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Post by cjm on Jul 3, 2014 17:57:30 GMT
Interesting booklet I discovered in the library.
Some extracts follow. Some inaccuracies (and bias) can be pointed out. Oudtshoorn (or the neighbouring area at least) had a white community long before 1840. It is claimed that the coloured community is the result of liaisons between white and KoiSan. While these probably account for part of the story, the interbreeding with the slave community should not be lost sight of. I am also not sure of the claim that the first diamond was discovered by a 'Bushman'. I don´t intend to correct all these - even if I could accurately point them out, as the main value of the account for me is the view from the Jewish side. The original contains many photos and footnotes adding corrections and critical comment by John Simon - see Contents.
OUDTSHOORN JERUSALEM OF AFRICA
Leibl Feldman
CONTENTS
PREFACE Reuben Musiker ............................................................. xi
FOREWORD Frank R. Bradlow ..........................................................xiii
ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS.............................................. xv
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .....................................................xvii
WITH PERFECT FAITH The Life and Work of Leibl Feldman
Joseph Sherman ...............................................................1
OUDTSHOORN: JERUSALEM OF AFRICA
Leibl Feldman....................................................................75
HISTORICAL NOTES AND COMMENTARY
John Simon...................................................................... 129
vii
This translation is dedicated to the memory of Leibl Feldman who shared the fruits of his painstaking exploration of Jewish history in South Africa with others through the Yiddish language which he loved.
His children Minnie Schamroth Michael Feldman Tamara Penn November 1989
6
Text and Translation
FELDMAN’S MONOGRAPH was printed in a booklet of 48 pages by Stirling Printing Works, Johannesburg in 1940, and appeared in an orange paper cover designed by the distinguished Jewish artist René Shapshak. The text is preceded by the following Author's Comment:
Oudtshoorn -Jerusalem of Africa should have been published over a year ago as part of an Almanac which the South African Yiddish Cultural Federation had prepared. The War made the publication of the Almanac impossible. Consequently this monograph about a remarkable South African Yiddish town appears in the form of a brochure. Johannesburg, September 1940.
The present translation was first undertaken by Lilian Dubb and Sheila Barkusky for the Kaplan Centre, University of Cape Town, long before its publication was requested by the Feldman family. In the course of revising and editing the Dubb-Barkusky translation, and of preparing this introductory essay, I was fortunate to discover in the archives of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies in Johannesburg the typescript of a hitherto unknown translation made for Feldman by his old friend Hannah Berman in London in 1941. This typescript - apparently the only copy in existence, since it is corrected in ink in the handwritings of both Berman and Feldman himself- is filed together with the original covering letter dated 17 July 1941 which accompanied it in the post. The situation of world Jewry at that time, and the work on which both author and translator were engaged, add poignancy to that letter which, published below in its entirety, renders additional comment impertinent:
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71 Abbey Rd St John's Wood London NW 8 1 7 July 1941
Dear Leibl,
At last l have finished the translation of your little book. It took me about five times as long as it should have done, and only because I have got into very slack ways, added to which I have Mania with me, also, the weather was extremely hot recently.
As to what the English version sounds like - that I cannot say. I can only tell you I have been very careful to give an accurate rendering, and have but rarely, and only in slight degree, departed from the original. I shall leave it to you to decide on its merits, or lack of them.
You will see that I have drawn up a short list of the words and particularly the names which puzzled me; I mean as regards the English spelling. That little passage describing the proximity of Oudtshoorn to the Swart (?) mountains is unclear in the original, I am afraid. At any rate, I could not feel sure about whether it or the mountains were north, one of the other. I don't think, however, I need to say anything further on these points, after having set them forth in my Queries. You will be able to make the . necessary corrections, I think, without much bother. Would you please repeat these corrections on the second copy of Queries, so that I may be able to embody them in the typescripts.
There is no use in making any statement as to the chances of finding a publisher or periodical to take this little book. Nothing is now normal, which is saying all. But I shall keep my weather eye open, and grab at any opportunity that presents itself.
Mania has all the time been waiting for her exit visa, which she has only just received. Remains now the boat; and when that will be available no one knows. I think, however, that the matter is now on the tapis; she may be leaving here within the next few weeks. Whether or not she will be calling at Johannesburg - that is unknown. I am, however, giving her your address - the business one, so that she can get in touch with you, if she is in your place. She wants very much to meet you, Richard, and anyone else of your crowd available. She knows, of course, that Zionism means less than nothing to you, as she knows it means just about as much to me. But that doesn't matter at all. She is a personality well worth while meeting.
There is nothing very much that l can tell you tonight. We are having quiet nights of late, at the expense, I am afraid, of our own folks elsewhere
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- poor, poor things. The situation in regard to our old home does not bear thinking of. Enough said.
I hope this finds you well, and all the gang likewise well.
Kindest regards from Mrs Jonas, who always asks about you all.
l hope to hear you are satisfied with my effort, but am rather doubtful.
Everything is strained and strange nowadays, and writing or translating is amongst the superfluous tasks. One feels like that, and there’s no getting away from it, as you know yourself. All the same, I hope you have not dropped the work entirely.
Hannah
Excuse disreputable envelope. Can't get the size nowadays so have to use an old one.
The translation published in this volume has incorporated many of the most felicitous phrases and sentences from Hannah Berman’s English version. As one would expect from her numerous publications, Berman was equally at home in both Yiddish and English, and had a gift for combining accuracy and elegance in translation. Her version as a whole, however, is only intermittently excellent; it shows obvious signs of the listlessness she describes in her letter, understandably the effect of the catastrophe in Europe. It is therefore a double pleasure to have incorporated the best of Berman’s version into the best of the Dubb - Barkusky version. All have served Feldman well. The present volume is a fitting tribute to his zeal, his energy, and his indomitable mentshlekhkayt.
1
Introduction
THE LITTLE KAROO has changed very little since Europeans
first began to settle in it. With the exception of small, highly
fertile stretches of land at the foot of the mountains and
alongside rivers, and of a few larger or smaller villages, one rarely
travels past settled corners of European homesteads, and even more
rarely past those of coloured or black people. The roads are relatively
good and one notices telegraph poles and white lime—washed stones
at the sharp bends. Here and there one sees windmills, an indication
of wells which quench the thirst of men, of cattle and of sheep. More
seldom still does one come across a farmhouse surrounded by the lush
greenness of lucerne or other vegetation. Traversing hundreds of
miles of the Little Karoo, one notices from time to time flocks of dirty
brick-coloured and silver-grey sheep and goats - to this day still the
only hints of human presence. Stark sunbaked flatlands stretch away
for hundreds of miles exactly as they did in prehistoric times. The
naked poverty of nature is adorned here and there with purple and
yellow bush flowers, huge red cactus blooms, and by mountain
shadowed valleys where water is to be found.
In most of the greater and smaller villages of the Little Karoo, Jews
have been settled these fifty years. They have not only been
following a mode of life peculiar to themselves and adapted to the
conditions prevailing in South Africa, but they have also created a
“Jerusalem of Africa”, by which title Oudtshoorn, the largest of the
Little Karoo towns, came to be distinguished.
Oudtshoorn lies in the nearby shelter of the Swartberg mountains
to the north, which shield and protect it from the aridity of the Great
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Karoo. The great mountain range to the south [the Outeniquas]
shelters it from the sea winds and the humidity they carry with them.
Running through the town is the Grobbelaars River, which, like
other rivers in the Oudtshoorn district, receives its waters from the
huge surrounding mountains, flowing eventually into the Olifants
River. Because of its mild, warm, dry Karoo climate, and the abundance
of water with which Oudtshoorn is supplied from the surrounding
mountains, nature has endowed the town with an almost perennially
rich vegetation. Its climate is regarded as very healthy, especially
beneficial to those suffering from respiratory and rheumatic ailments.
Oudtshoorn lies close to the Garden Route, the most beautiful region
of South Africa, and is regarded as the gem of the Little Karoo. One
of the wonders of the world, the Cango Caves, is to be found some
nineteen miles outside the town.
