‘You are not in Lithuania anymore’ – Yehuda Leib Schrire in Johannesburg, 1892-3

After Shabbat he caught the train. At Vereeniging the railway line ended, and he caught the coach that would take him the rest of the way. He missed the chance to get a place inside the covered wagon and instead had to go up onto the roof where the passengers placed their bags and clothes:

After about 20 Russian versts, we came to a station where they changed mules for others standing ready only I could not see the light of day because I had about a finger’s depth of dust on my face and on my clothes, my hair and my lips and I could feel pebbles crushing my teeth. I went down from the wagon and I asked my acquaintances who were sitting inside to give me a place to sit there. They agreed because they had given me great honour all the days of my travelling with them. Although of course the great heat that gathered inside the wagon choked me, I still felt grateful to be alive. I opened the window of the wagon, smoked a pipe and felt a bit better. We travelled on the mule cart for six hours without a stop. By 3 in the afternoon we already could see houses built in the correct way from iron sheets. There were also gardens and trees planted around them. It was unbelievable that in only eight years the great veld would have beautiful buildings, orderly and organised according to the rules of Europe and thousands of people would be on its streets.

‘Hooray! Johannesburg!’ the people called with a great cheer. ‘Look! Over there is a great town to G-d.’

The wagon stood at the stop in Pritchard Street and the passengers started to get down. One fell into the arms of his father and one into that of his acquaintance, this one to his uncle and that one to his saviour who had sent him money for the expenses of the journey. I also heard a voice calling my name. I turned my head and here was my brother-in-law standing and waiting for me.

We travelled in a cart to his house. It was a sleep of pleasure in my brother-in-law’s house In the evening I got up from my bed and there was a loyal messenger sent after me because Fettel, the father of the bridegroom, had heard that I had arrived in town and sent for me to come and take part in the simchah, even though I was tired and weary from the labour of a journey of 28 days on the water, two days and three nights on the railways from Cape Town and six hours on the mule cart and that does not include three days and nights until Vlissingen.

At the simcha, Schrire sang and also gave a drosha. The next day, he met with the heads of the community:6

They spoke to me in the Ashkenazi language to which they were not accustomed and they were all people of trouble. They were shaven! They had no payot! They asked me to cut my beard and my long hair!‘Your honour’, they said, ‘you are not in Lithuania anymore. Over there they will not look at the clothes of the cantor and the reverend. The weightier the clothes and the longer the payot, the more honour would be given the person, but in Africa the very honoured ladies will look at the reverend with seven eyes and if they do not like him, even though he continued to amaze the listeners with his singing and sweet words, all of this will come to nothing and to naught.’

heard their words and I was amazed. These were not the kind of people with whom I should associate.7 The eyes of ignorant English types would not like me because their ways were far away from me. I, to their dismay, grew up on the lap of Judaism among the people of Lithuania who do not pay attention to clothes but to talents and advantages. I had already shortened the clothes that I wore up to my knees before they had seen them because I was afraid that they would be a mockery to their eyes. Nevertheless they told me that I could not come to pray in their prayer house in a garment like that. Very quickly they conspired and called a tailor to me. He stood and measured my height and my length, my width and my breadth. On Friday morning the tailor brought me the new clothes that he had made for me and they paid the price for it – £9 and 5 shillings….

On Thursday the princes of the community came to see me. One of them was very boastful about his wealth and wisdom and he brought me different books of music so that I would learn to pray from them on the following Saturday according to the English manner and style. In the newspaper that came out every day it was written that on Shabbat Harav Schrire would pray. With a broken heart and a nervous soul I came to their house of prayer where they were praying until the wonderful building that came afterwards would be completed. People were sitting on chairs and the house seemed like a barn with small windows and the ceiling was made of a cloth spread out. The Holy Ark and the table on the bimah were also made from the packing cases that had brought goods from England through the sea to Africa.

Three weeks later the Park Synagogue (“large and expensive”) was completed. Schrire attended the dedication ceremony, where President Paul Kruger officially opened the building, but decided against attending the subsequent banquet in Kruger’s honour:

I knew in my heart that it was not for a man like me to mix with Presidents and ministers and among the English who speak English and Dutch. I would just look a mockery in their eyes. Furthermore I would not be able to put the food and drink into my mouth because they were going to have an abomination of a soup and a non-kosher wine because they liked these kinds of foods.8 That is why I came to the dedication of the synagogue but I did not go to the banquet and so passed another two weeks….

