(Reviewer: Kathy Munro, Vol. 71, No. 3, Chanukah 2016)
At first glance, this would appear to be a book of limited appeal. It is likely to be read with enthusiasm by the members of the Schrire family, because it is a collection of family manuscripts. Perhaps it is also likely to appeal to the Jewish community, where there is an interest in roots and Jewish genealogy. But this is entirely the wrong conclusion. The Reb and the Rebel – Jewish Narratives in South Africa, 1892-1913, adds to the history of Jewish settlement in South Africa while also throwing light on Cape Town social history in the two decades before World War I. As I turned the pages, I found it to be a surprisingly good read, and concluded that it is a book of far wider appeal than the title signals. These are personal stories of immigration, new lives, struggle, trial and travails that speak for so many who came to South Africa in search of better lives.
The Reb and the Rebel is a story of a particular family, the Schrires, told through the diary and a long epic poem of a Lithuanian-born father, Reb Yehuda Leib (1851-1912) and a memoir of his youngest son, Harry (1895-1980), who was born in Cape Town and was hence a first generation South African. There is a universality in this immigrant story, one telling of travel, hardship, poverty, family roots, adventure, entrepreneurship, illness, first business success, early financial set-backs followed by efforts to try yet another venture, longer term prosperity and eventually the founding of families which became prominent and successful.
I particularly liked the formal family photograph from 1911, showing the patriarch, Reb Yehuda, with his wife, four children, daughter in law and three grandchildren. The family poses in comfortable affluence and confidence. A studio portrait signals a certain status of immigrant outward achievement and success.
There is a strong interest in Jewish genealogy in South Africa, as much as there is in the USA and Britain. People everywhere search for their ancestors and look for geographical roots. The Southern African Jewish Interest Group website, founded by Dr Saul Issroff, provides a huge amount of information about Jewish history and settlement. Between 1880 and 1914, there was a ten-fold increase in Jewish immigration to South Africa, with the Jewish community growing from 4000 to over 40 000. 90% of the immigrants came from Eastern Europe, mainly Lithuania. Issroff, in an online article on researching Jewish genealogies in South Africa, explains that these ‘Litvaks’ came from the provinces of Kovno, Vilna and Grodno, from Northern Suwalki (East Prussia and later Poland) and also from the Byelorussian provinces of Vitebsk, Mogilev and Minsk. In the first South African Union census of 1911, 47 000 Jews were enumerated. Unlike other Jewish communities that formed in North America and Australia, the South African Jewish community was largely homogenous in their origins in the years before 1920.
Why did these Lithuanian Jews come to South Africa, thereby spreading the Jewish diaspora to the southern tip of Africa? Were there any common patterns? Demographic history reveals a combination of push and pull factors in migratory surges, combined with the progress in transport and travel that made movement possible and affordable. Lithuania has a proud independent history but for several centuries it was part of the Russian Empire and for a brief time occupied by Nazi Germany. In the late 19th Cent u r y, Jewish communities in hamlets and towns found themselves subject to pogroms and antisemitic waves; despite the strong religious, and hence literate traditions, poverty was widespread and epidemics, drought, harvest failures, army service, fires among narrow wooden village buildings and political events may have pushed emigration. But what this family’s history reveals is that migration could be reversed and families or individuals could take a decision to return to their homeland or try out alternative spells of residence in England or Germany before coming ‘home’ to Africa. Movement could be both north and south and, provided one had the funds for steamship travel, there was some fluidity in travel by the early 20th Century, with regular sailings between South Africa and Europe.
This volume, comprising three distinct autobiographical manuscripts by two men, has been given cohesion and context through the work of the two editors and family members, Carmel Schrire and Gwynne Schrire, both competent scholars and researchers. In an introductory chapter they explain the South African context of the Schrire manuscripts, the origin of the manuscripts and how they were found, transcribed and translated. Here are the biographical thumbnail sketches of father and son, so that one is given a road map before one even tries to read the main text. Their footnotes are a model of scholarship. The diary of Reb Yehuda, his epic poem and then the memoirs of his son, Harry, make up much the greater part of the book. A final chapter by Carmel Schrire is a discourse on the authors of the manuscripts and extends the coverage on family background, marriages and of lives well lived.