A wanderlust and a hankering after rich, fertile, ownerless land,
coupled with a determination to shake off the domination of the
British - whose attitude towards the black and coloured peoples they
found “intolerable” - drove the rural Dutch and Huguenot Boers to
trek further and further to the north. In the 1840s one of the
trekking parties, after much searching, made a halt in this part of the
land, so blessed by nature, which was later to become known as
Oudtshoorn. In this remote, far-flung corner they pitched their tents
and began to build and develop their homes. By 1847 this locality was
proclaimed a township, and given the name of Oudtshoorn.
When the Boers settled in the Oudtshoorn district, and in the
Little Karoo generally, they came across the Hottentots and the
Bushmen who are disappearing as races. No black peoples were to
be found there.
These two yellow - skinned races were nomads and did not occupy
themselves with agriculture. Even cattle - raising engaged the attention
only of the Hottentots. Both races subsisted chiefly by hunting. The
Hottentots were the more peaceable. The Bushmen, extremely
primitive, narrow -eyed and small of stature, were children of the
desert, who, more than any other tribe, could withstand hunger and
thirst; they dwelt in caves or in huts woven from tall grasses. Like
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animals, they had highly-developed senses of sound, smell and
tracking. It was a Bushman who first discovered a diamond.
The Bushmen were outstanding hunters. They were the first to
make ingenious use of poison from plants for their arrows and spears
in order to kill animals and even humans. When the poisoned animal
fell dead, they would surround it, tear pieces of flesh from the carcass
and eat it raw. They would often poison the water at the drinking
holes in order to trap the animals. They were not fastidious in their
eating habits: animals, birds, various wild plants, wild honey, ostrich
eggs and locusts — they ate everything, even snakes and scorpions. It
is interesting to note that in their mythology the Bushmen venerated
the carrion-devouring jackals. The Bushmen had no concept of the
need to provide for the morrow, so they were in a constant state of
hunger. The main object of their lives was to secure food. They often
attacked and stole cattle and sheep from other tribes, and later also
from the Boers who shot them as they would wild animals which
attacked their herds.
When the Boers settled in Oudtshoorn and its district, they found
it necessary to use the Bushmen and Hottentots as a slave-labour
force. The Hottentots were able to adapt themselves to the new
regimen of labour more quickly than the carefree, primitive Bushmen.
The latter used to say, “Baboons can also speak, but they do not wish
to, for fear that the Boers will force them into slavery, just as they
have done with us”.
The Bushmen had a talent for painting and sculpture. Unlike other
black and coloured tribes, the Bushmen have left behind almost
everywhere paintings and engravings on rocks, including the famous
paintings on granite at the entrance to the Cango Caves, which are
of considerable significance in the cultural history of South Africa.
In the course of time, Hottentot and Bushman blood was intermingled
with that of “whites”, and there came into being the present ethnic
group of “coloureds”, or, as they are called, Bruines. In Oudtshoorn
and the villages of the Little Karoo, people relate that when a
coloured girl who had been working for Boers, Jews or Englishmen
gave birth to a child during the night, the inquisitive good-natured
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white girls of the household would immediately go out with a lamp to
establish who in the white family circle the new - born child resembled.
Nowadays in Oudtshoorn, if a coloured person is called a Bushman or
a Hottentot, he feels grossly insulted.
With the loss of their tribal identity, these people also lost their
language and adopted Afrikaans, the language of the Boers, as their
mother tongue. The coloured folk of Oudtshoorn and the Little
Karoo present a very tragic picture. Despite the fact that their
forefathers lived there for centuries - in 1938 a coloured Christian
church celebrated its centenary - the coloured people have no sense
of security. They feel like homeless aliens who are merely workers for
the whites. They suffer severely from feelings of inferiority, are deeply
depressed and servile, and live in constant fear of the whites. As a
result of their appalling economic conditions, many have degenerated
physically; alcoholism, tuberculosis and venereal disease are widespread
among them.
As people of the soil, the Boers accurately appraised the great
fertility of the land around Oudtshoorn. They began to cultivate
vines and tobacco; to sow wheat, barley, and many other foodstuffs
for their own use. Later they began to sell their produce. By 1865
there were already 1 145 white inhabitants in the district of Oudtshoorn,
increasing to 1 837 by 1875.
Wild and free in this area, and in the Little Karoo in general,
roamed many ostriches - large birds that cannot fly, but which run
very fast. Very timid, startled by the slightest noise, they look like big
tall turkeys; possessed of great strength in their legs, they can kill a
man with one kick. These long-legged, ungainly birds, with necks
curved like question marks, attracted the attention of the Europeans
because of their beautiful plumage. They were shot like wild beasts,
and their feathers were used for adornment. Later these same beautiful
feathers were recognised as a source of livelihood. When wild
ostriches began to be domesticated in 1867, a romantic and almost
legendary chapter of ostrich breeding and feather trading opened in
Oudtshoorn. The beautiful ostrich feathers with which ladies’ hats
were adorned simply enchanted the women of the whole world,
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particularly in Europe and America, making Oudtshoorn the centre
of the new industry.
Although the sale of ostrich feathers depended on the whims of
women’s fashion and seasons, which turned the industry into a
speculative one - for example, there was a great crisis in the trade
between 1886 and 1896 - the export of feathers nevertheless played
one of the major economic roles in South Africa up to the outbreak
of the First World War in 1914. Until the end of 1913 ostrich feathers
were - after gold, diamonds and wool - South Africa’s fourth greatest
export commodity. The leading traders and developers of the industry
were predominantly Russian -Lithuanian Jews, and although they
were not its pioneers, they nevertheless played a vital role in raising
it to the high level it attained in its heyday, when it was one of the
most important in South Africa. From 1903 to 1913 feathers worth
£19 305 256 were exported. In 1913 alone, the year of greatest
exports, feathers to the value of £2 953 587 were sent out of the
country. Between 1904 and 1911 the total number of ostriches more
than doubled. In 1911 farmers possessed 746 736 ostriches. For the
years 1912 to 1914 no statistics are available.
Oudtshoorn is one of the oldest settlements of Russian -Lithuanian
Jews. In 1938, an Oudtshoorn Rabbiner commemorated the
fiftieth anniversary of his appointment. This proves that the first
Lithuanian Jewish immigrants began settling in the district in the
1880s, even before Johannesburg was founded. Tireless energy, and
fierce ambition to become rich, fired these first immigrants. Undeterred
by the unfamiliar, harsh and very long journey from the shtetlekh of
Lithuania to Cape Town, ignorant of the language, these settlers
boldly undertook yet another frightening, sun -baked journey of
hundreds of miles into the desolate interior, towards the far -flung
corner of Oudtshoorn. Until 1902 no direct rail connection to
Oudtshoorn existed. One travelled either by boat to Mossel Bay,
and from there on horseback or by ox - wagon fifty -seven miles over
the mountains, or alternatively one journeyed by train as far as Prince
Albert Road, and from there seventy miles over the Swartberg
mountains.
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Post by Trog on Jul 4, 2014 6:30:35 GMT
I find Yiddish pretty interesting.
One example of it here is the word "mentshlekhkayt", which I suppose has no close relation to any word in another language apart from Afrikaans.
(Although: Google Translate gives me "menselijkheid" in Dutch and "menschheit" in German, for the Afrikaans "menslikheid")
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Post by cjm on Jul 4, 2014 6:44:16 GMT
Not the healthy climate, nor the beautiful surroundings, nor even
the proximity of the Cango Caves attracted the Jews to Oudtshoorn.
Such frivolities were of no interest to them in those years. The
magical dream of growing rich through trading in feathers drew them
like a magnet to Oudtshoorn.
Nearly all the first Jews in and around Oudtshoorn were tokhers,
shmoyzers or travelling pedlars. After only a short stay in Cape
Town they would buy themselves merchandise: trousers, shirts,
blouses, socks, combs, little mirrors, watches and the like. With packs
on their shoulders and bundles under their arms, they spread themselves
over the Province to sell their wares. The unacclimatised Jews
dragged themselves and their back-packs in sweltering heat across
vast distances through unknown, isolated territory, over mountains
and through valleys, from one farmer to another, offering their goods.
This was toilsome work, and to achieve the great goal of the shmoyzer
- to sell off all his wares- would often take long months. The distance
between one farmstead and another took hours to cover. Often the
pedlars were compelled to spend the night in the open veld, in terror
of snakes and animals, oppressed by overwhelming loneliness and
frequently drenched by sub-tropical rainstorms. Some pedlars acquired
pack-horses which bore their loads while they themselves followed on foot. Those who had worked themselves up soon possessed carts.