Schrire discovered that the synagogue only had prayers on the High Holy Days, so he went to the Johannesburg Orthodox Congregation to pray slichot. This antagonised the committee so, realising that the situation was irremediable, he wrote asking them to pay him whatever was owed to him:

I tore the envelope and in it was £25 and a letter of glory [saying] that they liked me. I was filled with rage9 and I cursed them and my advisers and I did not know what to do. I realised that I had fallen through my own handiwork and I could not get up from this. Who could go to the Beth Din to argue with the person who gave me advice? What is more to bring it to court would be very expensive and who knows if I would win. That is why I bit the flesh of my tongue and kept quiet

After struggling to support himself as a baker, a candy maker, and by conducting a bris in a distant village, and having turned down offers to officiate at the Orthodox Synagogue or run his own services, Schrire decided to return to Europe. Before he did so, he wrote a lengthy article, in which he tore Johannesburg’s Jewish organisations to shreds. Hereunder are some extracts:

‘Israel and its Baggage’ or ‘My People and their Goods’

The Beth Haknesset:

We have two synagogues here, one old10 and one new.11There is only one advantage to the new one, that is, it is already built on its foundations. The owners of the old synagogue saw that their synagogue was falling apart and with competition with its enemy, the new synagogue, they found a new scheme to draw the heart of the congregation to come to them. The rabbi,12 who was also the cantor, picked for himself a choir of beautiful girls who sang on the High Holy Days and with their pleasant voices gladdened the heart of the people who came to the Ma’a r iv prayers on Erev Rosh Hashanah.13 With this kind of promotion, they did very well and collected riches, much more than the new synagogue, which was stingy and did not spend anything on the necessary things.

The new synagogue saw that the creditors had not been paid for the house that they had built, so they looked for all kinds of stingy schemes, thrift and economy. The first days of Chag HaSukkot they said a blessing of the etrog on a Chinese apple. The very learned shammas, who was like ice to us, bought this fancy fruit in a street that sells cheaply and they could not afford to spend a lot of money to buy a fancy etrog. They also found a very ancient lulav on the ceiling of the house of the holy and pure rabbi14and without spending on anything else, they shook it off. With all their hearts they did not want to say the Avinu Malkeinu prayers after Neilah because this was also too much and unnecessary. Also to their great disappointment, a shatz, a native of Russia, who really knew the laws of the prayers, prayed in their synagogue.15 He sinned in his soul and with a loud voice said Avinu Malkeinu Chateinu Lefanecha. Indeed they took their revenge on him for doing it in the correct way. They deducted from the reward of his pay and only gave him half the salary; the remains they held under his hands with the excuse that he did not come on Shabbat.

They had not yet paid for the building, so they thought to make a choir of beautiful girls and then they would be saved. The choir was ready and their eyes were looking forward to salvation through the girls, only to their disappointment [they found that] most of the worshippers in the new synagogue had foreign wives. To look for a great salvation to save Israel from its troubles cannot be done from foreign women and from foreign people.

The Beth Hamedrash is a fancy building built not long ago16 when all the grienes17acted as one and united to come together to pray three times a day and show the people and its leaders – the English people – that there was a special place to say Kaddish on the day of Yortzeit and they would keep it holy and worship every day.18 The members of the Beth Hamedrash made sure in advance that a person who did not pay membership fees would not dare to come to say Kaddishbefore he paid 10/- to the gabbai.This rule was an obstacle to many of the Lithuanians because they were left without kaddishes because of the penalty money. Most of them were poor and they could not afford to give penalty money in the days of their poverty. Still they did not complain. Also, the poor person who dared to open his mouth about the people in Johannesburg had to give in because he too had yortzeit and during the week the Synagogue did not have a minyan.

The Mikvah was in an honoured house but only a few women and one boy came to try to make it work and their husbands did not control it.

Beth Haolam: We have a cemetery in a large square but it is for the rich community leaders who make their own rules and regulations. They know the laws and they do not want to take the grienes into their c ompany.19

The Chevrah Kadisha rules with much strength. It would be nice if they could boast of honest regulations. The members of the chevra have shown everybody that they know how to appreciate the deeds of the gabbai20because they gave him a golden watch engraved with the initials of all the members of thechevra. He carries this monster on his heart while he is carrying out his work and when they see the watch at least they will know what time it is and how much longer they will have to wait until it will fall into their own hands. Whenever someone gets sick and close to his end, then the chevra will pay someone else to help with the sick person and guard him so that, he will not take with him any of the Transvaal merchandise on which they have to pay tax. It is an easy thing to find a griene to serve as a helper and earn double pay.21 If someone will, G-d forbid, die, only then will the chosen people come. Everyone will know them and will know that they have been chosen for the holy work because each one will carry a white sash on his shoulders with a red or white rose on his heart to show that he is alive and enjoying the sweetness of a life of luxury. Nobody else is allowed to touch the dead person’s goods

Gemilut Chesed was established according to the laws of England in every detail. For example, Reuven the son of Jacob is temporarily poor and Hashem by chance has handed him a good deal on Sunday so that he will be able to earn a few pounds but the only obstacle to him is the lack of money. He would then go to the gabbai and the assigned person in charge to ask for a loan but, G-d forbid, he should ask for money on Sunday! Only on Fridays, from 1-2 p.m., has he justification to ask the Gemilut Chasidim. If he loses that time, then he must come back on that day and at that hour the following week to ask for his request.

But he cannot just ask the Gemilut Chesed. It must be done in the English language and on a paper printed for this purpose. Also the poor person must find three rich people to be guarantors otherwise he has to pay. Then, first of all the chevra will take ten shillings for themselves, because that is the regulation.22 Inside that regulation there is another – the person whose situation is bad and who asks for Gemilut Chesed has to be one of their members and the ten shillings is the voucher he has to pay ahead of time. After that the one in charge asks him to bring a voucher every week according to the amount that they decide and they will then give him the rest.

