(Reviewer: Cedric Ginsberg, Vol. 67, No. 3, Chanukah 2012)
The South African Jewish Community is unique among the communities in the Jewish world – and nowhere is this more evident than in the pages of this book. It is a relatively young community. It was only from the time of the 1820 Settlers in the Cape Colony that a form of sustainable Jewish life came to be established. Under the rule of the Dutch East India Company – all servants of the Company who were also residents, had, at least nominally, to be Christian. Individual cases of conversion of Jews during the period of Dutch sovereignty are recorded. The Napoleonic Wars precipitated the first British Occupation in 1795. In 1815 Britain legally acquired the Cape Colony by a treaty signed with the Netherlands1. The first recorded Jewish service took place in Cape Town in 1841, and the first synagogue was built in the Gardens in 1863. The original building still stands next to the present Gardens Shul and serves as the entrance to the Cape Town Jewish Museum. Most of the Jewish immigrants until the discovery of gold on the Witwatersrand hailed from England and Western Europe. It was only from the 1880’s that Eastern European Jews mainly from Lithuania, White Russia (Belarus), Latvia and Northern Poland began to arrive in numbers. The earlier arrivals were responsible for setting up many of the formal structures of communal life, particularly in the cities, but it was the Eastern European Jews who introduced its neshome, its soul.
Many of the early arrivals eked out a living as smouses – itinerant pedlars. Later, they would perhaps open a store in a town along their peddling route. Over the years, most of the general dealer stores (algemene handelaars) were owned by Jews – spread out in many of the small towns around what would become the Union of South Africa in 1910. Hyman Polski, an early South African Yiddish writer, was also the editor of the Afrikaner Yidishe Tsaytung published weekly in Johannesburg. He published a slim volume of short stories in Yiddish in the late 1930s. The opening story in this volume, called In Afrike, was Der ‘Trayer’. This story epitomised the lot of many early immigrant arrivals from Eastern Europe. The word ‘trayer’ ( ) entered into the South African Yiddish lexicon to mean to ‘try’ and make a living this way or that – until they found something that suited them. So the smousing trail often turned into a shop in a small town. Over the years many Jews settled in small towns along the length and breadth of South Africa, running stores and many of the hotels. The stores frequently catered to the surrounding farming communities. This status quo probably endured until after World War II. From this time South Africa enjoyed a period of economic growth. From the early 1950s a slow migration of Jews began from the smaller towns towards the larger towns and cities. The younger generation tended to opt for the professions and frequently left to settle in larger urban areas where they saw greater opportunities. The trend accelerated in the 1960s and from the 1970s was accompanied by an increasing trend of immigration to Israel, Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom. As time went on the country communities shrank and the urban ones increased.
It was the late Dr Jocelyn Hellig who, in a 1984 book on the community edited by Marcus Arkin, referred to the nature of Jewish religious expression in South Africa as “non-observant orthodox”.2 This means that although many South African Jews may not be fully observant in the orthodox mould, large numbers affiliate to orthodox synagogues. Many may drive to synagogue on Friday night or on Yom tov – but it is to an orthodox shul that they do so. This is a unique phenomenon in the Jewish world. The community may have become more generally observant since the publication of Arkin’s book. However, this phenomenon persists and I believe that it is due the earlier spread of the community over so many platteland communities around the country. As people moved to the larger centres, they maintained the custom of driving into the town in order to attend services – even if it were Shabbat. It gradually became an accepted practice even though it was highly frowned upon by the Rabbinate.
The SA Friends of Beth Hatefutsoth Project has, up to the present, published five volumes entitled Jewish Life: In the South African Country Communities, covering present day Limpopo Province, Western Cape and the Great Karoo, the Southern and Eastern Cape and the former Transkei, Kwazulu-Natal and the Free State. These volumes record an enormous amount of information relevant to the establishment and early years of many country communities. The project has identified well over 1500 places around the country where there has been a Jewish presence.