The Boer farmers received those early shmoyzers with open arms.
They were glad to meet, to chat with, and to buy necessities from “the
children of the nation which had given them the Bible”. The farmers
bought from them and relied on their word.
Eighty-five-year-old Mr N. A. Bernstein, who still lives in
Oudtshoorn, is its third Jewish pioneer. He relates:
I arrived in Cape Town in 1879 and moved into Raphael’s boarding-house,
which was the starting point for griene, where the residents were all
Yiddish-speaking Russian Jews.
(It is important to note that apart from Bernstein’s report that in
1879 there were substantial numbers of Yiddish speakers in Cape
Town, there were other such reports to this effect. Hence Louis
Herrman’s assertion in his book, History of the Jews in South Africa,
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that up until 1880 there were only six Yiddish-speaking Jews, is
incorrect. My own observation on this subject in my book Yidn in
Dorem Afrike [Jews in South Africa] is also inaccurate. By 1880 there
were in fact scores of Yiddish speakers in Cape Town.)
After a short stay in Cape Town, I went out peddling. The Boer farmers
received me in a most friendly way. How astonished I was when some of
them told me, “Let us be good friends. I love you Jews, but I will buy nothing
from you.” Many farmers showed me worthless copper watches for which
theyhad paid as much as for real gold, while others had brass articles
palmed off on them as silver, and so forth. Making my rounds selling my
goods, I approached Oudtshoorn, where by chance someone sold me a
pound or so of ostrich feathers. I paid £25 for it. I was later staggered when
one of RaphaeI’s boarders — a dealer in feathers — paid me £70 for them. This
chance event went to my head. l decided to sell off my goods and to go to
Oudtshoorn. I arrived there in 1880 when only two other Jews were to be
found - Asher and Field, a Kurlander, who were partners in a large business.
Chaim Friedlander, aged 86, another Oudtshoorn pioneer, known
to the Boers as "Hendrik", relates:
I married into a Shavel family. My brothers-in-law, who were already in
Africa, brought me out here. I arrived in Cape Town in 1884, where I found
a considerable number of Russian Jews. My brothers-in-law provided me
with merchandise and a pedlar’s licence, and I ventured out into the
Province to go peddling. My back-pack weighed over eighty pounds, apart
from the box containing jewellery which I carried in my hand. Later on I
bought a pack-horse which carried my bags while l walked behind carrying
the jewellery. Life for a pedlar was terribly difficult in those days. After
trudging long distances, one would arrive at a farm. Often the farmer
refused to let you in because shmoyzers who had come before had cheated
him. For six months, l was forced to sleep in the open veld without a roof
over my head because a smallpox epidemic had broken out in 1884. The
Boers used to come out to buy and give me food, but they did not allow me
to go indoors on account of the epidemic. On one occasion I roamed about
for three days and three nights without water for myself and my horse. My
horse was on the verge of collapse. Luckily, someone passed by and revived
me and my horse with a little water. Once I arrived at a farm so exhausted
that l fell asleep in the barn and slept continuously for twenty-eight hours.
The kindly farmer was about to send for the police, thinking that I was
dead. Often Boers asked me, “Are you a Jew? And have you never been to
Oudtshoorn?" In 1886, with my goods on my pack-horse, l finally arrived
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in Oudtshoorn. There l took the advice of my Shavel landsleit, sold my
wares and my horse, and became a dealer in ostrich feathers.
In 1880 there were three Jews in Oudtshoorn. Asher and Field
owned a large business; the third, Bernstein, a one-time shmoyzer, was
the first Jew in Oudtshoorn to start dealing in ostrich feathers. By
1884, there was already a minyen for the High Holy Days in a private,
home. There are simply no official statistics for Jews in and around
Oudtshoorn until 1891 . Up to that time they were included under the
heading of “non-Christians”. According to the statistics for 1891,
291 Jews lived in and around Oudtshoorn while by 1904 there were
623 in Oudtshoorn proper, and 174 in the surrounding district. ln
that year, Oudtshoorn boasted a total population of 8 849, of whom
4 145 were white, 4 704 black. This means that Jews comprised 15 per
cent of the white population of the town. In 1918, 1 073 Jews dwelt
there and in 1921, 1 022. By 1926 this had decreased to 808 in
Oudtshoorn and 103 in the district, and ten years later 555 in the
town and 38 in the outlying areas, representing 3 1/2 per cent of the
general population and 7 per cent of the white population. Of the 555
Jewish souls, only 93 gave Yiddish as their mother tongue during the
first official census which took home language into account. Of these,
10 were under 7 years old, 26 were between 7 and 20, and 57 were over
20. Taken broadly, these statistics give but a pale reflection of the
Jews of Oudtshoorn. Firstly the statistics do not reflect the numbers
of Jews between the years 1911 and 1916, even though there was a
general census throughout the land. Secondly, the statistics for 1904
to 1918 are missing, although this was the peak period of the ostrich
feather industry and the numbers of Jews had greatly increased.
Thirdly, Oudtshoorn residents assert that the statistics for 1891 to
1904 are incomplete, for many Jews did not participate in the census
since they could write neither English nor Afrikaans. One can,
however, accept the figures provided by local communal workers who
knew each Jewish family and every Jewish pioneer in Oudtshoorn,
but there are no authentic statistical documents of this community.
By 1880, when the ostrich trade began to open out and the price of
ostriches and their feathers rose, more and more Jews appeared on the
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scene. Oudtshoorn Jews began to persuade their friends and countrymen
in Cape Town to settle in the town. Later they began to bring
brothers, sons, families and landsleit from overseas. By 1883 there
were more than enough Jews in Oudtshoorn and district to make up
a minyen, but because some of them went to Cape Town for the High
Holy Days, there were not enough left to form a minyen in
Oudtshoorn itself. When the local Khewe Kadishe was founded in
1883, a Boer donated a piece of land for a Cemetery.
The first Oudtshoorn minyen gathered for prayers in a private
home in 1884, with thirty Jews present. This was reported by
Rabbiner A. F. Ornstien in the Oudtshoorn Courant on 1 February
1888. Owing to a difference of opinion in 1886, the community split
into two groups, and two minyonim emerged, one led by Chaim Kuper,
and the other by Levitan.
In 1886, with the building of a synagogue and the establishment of
a congregation, organised Jewish religious life began in Oudtshoorn.
In December 1886 the Jews of Oudtshoorn and district called a
meeting with the object of erecting a synagogue, and it was decided
to immediately establish a fund to build it. The Combined secretary
and treasurer, Charles B. Black, was not Jewish, and many Gentiles
contributed to the fund. At a solemn ceremony on 26 January 1888
the cornerstone of the Queen Street Synagogue was laid. Special
guests were Rabbiners Omstien of Cape Town and Harris of Kimberley;
some four hundred to five hundred people were present. The organist
of the Dutch Reformed Church, Jacob Hoek, participated, as well as
a number of other non-Jews who joined in the singing of Psalms.
According to a report in the Oudtshoorn Courant of 1 February 1888,
Rabbiner Ornstien, in a fairly lengthy address, gave a survey of the
Jews of South Africa. Among other things, he said, “In 1852 there
were approximately fifteen to twenty Jewish families in the whole
country. Now, Jewish Communities are to be found in all important
Centres. Today in Oudtshoorn and district, there are already two to
three hundred Jewish souls". Afterwards, both he and Rabbiner Harris
referred to the excellent relationship between Jews and Gentiles in
Oudtshoorn.
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Post by cjm on Jul 5, 2014 8:48:41 GMT
On 31 July 1888 Rabbiner M. Woolfson, a Russian Jew who had
spent time among the clergy in England, arrived in Oudtshoorn. It
would seem that because of his good voice in chanting the prayers,
and because he was well acquainted with synagogue formalities, he
was sent from England to become the Rabbiner of Oudtshoorn. At
the end of July 1938, Rabbiner Woolfson celebrated the fiftieth
anniversary of his office in Oudtshoorn. He relates:
When I arrived on Oudtshoorn, the synagogue was still being built. The
opening ceremony took place on 12 December 1888, At that time there
were 250 Jewish souls in Oudtshoorn and its environs. There were already
three unmarked Jewish graves in the cemetery. The first wedding at which
I officiated took place on 20 February 1889.
