ja chank 2008 - South African Jewish Board of Deputies

OBITUARIES
Shortly before going to print Jewish Affairs suffered, in short order, three grievous losses,
with the passing of Dr. Jocelyn Hellig, Aleck Goldberg and Schneir Levin. All were
frequent contributors to the journal over many years, and in addition, Jocelyn was an
active and highly valued member of its editorial board. The following three obituaries,
prepared by the editor, detail some of the contributions they made, not just to Jewish
Affairs but to South African Jewry as a whole – David Saks, Editor.
Jocelyn Hellig
The untimely passing of Dr. Jocelyn Hellig, one of South African Jewry’s most respected
scholars, writers and communal leaders, was a grievous loss to the community as a whole
and to Jewish Affairs in particular. She was an indefatigable worker on behalf of the
community she loved and understood so well, contributing in countless ways to Jewish
scholarship and the fight against antisemitism. Her input on the editorial board of Jewish
Affairs was much valued by her colleagues, and the scholarly articles she contributed can
be ranked with some of the finest material published by the journal over the years.
At the time of her passing, Jocelyn held the position of National Vice-chairperson of the
SA Jewish Board of Deputies. She was also a vice-chairperson of the Gauteng Council of
the SAJBD, on which committee she had served for nearly three decades.
Through the various offices of the Board, she rendered a range of services to the Jewish
community that were as impressive as they were diverse. Amongst other things, she
chaired the SAJBD’s bursaries’ committee, addressed innumerable conferences and
communal events, helped organise conferences, prepared position papers and represented
the Board at many high level meetings. She was much in demand as a speaker,
addressing innumerable Jewish communal gatherings over the years. These included
Yom Hashoah commemorative ceremonies in centres throughout the country and various
national and regional conferences and other public functions of the SAJBD. Perhaps her
most striking achievement in recent years was her heading up of the phenomenally
successful “Seeking Refuge” exhibition project focusing on German-Jewish refugees
who settled in Johannesburg in the 1930s.
Both the SAJBD staff and colleagues on the various Board councils relied heavily on her
advice and expertise, particularly where issues of antisemitism were concerned. In the
media sphere, Jocelyn appeared on numerous occasions on radio and television,
providing informed and always scrupulously balanced perspectives on antisemitism, the
Holocaust, the South African Jewish community, the Middle East and world religions.
Much of what she had to deal with was controversial, but she had not only the intellectual
expertise but, just as importantly, the sensitivity to address such issues appropriately.
Jocelyn Hellig (neé Judes) was born in Johannesburg in 1940. She matriculated cum
laude at the Johannesburg Girls’ High School and obtained a BA and H. Dip Ed. from
Wits University and the Johannesburg College of Education respectively. In 1961, she
married Dr Michael Hellig, and the couple had two daughters and a son. While raising

her family and working (she was a high school teacher for a time at Forest High and after
1976 a lecturer on world religions in the Department of Religious Studies at Wits), Hellig
continued to study at Wits, completing Biblical and Religious Studies I, II and III. In
1982, she obtained her Ph.D. for her thesis “The Death of G-d” in the thought of Richard
L. Rubenstein”. In 1992 and again in 1995-8, she was Head of the Department of
Religious Studies, afterwards becoming an Honorary Research Fellow.
Jocelyn was a prolific writer, contributing numerous academic articles and chapters in
books to a wide range of scholarly publications on such themes as Jewish religious
expression in Africa, antisemitism and the Holocaust and comparative religion. She also
wrote extensively for both the Jewish and general media on these and other relevant
topics. Her critically acclaimed book The Holocaust and Anti-Semitism: A Short History
(One World, Oxford) appeared in 2003.
Aleck Goldberg
Aleck Goldberg, who passed away just after Succot at the age of 85, was a much loved
and respected Jewish communal leader. A true scholar and gentleman, he epitomised the
dedication and professionalism that characterised a now vanished era of Jewish
communal service in South Africa. Goldberg served on the staff of the SA Jewish Board
of Deputies from 1958 until his retirement in 1990, for the last ten years as Executive
Director. He was also a prolific writer on South African Jewish themes, regularly
contributing to Jewish Affairs and other local Jewish publications.
