant “staying up all night with a sick boy, playing sports or patiently teaching and instilling a love for Torah in children who were raised in an atmosphere quite devoid of Judaism’s greatest heritage”.

Food was supplied by the Carmel Hotel in Yeoville, on the corner of Muller and Grafton Roads (and which subsequently served for a long time as the premises for the Kollel Yad Shaul). It was delivered, Illos recalls, by one of the hotel butlers on a bicycle. Illos remembers Rabbi Sanders as “very dedicated, very sincere” and often quite emotional (“he used to cry when we were naughty”). Despite the daunting schedule, the boys’ general studies did not suffer. On the contrary, as the Federation Chronicle put it in March 1955, since they had been in full-time residence they had “shown remarkable progress in their secular day school work”.

Under Rabbi Sanders’ tutelage, the boys were introduced to new ways of thinking and behaving. Such concepts as genaivas daas now meant not listening to records in the local store unless one wished to buy them, and going to mixed swimming (once taken for granted) was now no longer acceptable. Though the four boys took their work seriously, there was a lighter side as well. Mendy Katz recalls how he and his fellow students, in honor of their heroes in the Transvaal Scottish Regiment, formed their own “regiment”, called the “Yeshiva Scottish”. Marches of the Athlone Band like “Cadets” and “Airforce” were sung to words from a passage in the Gemorah in Bava Metziah. To overcome feelings of being out of place at school by their head coverings, the boys hit on the idea of wearing straw boaters with the school band around it, thereby inadvertently starting up a new fashion and reviving an old-fashioned public school tradition.

Shabbat at the Yeshiva was always a special time, particularly after the numbers of full-time residents had swelled to the point where minyanim became possible. Mr Seeff had his own Sefer Torah, and the room where it was kept became the Beit Medrash. It was a source of great joy to Mr Seeff, who daily would get up when it was still dark and say Tehillim until Shachrit, to have a minyan in his home.

The establishment of a full-time Yeshiva, the first venture of its kind to be introduced to Johannesburg and South Africa, and the appointment of its first dean, was celebrated at the Coronation Hall in Johannesburg at the end of August 1954. Describing the step as a turning point in the life of South African Jewry, Rabbi Kossowsky noted that this was the first time outside the State of Israel that Bnei Akiva had undertaken to create such an institution, and also the first time in South Africa that a Zionist movement had taken the initiative in forming an educational institution.

Other speakers at the function also stressed the importance of both Judaism and Zionism in contemporary Jewish life. Jedidiah Blumenthal, on behalf of the S A Zionist Federation, extended greetings to Rabbi Sanders. The Zionist Federation welcomed two types of immigration, he said. One was the immigration of Jews to Israel and the other was the migration of people like Rabbi Sanders to South Africa. World Jewry was now recognising the necessity of Judaism, and Bnei Akiva were to be congratulated on their initiative in creating this new institution.

In reporting on the progress of the Yeshiva in November that year, the Zionist Record said that Talmud, Tanach, “with a fine attention to all the classical and modern commentaries”, Shulchan Aruch and Hebrew (speaking, reading and literature) were being studied. “Of special interest” was the study of Jewish history, which brought to life “all great Jewish events and personalities of the past. The boy studies the memorable happenings of his people’s history and they become the background for his understanding of present-day Jewish problems”.

Love of Israel and the ultimate goal of settling there was instilled and inculcated in the students, the Zionist Record report continued. The Bnei Akiva Yeshiva intended serving a three-fold purpose. First, it aimed to “fit out spiritually those of its chaverim who wish to settle in Eretz Yisrael so that they may be spiritual as well as physical chalutzim and understand fully the concept of Torah Ve’Avodah”. Next, it sought “to produce a well- educated Jewish laity from which will come the future communal leadership of SA Jewry”. Only third on the list was mentioned its role as a vehicle whereby “those of its students who are capable and interested in serving the Jewish community to receive that education which will fit them for the role of Rabbi, teacher or shochet”.

The year 1955 began with nine full-time students and by the start of the winter term in April, the number had increased to twelve, their ages ranging from 14 to 17. Students attended various high schools around the city before returning to the Yeshiva, where a full programme including time for homework, recreation and higher Jewish studies had been put in place.