Incidentally, by September 1938 he had married 212 couples.
Rabbiner Woolfson adds:
When I arrived in Oudtshoorn, Jews were earning very good money. In that l
year, there was a severe drought the like of which had not been known for
fifty years. Water sold at 1/6d a bucket.
The Queen Street Rabbiner (Woolfson) was too Anglicised, much
too prim and proper, introducing strict discipline and English formalities
in the manner of London synagogues. Instead of being strictly
religious in the Orthodox way, he devoted himself more to outward
rituals. All this provoked opposition among the congregants, especially
from the ordinary simple folk who yearned for the homely atmosphere
of the bes-medresh of the Old Country. By 1892 the opposition
became so acute that steps were taken to build another synagogue,
which was completed by 1896. The Queen Street Synagogue became
known as the “English Shul'', which is the name it bears to this day.
Its congregants call their opposition, the St John’s Street Synagogue,
the “Griene Shul''. The majority of the “Englishmen'' who were
members of the English Shul came from Shavel, and they were by and
large the first and, by now, the wealthiest Jews in the community. By
contrast, the members of the Griene Shul almost all hailed from
Kelm. Between these two factions there was constant communal
conflict. For the outside world, the “English'' held themselves up as
superior, but in the Jewish life of Oudtshoorn the “griene'' regarded
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themselves as stemming from nobler Jewish lineage and looked down
upon the “English” as ignoramuses. The English Shul held services
only on Sabbaths and Holy Days, whereas in the Griene Shul several
minyonim held prayers every day. To this day in the Griene Shul a daily
portion of the Talmud is studied, while at one time a man recited
psalms to a group studying the Book of Psalms. The Griene Shul also
had its own shokhet and, by 1903, also its own Rov - not a Rabbiner, but
a strictly Orthodox Rabbi - Reb Borukh of Kelm.
Until 1903 the children were taught “Yiddishkayt” by Rabbis. In
1903 a Government Hebrew school was established in a separate
building next to the English Shul. Apart from the general secular
subjects offered in every Government school, Hebrew and religious
instruction occupied an important place. This was the first school of
its kind in South Africa and it is still in existence today. This school
did not satisfy the Orthodox, particularly the griene, however, and
they established a Talmud Torah along the traditional lines of the
Old Country. This school existed until 1920.
It is remarkable that, exceptions notwithstanding, most of the Jews
of Oudtshoorn originated from two Lithuanian shtetlekh — Kelm and
Shavel. It was they who brought over other members of their families,
friends and landsleit. Up until the Anglo-Boer War, the Jews of
Oudtshoorn led a small-town religious sort of life, far removed and cut
off from the world at large, and even from the two Jewish centres of
Cape Town and Johannesburg. They lived, so to speak, within the
narrow confines of the Little Karoo, of which Oudtshoorn was the
principal kraal (as an African village is called), surrounded by
smaller neighbouring kraals. When the Anglo-Boer War of 1899-
1901 broke out, it caused great upheaval in Oudtshoorn. Refugees
from the Transvaal, and especially from Johannesburg, arrived in
great numbers. The local community was displeased by the new
arrivals because they brought with them worldly and irreligious ideas
from the big city. The following incident from the Boer War illustrates
to what extent the Boers regarded the Jews as a strictly religious sect.
The historically renowned Boer general, Scheepers, had occupied the
Oudtshoorn district with a company of his soldiers and had taken a
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group of scouts prisoner. Among them was a thirty-year-old Kelmer
Jew, A. Y. Ze’ev. When the captured scouts were given their food,
Commandant Scheepers brought the Jew a portion of pork and,
pointing his rifle at him, shouted out, “Jew, eat pork or I’ll shoot you.”
Ze’ev replied, “Shoot. I will not eat pork.” At that, Scheepers put
down his gun and replied, “Had you eaten the pork, I would have
flogged you to death.”
After the Anglo-Boer War, the Transvaal Jews returned home and
the Oudtshoorn Jews resumed their own peculiar lifestyle. They once
again began to bring out their families and life resumed a more normal
course.The boom years of the ostrich feather trade began in 1908 and
the Jewish population grew concomitantly. In 1909 there was a
Jewish population of 1 100 souls; in 1911 it had increased to 1 270 in
Oudtshoorn alone, excluding the districts. Between 1912 and 1913,
before the Great War, there were over 1 500 Jews in Oudtshoorn,
excluding its environs where many other Jews lived. In those years
both the “English” and the “Griene” synagogues were packed to
capacity for the High Holy Days, and extra benches and chairs had to
be brought in for those at prayer. The Rabbiner testifies that in both
synagogues over a thousand worshippers were present, an assertion
supported by all the inhabitants of Oudtshoorn.
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Post by cjm on Jul 5, 2014 9:39:52 GMT
I find Yiddish pretty interesting. One example of it here is the word "mentshlekhkayt", which I suppose has no close relation to any word in another language apart from Afrikaans. (Although: Google Translate gives me "menselijkheid" in Dutch and "menschheit" in German, for the Afrikaans "menslikheid") I have encountered the Yiddish word mensch before which in sound seems equal to the Afrikaans mens. The Yiddish perhaps has a more exhalted meaning than person. I checked the extracts and found the following as well: Yiddishkeit - this is an alternative spelling for Yiddishkayte as it appears in the text and clearly relates to the Afrikaans Yiddishheid (Joodsheid). shtetlekh - sekte ? shmoyzers - smouse? shul - skool; griene shul - groen skool? landsleit - landslid (landsgenoot) ? goy - cannot find an Afrikaans sounding equivalent, and not in extracts but welknown! It seems there is a strong German/Dutch basis?
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Post by cjm on Jul 6, 2014 6:16:42 GMT
2
Jews and Ostríches
THE LITHUANIAN-RUSSIAN JEWS of Oudtshoorn - there
were only a few German Jews and one solitary English Jew -
flung all their energies, zeal and capabilities into the ostrich
feather trade. A considerable number also undertook the breeding
and farming of ostriches.
To raise ostriches, one required not only adequate land in which the
birds could roam, a place where the feathers could be plucked, a place
where the birds could breed, but also land on which to cultivate their
fodder. The staple means of feeding them is lucerne, and the better
they are fed, the better and more valuable are the feathers they
produce. By then, farmers in the district were already sowing wheat
and other lucrative grain, as well as tobacco. But the ostrich feather
trade bewitched the Jews. They threw themselves heart and soul, day
and night, into this business. They “fell into feathers” easily. Gentiles
used to say that Jews took to feathers like ducks took to water, adding
later that the Jews “served a new God, the ostrich”.
To speak Afrikaans was absolutely essential, since the ostrich
farmers and the Coloureds, without whom it was impossible to do
business, spoke only Afrikaans. The shmoyzers knew some Afrikaans,
while the new arrivals quickly acquired a basic knowledge of the
language. The procedure for becoming a feather dealer was simple:
one took out a pedlar’s licence. Those who did not have their own
money borrowed a few pounds from landsleit and set out on foot with
sacks on their shoulders to buy feathers from the outlying farmers.
Very few shmoyzers had sufficient capital to fill a sack with feathers of
the better quality. The poor and the newly arrived - the griene -
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bought only the cheaper quality. For this they needed neither much
money nor expertise. These feathers were known in Yiddish as
geshnorete, smaller feathers which the birds lost when they ran or
when they fought with each other. These “rejects” were often given
by the farmers to their wives and children as gifts for pin-money.
Roaming about buying up these “bargain lots”, the griene made the
acquaintance of the farmers, gaining experience and knowledge in
the feather trade. Frequently they paid dearly for their inexperience
when they bought inferior feathers, or when they acquired feathers
from a female bird instead of a male whose feathers were superior and
more valuable. It did not take long before the Jewish traders had
learnt to distinguish the best feathers from among the sixty different
types, so that the farmers could no longer so easily deceive them. A
pound weight of good feathers fetched eighty pounds sterling. Every
Monday morning the feather dealers evacuated Oudtshoorn, so to
speak. Even before the sun had risen, they would hurry out on foot to
buy feathers from farmers in outlying districts, just as they had done
in their Old Country during winter on the eve of market days. Later
on, the more prosperous dealers took to the road in horses and carts.