Aleck’s long career at the SAJBD commenced with his appointment as Secretary of its
Public Relations Committee. Part of his brief in the early years was to monitor the press,
both English and Afrikaans, and prepare summaries of items of Jewish interest. These
enabled the leadership of the Board to assess levels of anti-Jewish sentiment.
Over the years, he created a special niche for himself within the Board as its country
communities ‘ambassador’, making frequent visits to the country districts to update the
small platteland Jewish communities regarding the work of the Board and the situation in
the country as a whole. He also took particular pleasure in the cultural and educational
aspects of the Board’s work, and was involved in arranging numerous events in this field,
including lectures and exhibitions.
The most pressing issue facing the Board during the years when Aleck was Executive
Director was that of apartheid and how the Board, as the representative political voice of
the community, should respond to it. As he put it later, the Board was forced to walk a
tightrope, caught between its duty to protect the Jewish community and the moral
imperative to condemn a policy that was contrary to the ethics of Judaism.
Shortly after his retirement, Goldberg joined the editorial board of Jewish Tradition. His
book Portrait of a Community: South African Jewry, drawn from his own intimate
experience and knowledge of the local Jewish community, was published through the
Rabbi Aloy Foundation Trust in 2002.
Aleck Goldberg was born to Leib and Malka Goldberg in Ermelo, in the then Eastern
Transvaal, in 1923. He matriculated at Ermelo High School before moving to
Johannesburg, where he obtained a B.A. from Wits and a teacher’s diploma from the

Johannesburg College of Education. Thereafter, he held a number of high school teaching
posts, including at Parktown Boys, Highlands North, Krugersdorp, Athlone and King
David (where he was the first male teacher ever appointed). He also taught briefly in
London. In 1955, he married Musa Katz, and the couple had two sons and a daughter.
Schneir Levin
Dr. Schneir Levin, who passed away in Johannesburg on Yom Kippur at the age of 83,
was a much beloved paediatrician who will be fondly remembered by several generations
of parents whose children he tended with his expertise and trademark generosity. Less
well known to the general public was the fact that he was also a redoubtable Judaic
scholar, whose characteristically original, probing monographs on innumerable aspects
on Jewish religion, literature, genealogy, folklore, history and language appeared in
Jewish periodicals, newspapers and magazines throughout the world over more than four
decades. He was a veteran contributor to Jewish Affairs for decades; his last contribution
appeared in the Rosh Hashanah 2007 issue.
Schneir Levin was born in Posvel (Pasvalys), Lithuania, in 1925 and came to South
Africa with his mother, Hana Rivel, brother Chaim and sister Esther in 1932; his father,
Simcha, had preceded the family by three years. He grew up in the then heavily Jewish
suburb of Bertrams, and qualified as a paediatrician at the University of the
Witwatersrand. While he looked after several generations of children, many of them from
the Jewish community, he himself never married. He was a stalwart member of the Berea
shul until its eventual closure and, despite ill health in his final years, continued to write
regularly for Jewish and other publications.
The origins of popular Jewish surnames, the ‘Jewish’ character of Superman, Biblical
resonances in modern-day agricultural practices in the West Bank and exactly what was
the Forbidden Fruit in the Genesis story were just a sample of the multiple byways into
which Levin’s provocative, if sometimes eccentric, scholarship led him. Apart from
Jewish Affairs, amongst the publications in which his work regularly appeared over the
years were Jewish Affairs, Biblical Polemics, Midstream, Judaism and Jewish Bible
Quarterly. For Biblical Polemics alone, he contributed more than a hundred articles.
All this was in addition to his frequent contributions to the Jewish press. Levin also found
time to write on a range of scientific and medical topics, whether for serious publications
as the SA Medical Journal or for more off-beat, tongue-in-cheek periodicals as the
Journal of Irreproducible Results and Annals of Improbable Research.

SIR MARTIN GILBERT: THE HOLOCAUST IN
A SANITIZED INTERPRETATION
Alexander J. Groth
Alexander J. Groth is Professor Emeritus of Political Science, University of California,
Davis.