In my opinion, the two context chapters should have been placed together and edited to eliminate repetition. In addition to this, what is missing and which should have been researched was the broader international context of the Jewish diaspora and migration. An appendix, compiled by Paul Cheifitz, lists the genealogy of the Schrire family. It is set out in a long list of names, indented further into a page for the next generation. Additional appendices document writings and art works by Yehuda Schrire. An essential glossary of Yiddish and Hebrew words enables readers to understand colloquial and written language.
The diary of Reb Yehuda Schrire, written in cursive Hebrew, is a rare document, recounting a period of 19 months in his life between 1892 and 1893. It reveals a momentous time of emigration from Europe, his own arrival and sojourn in Johannesburg, his decision to return to Lithuania and then his change of mind and prospects when he settled instead in Cape Town. The account of why he left Neustadt and of his journey to Johannesburg via Germany, Holland and England is fascinating. He travelled on the Dunbar Castle and stopped at Las Palmas before reaching Cape Town. It was a three-month epic journey and the voice of the curious, observant traveler comes through. Where the diary makes a new and interesting contribution is in his observations on life in early Johannesburg from the perspective of a proud, conservative religious man whose employment was that of a religious leader and cantor to the Park Synagogue. Schrire quickly found that there wasn’t a match between the acculturated Anglo-German Jewish congregation and the traditional Eastern European Rabbi. He did not think they were sufficiently Jewish in their religious observance, dress and language, and in their readiness to shave their beards and abandon kosher food. Schrire was open in his criticism of his fellow Jews and their new town. He commented, “…it is unbelievable that within seven years a city could be built in the wild South Africa within rocky mountains and hills of sand. A big city and a fortified metropolis. It is one point that gives light to almost the whole land of Africa, with its golden sands and houses of bank notes.” His layman’s description of gold mining draws the distinction between prospectors, engineers and the ‘kaffirs’ who do the digging once a promising seam has been located. Finding himself in penurious circumstances and not able to fit into Johannesburg, Schrire decides to return to Russia and his home, hence his return to Cape Town, where he takes up employment as a ritual slaughterer. It is South Africa’s gain, as Schrire puts down roots and his wife and family eventually join him.
The second historic document is Reb Yehuda’s epic poem, the Tolada. Of some 150 stanzas, and also written in Hebrew, this sets out the story of his life. The first third of the poem covers the same ground as his travel diary, but thereafter details his Cape Town experiences and life, travels and troubles of family life, illness and survival. Throughout his life his religious faith gave him a steadfast guide to understanding life and his role as son, husband, father and religious leader. He was a talented man who could turn his hand to practical crafts as well as literary compositions, but in his final years (he died in 1912) he regarded himself and his life as a failure.
Harry Nathan Schrire, whose memoirs conclude the volume, was far more secular than his father, although his upbringing in Cape Town was Orthodox. These reminiscences cover his family and ancestry, childhood, school days and Jewish life in Cape Town in the first decade of the 20th Century. Harry left South Africa following Reb Yehuda’s death to study medicine in Edinburgh. His father’s life had been lived within religious confines and within fairly narrow constraints of tradesman, shopkeeper and butcher occupations, but Harry has the opportunity to make the transition to professional status within a generation. However, his world was even less certain and firm than that of his father and his plans were disrupted by the First World War. He returned to South Africa in 1920 and made his career in retailing.
This book combines a family story and sets one thinking about immigration and its implications for individuals, family and community. This family story would make a wonderful film. However, the title The Reb and the Rebel will not be easily understood by a wider readership and fails to capture the characters of the two protagonists.
The Reb and the Rebel Jewish Narratives in South Africa 1892-1913, edited by Carmel Schrire and Gwynne Schrire, UCT Press and Kaplan Centre of Jewish Studies and Research, University of Cape Town, 2016, illustrated, 258pp.
Kathy Munro is an Honorary Associate Professor in the School of Architecture and Planning at the University of the Witwatersrand. Having trained as an economic historian, she now researches and writes on historical architecture and heritage matters and has a regular book review column on the online Heritage Portal (where an earlier version of this review first appeared).