The urge to make money was so strong that no matter how early a
pedlar left Oudtshoorn, he would invariably find, on arriving at a
farm, that one or several others had preceded him. Each one, in his
eagerness to buy up the parcel of feathers, drove up the price, as a
result of which many suffered losses when it came to selling. So great
was the competition that the dealers came to a mutual understanding:
if one buyer met another at a farmer, a yakhtsu was proclaimed - one
of them would buy the parcel and thereafter share either the goods or
the profit between them. If many buyers met at the same farmer, they
would call out, “A khasene! (A wedding! )” which meant that one of
them should buy the feathers and share the profits among all of them.
The buyers knew every farmer in the district - what sorts of feathers
he kept, how he tended his ostriches and in what condition they
were, and how and when each farmer plucked his birds. To make it
possible for their feathers to be “pinched”, the ostriches had to be
driven into a pen and their heads had to be covered with hoods, after
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which one could do what one liked with them. At one time the
feathers were plucked out in a manner that caused great pain and loss
of blood to the ostrich, a procedure which weakened the birds and
damaged the roots of the feathers, thus spoiling the new growth.
Consequently the farmers later began to clip the feathers and leave
the roots intact. A month later the roots withered, and they were
either easily and painlessly removed, or they fell loose of their own
accord. Eight months later a new crop of feathers was ready to be
clipped. Thus every nine months a farmer had a new crop of feathers.
In order to avoid competition, rich dealers often bought up feathers
from farmers some time in advance, even before the crop was mature.
Several would even buy the crop several years in advance. The
wealthier farmers, however, sold their feathers only after they had
been clipped.
The newly-affluent dealers bought out the stock of the smaller
dealers; they would travel out only to the big-time farmers to buy up
their whole yield. Often poorer buyers would take on partners to
finance them, and would then have often to trudge round for many
miles on foot, in great heat, from one ostrich farm to another until
Friday. On Friday, all the dealers would return to Oudtshoorn “for
Shabes” - in order to sell the feathers they had bought, eagerly to
gauge market trends, to prepare their feathers for export, and to assess
their gains on the export market. The poorer dealers returned home
by Thursday because they lacked money for further trading. Most
Jews came home on the Sabbath because they were pious and
observed God's commandment to honour the day of rest. Families
wanted to spend the day together. Jews also returned home for the
Sabbath because the Afrikaners with whom they traded were themselves
God -fearing, and would have considered it a great transgression if the
Children of Moses, the People of the Book, had desecrated the holy
Sabbath day. The Afrikaners would not have traded with Jews of that
sort.
On Friday mornings the Jewish dealers of the surrounding district
would also come into Oudtshoorn to sell their feathers and acquaint
themselves with the state of the market, and then leave in the
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afternoon in time for the Sabbath. From early Friday morning up
until Sunday night, Jews so to speak dominated the town. On Fridays
the spirit of the Exchange and the market-place ruled Oudtshoorn.
With the arrival of the ebullient, excitable feather dealers, Oudtshoorn
began to buzz and seethe. In the centre of town, where the offices of
the industry and the bank were situated, and particularly at the
Oudtshoorn Feather Merchants' Association, which was a kind of
bourse, the pavements were thronged with bustling Yiddish-spealing
feather merchants. The road leading to Calitzdorp, a small village
some thirty miles away, where many Jewish feather merchants lived,
was called “The Jewish Street". At nearly every farmstead on the way
to Calitzdorp were Jewish-owned trading stores. Here Jews made
purchases and chatted about ostrich feathers, strolling about the
streets and feeling very much at home. Here they would converse
loudly, expounding with the aid of extravagant gestures everything
directly or indirectly concerned with ostrich feathers. Whenever
they met, whether at service in the synagogue or at a game of cards,
they only spoke about feathers.
The spirit of speculation with feathers cast a spell upon all Jews.
Even the few Jewish doctors and lawyers in the town either owned an
ostrich farm or were the sleeping partners of feather merchants. Many
of the Jewish wholesale merchants and exporters owned their own
farms. Several belonged to the biggest ostrich farmers.
When the Government appointed a Commission to report on the
ostrich feather industry, a Jew by the name of Max Rose was
among the State nominees. In his account to the Government in
June 1917, he stated:
l have been an ostrich farmer for twenty-two years, and have traded with
feathers for twenty-seven years. Before the World War, I owned six
thousand ostriches.
The Jews played the greatest role in the feather trade, both in export
and in developing the industry into the country's fourth most
important export product. Ostrich feather production developed so
powerfully that a good pair of birds from which superior stock might be
bred cost £ 1 000. An instance is on record in which £1 500 was
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paid for a male bird. Farm land suitable for ostrich breeding also rose
sharply in value, reaching more than £500 per morgen.
Over 90 per cent of ostrich feather merchants were Jews, while
almost 90 per cent of the ostrich farmers were Afrikaners. All feathers
were sent to London, so that the profits of the dealers were dependent
on the state of the London market. By contrast, the Boer ostrich
farmers were in no way involved in speculation. Their feathers
realised vast sums of money for them. Each ostrich was clipped every
nine months, while newly -hatched birds were ready for their first
clipping after the first nine months as well. In this way, farmers
became more and more wealthy, and the value of their farms
themselves rose steadily. Farmers would saunter along their verandahs,
observing their ostrich herds in the distance, and would remark,
“There go the ostriches that lay golden coins”, or “There go my gold
sovereigns”. Some farmers became millionaires from ostrich breeding.
The feather boom also brought great wealth to the Jews. They built
luxurious mansions and lived like lords. They educated their children
to become doctors and lawyers. Most of the Jews in Oudtshoorn
before the First World War earned excellent money. There were
almost no poor Jews in Oudtshoorn proper; the needy ones there were
outsiders - indigent widows, cripples, or invalids who came to
convalesce in the healthy, cool, dry climate of this affluent town.
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Post by cjm on Jul 9, 2014 11:37:08 GMT
3
Jerusalem of South Africa
OUDTSHOORN DID NOT SET the religious tone for the
Jews of South Africa, nor was it a religious centre of traditional
learning, yet it was called the “Jerusalem of Africa" because in
no other city or town but Oudtshoorn did one see the religious and
traditional Jewish way of life of the Old Horne so faithfully observed
by old and young alike.
Neither was there a proportionately larger concentration of Jews in
Oudtshoorn than in other centres to merit the title “Jerusalem of
Africa". Cape Town and Johannesburg, for example, both had larger
Jewish populations, but in Oudtshoorn they were concentrated in a
smaller area, and almost all originated from Kelm and Shavel. They
knew each other well. In Oudtshoorn they developed a kind of
religious sect which was- apart from the general affairs of the whole
town community- almost totally sundered from non-Jews. They
were also cut off from overseas Jewry and even from the other Jewish
centres in South Africa itself. A religious-Zionist wall was erected
in Oudtshoorn which admitted no breath of the winds of modern life.
The “Jerusalem of Africa imitated and perpetuated all the traditional
and religious customs and rituals that had been observed in the Old
Homes, Kelm and Shavel. But, unlike those in other Jewish centres,
the youth in Oudtshoorn participated wholly in this way of life.
Oudtshoorn possessed two basei medresh, a mikve, a Rov, a Rabbiner,
three shokhtim, Hebrew teachers, a Talmud Torah, a Hebrew school,
a Khevre Kadishe, a Khevre Shas, a Khevre Tilim, an interest-free
loan society, a Women's Benevolent Association, and several Zionist
organisations.