What Rabbi Silberhaft has done in his new book The Travelling Rabbi: My African Tribe (co-written with well-known editor and journalist Suzanne Belling, who serves on the editorial board of this journal) is, among other things, to record the demise of many of these communities. He has referred to how they flourished in their heyday. In a very compassionate way, he has frequently been the person who has overseen their shutting down. Synagogues do not have any innate holiness: once the Torahs (Torot) have been removed and the building deconsecrated, it can be used for any other purpose. In many cases the Rabbi saw to it that the furniture – the Aron Kodesh, Bimah, pews – were ‘recycled’ and installed in another operating shul, often in Israel. In this way, suitably recorded by means of a wall plaque, a part of the old shul lives on, in new surroundings. The cemeteries of defunct communities are unfortunately particularly vulnerable. It was saddening to read again and again of the vandalising of these cemeteries (for example Lichtenburg and Ermelo). The solution seems to have been found in the laying of tombstones flat on a bed of concrete, in order to minimise future damage.
The country communities have, in most cases, been depleted to the extent that only a few individuals remain in a town. The Rabbi keeps in touch with these people and from time to time organises a regional get-together, so that people from neighbouring towns have contact with one another. He brings kosher food and enables these isolated individuals to experience some Jewish conviviality. This assists in maintaining the links of identification within the community. One of the problems of living in isolation, particularly where an individual has married out, is that there may be increasing estrangement from tradition. An issue which the Rabbi unfortunately confronts repeatedly is cremation. Jewish tradition does not permit cremation – and particularly in the postHolocaust era, this practice seems all the more abhorrent. He has often been successful in averting a cremation from taking place.
Community Rabbis usually take care of the spiritual needs of a single community in one suburb within one city. Rabbi Silberhaft’s community is the whole of sub-Saharan Africa as well as Mauritius – a huge area. I believe that as community Rabbi, he serves the largest community in the world! He is also a very active member of the African Jewish Congress. This organisation takes care of matters of Jewish interest in this region outside the borders of South Africa.
This book is well-written and easy and interesting to read. It is also a very important book. Together with the Beth Hatefutsoth Project, it constitutes a record of Jewish settlements around South Africa. The Beth Hatefutsoth volumes chronicle their beginnings and the peak of their existence. This book tells of those Jewish communities which have survived into the 21st Century – how they continue to exist or how they have been closed down. I believe that the book should have had an index. It would then have been easy to find a reference to any town or personality within that town. The book is both a personal memoir as well as an historical record of the fate of many country communities. As such I believe it demands an index in addition to the glossary.
I was disappointed to find an inaccuracy or two in the book. On page 16 there is a reference to Kristallnacht as having occurred in 1936. In fact that “pogrom” occurred in Germany, Austria and areas in Europe controlled by Nazi Germany, on 9-10 November 1938. There are references on pages 125 and 133 to Louis Herrman’s important book on the early history of Jewish South Africa. Herrman’s name is spelt “Herman”. That said, I highly recommend this charming book as an enjoyable read and an important addition to our knowledge of the South African Jewish community.
The Travelling Rabbi: My African Tribe by Moshe Silberhaft, with Suzanne Belling, Jacana Media, 2012, 416pp.
Cedric Ginsberg, a frequent contributor to and long-serving member of the editorial board of Jewish Affairs, has taught Jewish Studies at Wits and Hebrew and Jewish Studies at Unisa. He teaches Yiddish at the Hebrew Academy at the Rabbi Cyril Harris Community Centre in Johannesburg.
Notes
- R. H. Davenport, South Africa: A Modern History. Cape Town: Southern Book Publishers, 1988, pp. 42-43.
- Jocelyn Hellig, “Religious expression”, in South African Jewry: A Contemporary Survey. (edited by Marcus Arkin).
Cape Town: Oxford University Press, 1984, pp. 102 ff.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