A variation on Holocaust denial is a more subtle attempt to absolve so-called bystanders,
especially Allied governments, of complicity in the mass murder of European Jews. A
foremost example of those who disguise the Allied role is the eminent British-Jewish
historian, Sir Martin Gilbert, the biographer of Sir Winston Churchill and prolific, widely
cited, author of historical narratives focused both on the Holocaust and the Second World
War. Gilbert’s ‘sanitizing’ method is analyzed and illustrated here in relation to the
proposition that Hitler's Final Solution might have been, and certainly should have been,
variously obstructed and impeded by “third parties” - the Allies foremost among these -
not only in relation to the events of 1941-1942 and subsequently, but also 1940-1941.
Holocaust denial is simply too obvious a falsehood to command a significant following
within the world's respectably intellectual circles. The denial of Allied passivity and
collusion with the perpetrators, however, is quite another matter. There are respectable
scholars and historians who distort the reality of the Holocaust because it seems that they
cannot face up to the indifference and the complicity of non-Nazis, and especially of
Allied governments, in the mass murder of the Jewish population of Europe under the
auspices of Hitler's regime. 1
Gilbert has recounted and reconstructed some of the most horrible scenes and events
from the whole European landscape of Jewish martyrdom and Nazi inhumanity.
Simultaneously, however, he has promoted two arguments to absolve the Allies of
responsibility in the Holocaust, viz. lack of information, and a technical-physical inability
to act in any timely or effective fashion. In order to sustain this interpretation, Gilbert has
(1) gone to great lengths to disguise, obscure, and distort what was known about the
killings and also what was knowable (and what is ‘knowable’ always depends, to some
extent at least, on someone's interest in knowing…); he has also (2) resorted to gross
misrepresentation of alleged Allied inability to act in response to that which was either
known or knowable; and (3), he has exhibited a consistent unwillingness to make
inferences from Allied rhetoric and behavior which suggested that lack of desire, rather
than lack of information or capability, was at the root of Allied behavior with respect to
the Holocaust.
1 Obviously, many people of all sorts - including even some Jews - remained indifferent to the Holocaust
when they should have acted or spoken, but the moral culpability of the Allies was greater than most
because, extrapolating from Immanuel Kant’s linkage between capability and obligation, passivity in the
face of a crime would always be a greater fault in a police officer or soldier than it would be in an elderly
woman, in a child, or in a disabled person, and, by extension, in “an average civilian”.

To put the matter into proper perspective, one needs to take into account Allied
recognition of the fact of the Holocaust. This recognition was embodied in the Allied
Declaration of 17 December, 1942, issued on behalf of the governments of Belgium,
Czechoslovakia, Greece, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, the United
States, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia and the French National
Committee. It was made public by British Foreign Secretary, Anthony Eden in the House
of Commons. It asserted that:
...the German authorities, not content with denying to persons of Jewish race in all
the territories over which their barbarous rule has been extended the most
elementary human rights, are now carrying into effect Hitler's oft repeated
intention to exterminate the Jewish people in Europe. From all the occupied
countries Jews are being transported, in conditions of appalling horror and
brutality, to Eastern Europe. In Poland, which has been made the principal Nazi
slaughterhouse, the ghettoes established by the German invaders are being
systematically emptied of all Jews. ...None of those taken away are ever heard of
again. ... the number of victims of these bloody cruelties is reckoned in many
hundreds of thousands of entirely innocent men, women and children. 2
Eden observed that the reports upon which the Allied declaration was based were
‘reliable’, and that they had reached the British government ‘recently’. In the conclusion
of the official declaration, Eden said that Allied governments condemned the “bestial
policy of cold-blooded extermination”. He said nothing about any possible assistance to
the victims.
Virtually any Jew who had survived these times, especially in East-Central Europe, is
cognizant of the important effect of local antisemitism on the success of Hitler’s Final
Solution. To be sure, there were heroic individuals in all European societies who ran all
the risks of murderous Nazi reprisals in order to do what they could to help and rescue
Jews. There were some “shining stars” like Oskar Schindler and Jan Karski. But, in very
great numbers, there was also collaboration between Nazi killers and antisemitic
sympathizers, people who identified and turned over Jews to their murderers, people who
assisted in the roundups and the killings, and who also, in many cases, simply refused to
give Jews any assistance or even sympathy, that is, people who remained wholly
indifferent to, and passively accepting of, the Nazi mass killing of the Jews.