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In Jewish homes hung pictures of Baron Hirsch, Yitzkhak
Elkhanan, the Vilna Gaon, Moses Montefiore, Herzl, and
various rabbis and their families. Many women wore wigs, and in no
other town in South Africa was more Yiddish spoken than in
Oudtshoorn. A considerable number of shops were closed on Saturday,
but the majority remained open. Many who kept their shops open did
not themselves serve in them; the businesses were managed on the
Sabbath by their Gentile employees. To keep a business open on the
Sabbath was apparently regarded as permissible, adjudged a less
grievous sin than, for example, smoking on the Sabbath. With the
exception of the town's heretic - a German-speaking Jew - for whom
atheism was an idée fixe and who was regarded by the local Jews as an
eccentric philosopher, no other Jew smoked openly on the Sabbath
until 1927. They did not even play cards on the Sabbath until the first
stars were observed in the sky. If an Oudtshoorn Jew, finding
himself in Cape Town or Johannesburg, travelled on the tramway on
the Sabbath, the news soon reached Oudtshoorn and became the
object of public disapproval. Even those who cared less then nothing
for religious observance avoided arriving in Oudtshoorn on the
Sabbath. Travelling salesmen in particular were especially careful in
this regard. If it chanced that they had to stay in Oudtshoorn over the
Sabbath, they took pains not to be caught smoking, since this would
have cost them dear in the loss of orders. With few exceptions, most
homes in Oudtshoorn strictly observed the laws of kashres.
Particularly in the Griene Shul, Holy Days were as meticulously
observed as in the Old Home. On Tishe Bov Jews sat in stockinged
feet on overturned benches or on the ground. Gloom and misery
reigned in the synagogue; the Book of Lamentations was recited with
as much fervour as if the Destruction of the Temple had taken place
in their own lifetimes. By the same token, Simkhes Toyre was
celebrated with jubilation, the adults holding aloft the Scrolls of the
Law and the children waving flags, exactly as had been done in Kelm
and Shavel.
Apart from going to Shul, taking a nap after tsholent, or paying
visits, the energetic feather merchants had nothing to do on the
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Sabbath. Shabes was a long day for them. As they were bored, they
spent the afternoon in Shul as well, listening to those studying the
Talmud, or reciting Psalms. But those who were not scholars and
the younger folk fell willy-nilly to discussing the one theme that was
the pivot around which Oudtshoorn revolved- ostrich feathers.
However, when a visiting preacher or a religious emissary arrived-
and to Oudtshoorn they all came- a large and responsive audience
such as existed in no other town came to hear him. A good preacher
delighted them.
A bris, a barmitsve, an engagement party or a wedding were all
important social events in Oudtshoorn. These festivities were not
only family but communal affairs. If a man died, folk forgot his
shortcomings, forgave him both personal and general transgressions,
and began to prepare, so to speak, the inscription “A pious and an
upright man for his tombstone.
When, out of sheer boredom, the daughter of one of the biggest and
wealthiest feather merchants and farmers in Oudtshoorn took it into
her head to convert to Christianity and became a missionary, the
concomitant disgrace and humiliation was shared by the whole
Jewish community, and it remained a subject of lively discussion for
years afterwards. Small-town and communal quarrels abounded, but
on the whole, an atmosphere of mutual responsibility, peace and
brotherhood prevailed in Oudtshoorn.
Every Jew who came as a guest to Oudtshoorn, and saw for himself
how Sabbath candles gleamed in every Jewish home on Friday nights;
how, freshly washed, every Jew doffed his feathers and donned his
Sabbath clothes; how the children, well scrubbed, all made their way
into the two synagogues; how, during the whole Sabbath day, the
pavements were crammed with Jews in their best clothes during the
time of the Reading of the Law, either coming from Shul, or just
relaxedly strolling about in the Sabbath manner, would be
dumbfounded. Was this possible? Was this reality that he beheld
before him, and actually taking place in South Africa, or was he in
fact back in the Old Home? And everyone would agree that this was
undeniably the “Jerusalem of South Africa.''
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Post by Trog on Jul 9, 2014 12:32:14 GMT
Reminds me a bit of Golders Green, in London.
I suppose the Jews have all left, now?
I happen to have one of Langenhoven's books signed and dedicated to one of her friends by Sarah Goldblatt. I probably have no right to actually have the thing. One day I should perhaps donate it some museum or the other, if I can find one that is at all interested.
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Post by cjm on Jul 10, 2014 13:25:34 GMT
... I suppose the Jews have all left, now? I happen to have one of Langenhoven's books signed and dedicated to one of her friends by Sarah Goldblatt. I probably have no right to actually have the thing. One day I should perhaps donate it some museum or the other, if I can find one that is at all interested. Still a few Jews left - including farmers. The image I have of Sarah in my mind is driving a motorcycle with a side-car rescuing Langenhoven from some bar in Cape Town!!
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Post by cjm on Jul 11, 2014 7:24:32 GMT
4
The Spiritual and Intellectual Outlook of the Jews of Oudtshoorn
FOR THE FIRST FEW YEARS after their arrival in Oudtshoorn, the Jews felt lonely and homeless so many thousands of miles away from their homes and their kindred. The consciousness that their wives, parents and families depended on their immediate financial support, the fact that they had come for a short while to make money and then to return home, as well as the speculative nature of the entire ostrich feather trade itself, stimulated them to throw themselves into this work with all their fervour and passion in order more quickly to become materially successful. The feverish trade with feathers absorbed them entirely, and they cared almost nothing for the cultural side of their lives.
Oudtshoorn was a far-flung corner, distant from a general or Jewish cultural centre in South Africa. The cultural baggage which they brought with them from the Old Country was, with few exceptions, a small-town bes-medresh mentality. They came into no contact with more cultured elements, nor were they bound by any ties to advanced modern life. Their only outside contact was with the Boers, who were culturally inferior to themselves, and with the Coloureds, who were lower still; from both groups they could benefit little. Thus the Jews of Oudtshoorn re-established for themselves their former small-town lifestyles in an alien environment.
They concentrated their energies on creating opportunities to perpetuate the way of life they had known in their Old Home, the only mode of life which was familiar and dear to them, and which, by
107
recalling or partly replacing it for them, in some measure alleviated their yearning for it. They concentrated on religion and subsequently, also on Zionism. They filled their leisure hours with card-playing, which became both a community sport and a means to kill time. Conversation during card games centred around the Old Country, around feathers, and generally around “world” affairs. Card-playing' served to relax them from the exhaustion, anxiety and tension of their pursuit of wealth. Cards absorbed them deeply, and for many occupied the greater part of their free time and interest, becoming a substitute for socio-cultural activities. Often they sat down to cards on Saturday evening and played right through to Sunday night. Card playing became a socio-pathological phenomenon which persists to this day.
With the arrival of many families, wives, children, parents, brothers and sisters, they became distanced and estranged from the Old Country, concentrating instead on their own little world which consisted of the Little Karoo and its surroundings. Before long the greater majority of Oudtshoorn Jews had lost interest in and contact with their Old Home, so much so that no Kelm or Shavel landsmanshaft existed in Oudtshoorn. Their bond with the Old Home remained only in the form of charity or compassionate fellow- feeling. When a call for help came from the rabbis or communal leaders of Kelm, Shavel or adjacent shtetlekh, or when religious or Zionist fund-raisers visited- as indeed also in the case of relief funds during the First World War- the Jews of Oudtshoorn responded generously. The familiar closeness between them created such a socially coercive situation that they were compelled to donate for fear of being put to shame. Where necessary, pressure was brought to bear. Since all desired to conform to what was generally accepted as the right thing to do, everyone gave money. Beyond donating to causes abroad, and from time to time giving a hearing to a religious or a Zionist fund-raiser, Oudtshoorn Jews were cut off from the world around them. They lived an inward-looking life of their own.
The overwhelming majority of them had no interest in social problems, and lacked feeling for cultural matters. Consequently the
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more aggressive religious and scholarly element, with the few enlightened intellectuals, took the lead. They immediately began to provide for the proper observance of kashres, engaged a shokhet, a mohel, a Rabbiner, built a study house, a cemetery, a Khevre Kadishe and other like institutions. The maskilim on the other hand concentrated on being Khovevei Zion nationalists, believing that they were called to be apostles of the modern Jewish national movement with the mission of spreading Zionism and the Hebrew language, without which, they thought, the “Messiah” could not come.