Chevrah Mishnayot: Grief and mourning in the Beth Hamedrash at the planned and regular hour for study with rules. Come evening five grienes will gather, the darkness of their faces will continue to project the terrible vision on their face in the big house. They are sitting around a table with small candles in their hands, their heads upon their chests, the way the Lithuanians used to sit a long time ago on Tisha B’av after kinnot. In their hands are small Mishnayot; they study the chapter together with all their might and with great difficulty until the parnass comes to say it is time to say the evening prayers. The people of the New Synagogue saw this and became jealous and got the idea of starting a Chevra Mishnayotalso under the leadership of a boy. Only to their disappointment all the Mishnah books were printed without vowels. How could they read the name of the Chevrah if not one of them can learn?

Except for these chevrot there are also chevrot and sub-chevrot like the Chevrahof the Sabbath Desecrators – the heads of the community, the Chevra of the English Treif-eaters, the Chevrah of those Married to Foreign Women, the Chevrah of the Poker Players (most of them) not counting transgressors, the lust masters, the Free Masons, the Chevra of the Ba’al Tes h u va hand in each chevrah there are plenty of Bnei Israel – in short nothing is missing there.

Shochtim: The new synagogue took to themselves a newly qualified young shochet who had just recently come out into the world who has bought and sold on the Holy Shabbat. He is not less than any of the chicken shochets to be found in Africa in almost every house because where can you not find a house that does not have there a black Kaffir who can fulfil the job to kill a chicken and can also fulfil the job of being the mashgiach in the kitchen? The rest of the new community has their situation forced upon them to be stingy and to employ shochets and chazans who are naughty boys because they will work for very little salary and will be satisfied with whatever is given to them.

In the old synagogue they had already taken an old shochet, but as our sages have told us, “watch out for the old person who has forgotten his study.”23 What is more, he had not learnt his vocation. The grienes of the Beth Hamedrash employed a Lithuanian shochet, a simple man. Some women say about him that he never was a shochet … but he has signed a written contract for three years to slaughter the animals of the non-Jew who sells the kosher meat. If he changes his mind now, he will be on the losing end and will have to pay a penalty.

Melamdim: The teacher had also taken the land of Africa as a milking cow, especially in Johannesburg. One of them came from Lithuania with grand-daughters in Europe who have come to a marriageable age. From the thousands of families that are living here, only eight boys have come to study with him. They can already say complete words with a stammering tongue because he is teaching them with an English accent in his Lithuanian language and that is why they are reciting the words half in Hebrew and half in English.24

Chazans have also multiplied here and grow like grass. In the old synagogue there are two. A tailor is the first chazan and the second chazan too is not a very small ignoramus and not a great musician. With all these, many are saying that the time has come to overturn the pot, because the last one knows a bit of song while the first one knows nothing.

There are also two in the new synagogue – the first one does not know how to pray and the second one maybe knows nothing. The only difference between the two is that the second one looked for tricks and got to be liked by the girls and took one of them to marry and to fulfil the first mitzvah [to ‘be fruitful and multiply’ – Genesis 1:28]. The third Beth Hamedrash, which is called the Orthodox, wanted to hurt the feelings of the remaining congregation. To annoy them they built the Beth Hamedrash even though they are all keeping the laws of Africa and its customs from A to Z. Most of them are grienes, sons of Lithuanians who have not yet washed off their greenness.

Rabbonim:

The rabbis who are doing the holy work are two, not counting the rabbis who have previously used the crown of the rabbis in Africa. The burden was also upon them to pray aloud once a week. In the old synagogue there is appointed a famous rabbi25and even though the style of his learning is not sharpness and depth but the opposite, shame and crookedness, and there is no end to his simplicity.26 He is a simple ignoramus and he himself likes non-kosher food and is used to desecrating the Shabbat in public like a simple Englishman does from birth. The new synagogue has a rabbi27 who is praised by the English members because he is capable of talking his people’s language, the jargon. He came from Kimberley to be a rabbi and cantor in a place where the English had led me astray. This man is praised by the Englishman. His height is average, he is stout and on his fat neck he has a white collar, which the English priests wear in their houses of worship.

No goodniks:

You can also find no goodniks in ever place you turn….There is a meshulach from Jerusalem who came here to collect the impure funds to fill the stomachs of the people in Jerusalem who had sent him here. This man has already changed his holy garment that was made according to the law because his fat stomach could not contain his clothes. He bought a garment of silk from a Malay cleric who used to wear it in his mosque. This garment the meshulach wore on Yom Kippur when he came to the old synagogue to listen to the sound of the girls who sang a new song.

You can also find no goodniks in ever place you turn….There is a meshulach from Jerusalem who came here to collect the impure funds to fill the stomachs of the people in Jerusalem who had sent him here. This man has already changed his holy garment that was made according to the law because his fat stomach could not contain his clothes. He bought a garment of silk from a Malay cleric who used to wear it in his mosque. This garment the meshulach wore on Yom Kippur when he came to the old synagogue to listen to the sound of the girls who sang a new song.