For these people, a public word from the very prestigious figure of Winston Churchill, as
indeed also from Franklin Roosevelt, would have been significant. It could have made a
life-or-death difference for thousands of Jews who were “turned in”, and for thousands
who could have been assisted but were not. Nazi liquidation of European Jewry occurred
disproportionately - certainly for a majority of the roughly six million - in only six
principal extermination camps. These were Auschwitz, Majdanek, Treblinka, Chelmno,
Belzec and Sobibor. All these camps were located on the territory of pre-war Poland.
Although the Polish underground movement reported throughout the war on the
extermination of the Jews to its political leadership in London, it made no effort to
interfere with the killing process in or around these camps. There were no Polish attacks
2 Parliamentary Debates, Commons, 5th ser. vol. 385 (1942) p2083.

on these Nazi facilities or the railroad tracks leading to them, or on the trains carrying the
victims.
Anthony Eden spoke with enormous inaccuracy, to say the least, when he assured the
House of Commons following his Declaration:
I may also say that all the information we have from occupied countries is that the
peoples there, despite their many sufferings, trials and tribulations, are doing
everything in their power to give assistance and charity to their Jewish fellowsubjects.
3
Some Gilbert Interpretations
Nevertheless, Gilbert, in a work whose very theme might have suggested to him some
very critical observations about Allied conduct, managed a blandly exculpatory
conclusion. In the Epilogue to his 1981 book about Auschwitz and the Allies, he
summarized his view of the Jewish tragedy as follows:
Most of Europe’s Jews had already been murdered several months before the facts
of the concentration camp killings were fully [?!] known, and more than a year
and a half before Auschwitz itself was identified as a main killing centre.
Throughout 1942, the problem confronting both the Allies, and the Jews in Allied
lands, had been lack of information. This arose from the deliberate Nazi policy of
deception, whereby the destination of the deportees, and their fate, was cloaked
and concealed. But as the details of the killings in Eastern Europe began to filter
through to the west early in the summer of 1942, it was clear that the scale of the
massacres was substantial and horrific; so much so that by the end of the year
they were described in the widely publicized Allied Declaration of 17 December
1942 as ‘bestial crimes’.
During this time, it was difficult for the Allies to do anything other than to issue
warnings and declarations. It was the German army which dominated Europe,
from the Atlantic to the Black Sea. At the same time, one problem for both Jews
and non-Jews outside Nazi-dominated Europe was to take in the enormity of what
was happening. For some of those who read the reports, there was also an
unwillingness to take them in. 4
Gilbert’s message here was awkwardly mixed. If the Allies said in December 1942 that
they knew what was being done to the Jews, how could one argue that they really did not?
3 Ibid., p. 2085. For a discussion of survivor perceptions, see Alexander J. Groth, Holocaust Voices: An
Attitudinal Survey of Survivors (Amherst, NY: Humanity Books, 2003) pp. 131-175. For an illustration,
note Jan T. Gross, Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland (Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001), and also his subsequent Fear, (New York: Simon and Schuster,
2007). On the ‘bystander’ failure to intervene against the Nazi death trains, note Stefan Korbonski, The
Jews and the Poles in World War II (New York: Hippocrene Books, 1989) especially pp. 5-56; see also
Tadeusz Bór-Komorowski, Armia Podziemna [Underground Army] (London: Veritas, 1950), pp. 95-106,
146-147 and passim; compare the account of Norman Davies, God’s Playground: A History of Poland,
Volume II (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982), p265.
4 Martin Gilbert, Auschwitz and the Allies (London, Michael Joseph Ltd., 1981), p339.

Eden did not say that the Jews had been killed; he said they were being killed. Even if
the Allies did not know all the details of Nazi policies, and all the specifics of Auschwitz,
as opposed to other camps and other killing locations, how much of a handicap to policy
was that? Gilbert’s notion that it was “difficult for the Allies to do anything” was
virtually sophomoric. Was bombing Germany day and night during 1942 and 1943
‘difficult’? It was ‘difficult’ but it was being done. Was helping out and supplying
French and Yugoslav and Norwegian resistance movements ‘difficult’? That was also
being done from British and American resources. Ships sailed and planes flew and
soldiers fought.