The life of Oudtshoorn’s Jews became more settled with the arrival of their families. Both the religious and the Zionist elements in the community began to use their children and young people as a medium through which to disseminate their outlooks and ideas. They acquired Rabbiners, established a Hebrew School and a Talmud Torah, attracted the youth into Zionist work, and so on. Soon every celebration became an occasion to make capital for religious and Zionist causes. For example, on the occasion of a barmitsve, the boy, apart from his maftir - which took months to teach him - would be compelled to memorise and recite a “speech” in “Hebrew” and very often in English as well. Whether he understood what he was saying or not was irrelevant, as long as it was delivered in Hebrew. At every celebration money was collected, chiefly for Zionist funds.
Not only was Oudtshoorn a religious and Zionist-orientated town, but it was also the most “Yiddishist” town in South Africa in respect of the amount of Yiddish spoken there. Despite Zionist propaganda that Yiddish was a “jargon” and the language of Exile, the Jews of Oudtshoorn nevertheless spoke Yiddish, and there existed no contempt among them for the language of their Old Home such as was the case in the Zionist circles of Cape Town and Johannesburg. The environment of Oudtshoorn did not encourage assimilation. The number of English speakers in Oudtshoorn was relatively small and they did not play a significant role in Oudtshoorn’s cultural life. There were instances in which Englishmen felt more at home with Afrikaans, as some do to this day. The Boers, on the other hand, were until after the War on an even lower cultural level than the Yiddish speakers.
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Nevertheless, Zionist-Hebrew propaganda exercised a strong influence on the Jewish noveaux riches who felt that it was unseemly for “aristocrats” to speak a gypsy language, a “language of Exile” at a time when they no longer considered themselves to be in Exile. After all, they felt so much at home here. The wealthier they became, the more they spoke English. They began sending their children to study in English universities, a trend which was subsequently followed by all Jewish families in Oudtshoorn. There was scarcely a single Jewish family in Oudtshoorn which did not have at least one doctor or lawyer among its members. Of these qualified doctors, a great many returned from England with Gentile wives. This created bad blood between religiously observant parents and the children to whom they had given a religious upbringing. The rift between parents and children became more pronounced when the majority of these newly-qualified professionals did not settle in Oudtshoorn on their return because of Oudtshoorn’s economic deterioration. Generally speaking, with few exceptions, in Oudtshoorn itself few mixed marriages took place.
In 1904 an overseas Yiddish theatre troupe visited Oudtshoorn, and the whole town attended their performances. From time to time theatre groups organised in Johannesburg also appeared in Oudtshoorn. The Oudtshoorn Zionist youth also occasionally got up a Yiddish stage presentation for the fun of the thing. In 1911 some of the modern intelligentsia collected £340 for a library. On 2 November 1911 the library was opened under the auspices of the Zionist organisation. The library contained 181 Yiddish books, 52 Hebrew books, 29 English books (on Zionism and nationalism), and 10 assorted periodicals in Yiddish and English. At first there were 106 readers. Few read books; many omitted to return them. Those who did read lost interest, since few new books were acquired. At the end of 1914, after the outbreak of the World War, the remaining books were deposited with the Municipal Library. By then there were only 36 readers left. A short while later, the Municipal Library approached the former owners of the books with regard to borrowers of Yiddish and Hebrew books who were not returning them. The library authorities
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wanted to know whether these Jews should be compelled to return the books or not. The former management committee instructed the Municipal Library to ignore the borrowed books, and they recommended that the Municipal Library suspend entirely the further lending out of Yiddish and Hebrew books, for compelling borrowers to return books could irritate them to such an extent that they might refuse to give money to Zionist causes, and Zionist funds might suffer severely as a consequence. ln 1922 the Municipal Library returned all the remaining books to the Zionist organisation. Nowadays, a great many of these books, looking like plucked ostriches with torn backs, are still to be found locked away in the large cupboard of the “Hebrew School”.
In 1922 Peretz Hirschbein visited Oudtshoorn, the first and only occasion on which a prominent Yiddish writer called on its Jewish community. Hirschbein was the first person who came among them not to collect money for Zionist causes or for yeshives, but to speak to them about the flourishing modern Yiddish literature and about Jewish life outside Palestine. The Town Hall, which held five hundred people, was packed to capacity. They heard such things from their guest as they had never, until then, heard from any other speaker. This is how Peretz Hirschbein describes his visit to Oudtshoorn in his book Felker un Lender:
As was customary, the conversation opened in broken English in an Afrikaans accent. When Jews meet here, this is the normal way they engage in conversation; it is not thought proper to start a conversation in Kovner Yiddish. Only one middle-aged gentleman, who sat in the automobile with me when we travelled back from the station, he alone from the start began to talk to me in Yiddish. His diction and pronunciation were pure, laced with Hebrew words. But this was not a Jew. He was a full-blooded Christian, the mayor of the most Yiddish of all towns. He had travelled out to meet the Yiddish writer and to pay his respects to him. "Yankele" - this is how the Jews call him. He is theirs. He had grown up among them and with them. They helped him to be elected mayor of Oudtshoorn. Subsequently, he did not miss a single one of my lectures.
“Yankele” -Jannie de Jager - was not the only one. A great many of the Afrikaners who worked or came into daily contact with Jews
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could speak Yiddish. A great many more coloured people who worked for Jews also spoke Yiddish fluently.
Notwithstanding the fact that many Jewish children could speak Afrikaans (the language of their coloured nannies), when they completed their schooling at the Folkshul or the Government Hebrew School, they spoke only English. The parents had to adapt themselves to their children, speaking to them first in Afrikaans and then in broken English. Nevertheless, those born in Oudtshoorn understood and spoke Yiddish, because Yiddish was the language of their parents and their environment. But they received no formal cultural instruction in the Yiddish language. They read no Yiddish books or newspapers. The world was experiencing various upheavals: war, revolution and the like; new influences and ideas were permeating Jewish life. A great modern culture developed, but out of all of this only one thing existed for the Jews of Oudtshoorn - the Balfour Declaration.
There was not one anti-Zionist in Oudtshoorn. There were only two passive non-Zionists. No progressive or radical organisation ever existed in the town. There was never even a single group which had an interest in modern Yiddish literature and culture. Apart from Mendele, Sholem Aleykhem and Peretz, they had never even heard the names of Yiddish writers. When Peretz Hirschbein visited Oudtshoorn, many Jews thought that he was the famous Y. L. Peretz.
There was no Jewish bookshop in Oudtshoorn where one could obtain a Yiddish book or newspaper. In the early years, the Petersburg Fraynt, Hatsfira, American Yiddish newspapers, and occasionally even a local South African Yiddish newspaper found its way into the town, but these grew fewer and fewer. Today not a single Yiddish book arrives in Oudtshoorn, and only a few newspapers. Some Hebrew newspapers appear, not because they are read but, in truth, because somebody once came down especially to enrol subscribers who, as Zionists, felt it unbecoming for Oudtshoorn Jews to refuse.
Nowadays Yiddish is spoken by the older generation, a body which is dying off. With every passing, the number of Yiddish speakers is diminished. The bearers of the Yiddish language and literature - the
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labour organisations - never existed in Oudtshoorn. To what extent
the Jews of Oudtshoorn were culturally inert, and remain so to this
day, can be gauged from the fact that, apart from Peretz Hirschbein
(who gave it a four-page Chapter in his book Felker un Lender) no one
has ever written an article either in Yiddish or even in English
about the most Yiddish of all towns - Oudtshoorn, the erstwhile
"Jerusalem of South Africa”.
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Post by Trog on Jul 11, 2014 9:58:19 GMT
... I suppose the Jews have all left, now? I happen to have one of Langenhoven's books signed and dedicated to one of her friends by Sarah Goldblatt. I probably have no right to actually have the thing. One day I should perhaps donate it some museum or the other, if I can find one that is at all interested. Still a few Jews left - including farmers. Maybe you should start playing cards with them, so that they can educate you culturally?
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Post by cjm on Jul 12, 2014 5:53:44 GMT
Maybe you should start playing cards with them, so that they can educate you culturally? Well, if card playing will enhance my money making skills, it sure is something to be considered. They identified a target and within some 20 years dominated the retail part of the industry. I think group cohesion, culture and awareness of identity have much to do with it. What else can it be apart from genetics which will be denied by the *experts* ?