Speaking at a garden party that formally opened the Winter term of that year, Rabbi Kopul Rosen, a prominent UK rabbinical leader and educationalist and one of the first of many world-renowned rabbinical leaders from abroad who would provide much-needed words of chizuk (encouragement, strength) for the Yeshiva during their visits, urged the Yeshiva to strive for the highest standards, and not to be distracted by calls to fit in with the way the mainstream community was conducting itself. It was not necessary to be “adaptable”, he stressed. A tree was firmly planted and could not be moved, whereas the chaff moved wherever the wind blew it.

In the same way, a person who was adaptable and able to find his place anywhere in reality found his place nowhere. The Yeshiva was “unadaptable” and therefore the criticism which it sometimes received for “not fitting into the stream of life” should not be taken seriously.

Graduation ceremony, December 1956

In December, coinciding with the conclusion of the Parktown phase of the Yeshiva’s existence, an important milestone for the young Yeshiva was celebrated when four of the original talmidim departed to continue their studies overseas. They were Siggy Suchard, David Fine, Mendy Katz and Shmuel Himmelstein, the first three going to Telz and the fourth to the Baltimore Yeshiva. At the same time Zalman Kossowsky, Rabbi Michel’s son, was going to Ponevez in Israel. He had not been associated very much with the Yeshiva and presumably had studied privately under his father, although during the very early days he certainly attended at least some of the classes. However, he subsequently returned to South Africa, serving as Rav of the Sydenham-Highlands North congregation and teaching in the Kodesh department of the Yeshiva. Rabbis Yitzchak, Michel and Zalman Kossowsky thus had the collective distinction of producing the very first grandfather-to-grandson rabbinical dynasty in South Africa.

Not forgetting several past students, such as Ben Isaacson and Mike Wolfson, who had previously left to study overseas, the foursome were effectively the first graduates produced by the Yeshiva following its establishment on a more permanent, formally constituted basis under a full-time Dean.

At the farewell function for the departing graduates, held on 12 December in the Coronation Hall, Rabbi Kossowsky commented that South Africa had now entered a new era of providing young men of learning. The South African Jewish community had always been generous in its support of Israel and had always been praised as an ideal community, he said, but at the same time it could not be denied that Yiddishkeit was lamentably weak.

“We are now producing our own scholars and learned men. It is a new trend and gives promise of the rich harvest that awaits us in the future” he said.

As always, and predictably in a community where advancing the Zionist cause took precedence over almost everything else, there were others who took a less favorable view. One outraged correspondent to the SA Jewish Times (4 January 1957) insisted that the youths should rather have fulfilled the Bnei Akiva ideal by going to Israel instead. Chief Rabbi Louis Rabinowitz, perhaps anticipating such objections, said that America was one of the greatest centres of Jewish learning in the world. He compared the departure of the five bochrim to the pre-war practice of American Jews going to study in Europe, after which they would return to enrich American Jewish life:

A Yeshiva is not a professional institution for turning out rabbis. The Yeshiva’s role is to do away with ignorance and imbue Jews with a love and knowledge of Judaism. Whatever these boys may decide to do, they will justify themselves by raising the spiritual standard of South African Jewry and, by their example, fervor and love.

Rabbi Rabinowitz continued that the boys should regard their trip as “a sacred mission”, following which they would return and make their mission more widespread than it was. With characteristic eloquence, he invoked the example of the Torah giants of the past who had defied the odds to establish thriving Torah communities in the unlikeliest of places:

The terrain here is not easy, but they should keep before them the examples of Rav and Rashi who, facing and overcoming every adverse circumstance, were responsible for Talmudic learning taking root in Babylon and France. These five students from our own Yeshiva represent a sublimation – quantity is being distilled into quality.

More typical of the average Jewish South African’s attitude to the Yeshiva of the time was the way the SA Jewish Times reported on the farewell function. While dutifully commending the enthusiasm and commitment of the Yeshiva’s supporters, there was more than just a hint of damning with faint praise, if not of downright skepticism, in the unidentified correspondent’s report:

A spiritually elevating and fervent atmosphere prevailed at the BneiAkiva Yeshiva anniversary reception, which was combined with a farewell to five students from the Yeshiva [Zalman Kossowsky was included here] who are leaving for overseas to further their studies. And they were not just bearded old men and women with sheitels, relics of an irrevocable past, who came to do homage to traditional teaching. There was a healthy sprinkling of youth in the gathering for whom these things are more than an echo from the past. Whatever the intrinsic merit of their beliefs, one could in one moment sense that they are rooted and have a goal in life which is more than can be said of a very large part of the rising generation.