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Post by cjm on Jul 12, 2014 8:50:55 GMT
5
Attitude of Boers towards Jews
IN THE MANNER conventional among fanatical believers in
white supremacy, the Boers maintained a strict segregation
from, and an intense hatred towards, the brown and black
people. This hatred towards people of colour was inculcated in them
from childhood. Consequently, the division was not simply that
between employer and employee; the Boers regarded the brown and
black people as inferior beings with whom it was not fitting to have
any social intercourse. Except in Oudtshoorn itself, the Boers of the
district almost never came into contact with the English. They
distrusted the crafty English, feared them and therefore hated them
because the English rule had been the reason for their trek into the
interior.
When the Lithuanian Jews began arriving in Oudtshoorn and its
district the Boers welcomed them with great friendliness, and received
them as honoured guests. They greatly admired and were impressed
by the lineage of the Jews as descendants of Moses the Lawgiver and
children of that people who had given them the Bible. The arrival of
the Jews vivified the Bible for them, and confirmed that everything
written there was holy and true. They craved the company and
friendship of the Jews. As great adherents of the Bible - the only book
to be found in almost every Boer’s house - they felt comfortable in the
company of Jews whom, unlike the English, they considered to be
their equals.
The Jew, by contrast with the Englishman, learnt to speak Afrikaans
easily and quickly, and in turn also felt at ease in the company of the
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Boer, even though he regarded him as a naïve and backward peasant.
The fact that the Jew came from another continent, was well versed
in the Old Testament, and knew stories and jokes deeply impressed
the Boer.
Jewish dealers came to buy their ostrich feathers; Jewish shmoyzers
came to sell them merchandise. This buying and selling was very
convenient for the indolent farmers, for it saved them travelling into
Oudtshoorn. Owing to the keen competition between the buyers, the
Jews paid good prices for the feathers. Indeed, the feather trade rose
sharply with the arrival of the Jews.
Among the shmoyzers and feather traders, however, there were
some swindlers whose only aim was to make money, and who cared
nothing for anyone or anything. Every means apparently justified
their end. They took the fullest advantage of the fact that many of the
Boers were inexperienced businessmen. They abused the Boers’
hospitality and frequently fooled and cheated them. In consequence,
they brought disgrace and disrepute upon all other Jews. These rogues
and cheats provoked a strong aversion to Jews which was passed on
by the Boers to succeeding generations. There is a saying current
among the Jews: “If you are going to the local cemetery, be careful and
guard your pockets. Notorious thieves are buried there”. Nevertheless
all gravestones in Oudtshoorn bear the inscription, Ish tzadik v'yashar,
“ [Here lies] a pious and an upright man”.
Despite all this, the attitude of the majority of the Boers towards the
Jews was, over a period of several decades, an excellent one. The
Boers respected the Jews, and on great festive or social occasions,
prominent Afrikaners would come forward and speak in high praise
of them. Although the Jews led a distinctive communal life of their
own, many of them took an active part in the general affairs of the
town. An authentic extant document, a warrant, indicates that the
policeman deputed to keep order at a Jewish meeting in the Drill Hall
on 2 August 1898 was a Constable Cohen. The more settled Jews
became in Oudtshoorn, the greater grew their participation in
municipal affairs. There were Jewish councillors and later on several
Jewish mayors of the town.
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With the upsurge of Boer national consciousness, which expressed
itself through the new Afrikaner culture, particularly in the language
and emerging literature, a barrier was thrown up which has become
steadily more marked, particularly in the last two decades.
C. J. Langenhoven lived in Oudtshoorn. Apart from the fact that
he was one of the greatest Afrikaans poets and writers - he wrote the
words of Die Stem, which is regarded by Afrikaners as the National
Anthem of South Africa - he was one of the pillars, and the
champion, of Afrikaner nationalism. It is interesting to note that his
secretary and the chief executrix of his literary estate was the
daughter of David Goldblatt, one of the pioneers of the Yiddish
press in Cape Town.
Langenhoven, like so many other of the rising Afrikaner intellectuals,
strongly deplored the fact that Jews were exclusively drawn to English
culture, and displayed little interest in, and considerable indifference
towards, Afrikaans culture. As a consequence, his wholly friendly
feelings towards the Jews, like those of many other nationalistically-
minded Afrikaners, began steadily to cool. These Afrikaners began to
regard the Jews as a pro-English and hence - in their view - as an alien
element. To this day, the older generation of Afrikaners is still kindly
disposed towards the Jews, but the new generation, amongst whom
the Bible no longer plays a dominant role, does not value the Biblical
heritage of the Jews. Instead younger Afrikaners regard the Jews as
competitors in economic fields which they themselves wish to
penetrate, and find the places “occupied”, so to speak, by Jews. Their
markedly chauvinist-nationalistic consciousness has created an attitude
to the Jew in marked contrast to that of the past - a hostile and
antagonistic attitude which extends so far as to regard the Jews as
outsiders. The sitting Member of Parliament for Oudtshoorn is a
leader of the anti-Semitic National Party.
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Post by Trog on Jul 14, 2014 19:24:51 GMT
Maybe you should start playing cards with them, so that they can educate you culturally? Well, if card playing will enhance my money making skills, it sure is something to be considered. They identified a target and within some 20 years dominated the retail part of the industry. I think group cohesion, culture and awareness of identity have much to do with it. What else can it be apart from genetics which will be denied by the *experts* ? My guess is that 99.99% of their secret is a work ethic. I’ve known/know a fair amount of Jews, and maybe to generalise about Jews is inaccurate and invalid, but the entire world appears to consider it in order to generalise about Afrikaners, so perhaps it is OK after all. And what strikes me about them is what I would consider a pathological dedication to whatever it is they derive their livelihood from – to the extent that it may be termed as obsessive compulsive behaviour. A Jew making his money from activity X spends about 16 hours a day on activity X, and reduces everything in the world to activity X. So in effect they live very narrow lives. This is good for manufacturing Chess Grandmasters, Concert Pianists and billionaires. But it is not good for actually creating something, even though creativity may be something they fondly believe themselves to have some proficiency in. This was rather nastily commented upon by the anti-Semites Wagner and List, not without some accuracy, I think. I am certainly not anti-Semitic – I admire the way Jews can configure the world around them to their advantage. (And manage to find it morally justifiable at that). I am just not capable of it, no matter how hard I try. My life quite simply is much richer than that and I find it impossible to limit myself to such an impoverished mode of existence.
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Post by cjm on Jul 15, 2014 19:16:01 GMT
My guess is that 99.99% of their secret is a work ethic. I’ve known/know a fair amount of Jews, and maybe to generalise about Jews is inaccurate and invalid, but the entire world appears to consider it in order to generalise about Afrikaners, so perhaps it is OK after all. And what strikes me about them is what I would consider a pathological dedication to whatever it is they derive their livelihood from – to the extent that it may be termed as obsessive compulsive behaviour. A Jew making his money from activity X spends about 16 hours a day on activity X, and reduces everything in the world to activity X. So in effect they live very narrow lives. This is good for manufacturing Chess Grandmasters, Concert Pianists and billionaires. But it is not good for actually creating something, even though creativity may be something they fondly believe themselves to have some proficiency in. This was rather nastily commented upon by the anti-Semites Wagner and List, not without some accuracy, I think. I am certainly not anti-Semitic – I admire the way Jews can configure the world around them to their advantage. (And manage to find it morally justifiable at that). I am just not capable of it, no matter how hard I try. My life quite simply is much richer than that and I find it impossible to limit myself to such an impoverished mode of existence. I cannot really say that I disagree with you as my data is rather limited and of a mixed nature. My personal experience is that at school the Jews were not really exceptional students. At university the situation was different. Quite a number of the Jews were really exceptional - and so were the few Japs/Chinese. In business some of the more average Jews I knew as kids, did very well. Perhaps they worked very hard, but then they must have been late starters. As for creativity, I am faced with a similar lack of data as many prominent Jews are/were exceptional artists. Looking at the number of Jewish Nobel Prize winners I am also left in a lurch as I find it hard to believe that only hard work is responsible. In the Oudtshoorn context, however, the fact that the local Jews had contact with Jews in other parts of the world, must have had an immense effect of the creation of the lucrative feather trade. Perhaps the same would have applied to any other group with overseas connections. Their cohesion must have facilitated the process greatly, however. One wonders whether the diaspora of Afrikaners will create similar synergies.
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