Interestingly, earlier in the same work, Gilbert had written that ‘many’ British policy
makers “opposed the appeals on behalf of [Jewish] refugees [because they] were
particularly ‘afraid’ as they expressed it, of the ‘danger’ of ‘flooding’ Palestine, and
indeed Britain with Jews. They argued that even the arrival of a few thousand Jewish
refugees in Britain would provoke an outburst of antisemitism. These same policy makers
were also wary of what they regarded as a parallel 'danger' of falling for what one of them
[?!] referred to as Jewish ‘sob-stuff’”. And some, he wrote, also spoke of “customary
Jewish exaggeration”. 5
It would hardly be a matter of literary license to label the policy-makers’ attitudes that
Gilbert described here as fundamentally antisemitic. But, if this was the case, was it not
likely that various other British policies with respect to the Holocaust - not just refugee
issues - might have been affected by such attitudes? Was it even possible perhaps that
there were some British policy-makers who thought that Hitler's killing of the Jews -
who, if left alive, might some day seek to ‘flood’ Palestine - wasn't such a bad idea?
After all, it was in 1942 that Dr. Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's Propaganda Minister, made
this infamous observation in his diaries:
The question of Jewish persecution in Europe is being given top news priority by
the English and the Americans ... At bottom, however, I believe that both the
English and the Americans are happy that we are exterminating the Jewish riffraff.
6
In his major work, The Holocaust: The Jewish Tragedy (London: Collins, 1986, 959 pp.),
Gilbert concluded the discussion of the extermination of European Jews in an Epilogue of
several pages subtitled, “I will tell the world”. He described the apparently special
character of the Holocaust among Hitler's many crimes: “It was the Jews alone who were
marked out to be destroyed in their entirety: every Jewish man, woman and child”. But in
this work Gilbert gave virtually no attention to the attitude of the Allied states toward this
horrible process from its early days in the Warsaw Ghetto in 1940 and 1941 to its gas
chamber conclusion from 1942 to 1945.
5 Gilbert reported that during a 19 May, 1942, debate in the House of Commons on possible British
sanctuary for Jewish refugees, the argument was made by one MP, Herbert Butcher, that such refuge
should be denied to Jews in order to prevent a likely increase in British antisemitism. Ibid., p140, and
p339.
6 See L. P. Lochner (ed.) The Goebbels Diaries, 1942-1943 (New York: Doubleday, 1948) 13 December,
1942 entry. p241. Italics are mine.

To be sure, Gilbert quoted from the famous letter of Szmuel Zygielbojm, the Warsaw
Ghetto representative who committed suicide in London in May 1943 in protest of world
and Allied passivity toward the murder of the Jews. But in doing so he, critically, left out
Zygielbojm’s line about the Allied governments’ failure to act. He used only the words:
“By my death, I wish to express my vigorous protest against the apathy with which the
world regards and resigns itself to the slaughter of the Jewish people”. 7
Gilbert made mention of a Churchill broadcast on 24 August, 1941, coincident with the
Nazi attack on Russia, in which he spoke of “merciless butchery” unlike all previous
experience, although he noted that “Churchill made no specific reference to Jews”. 8
He mentioned Churchill’s message on 14 November, 1941, to Britain's Jewish Chronicle,
on its centenary, in which Churchill “gave public recognition to the Jewish suffering”.
What Gilbert quoted, however, was exceedingly tame. The Prime Minister wrote: “None
has suffered more cruelly than the Jews”. 9 In this message, according to Gilbert,
Churchill concluded that “[The Jew] has not allowed [this persecution] to break his spirit:
he has never lost the will to resist ... Assuredly in the day of victory the Jews’ sufferings
and his [sic!] part in the struggle will not be forgotten”. 10
Churchill made a passing reference to Jewish deportations from France in September of
1942 in the House of Commons and concluded that “When the hour of liberation strikes
Europe, as strike it will, it will also be the hour of retribution”. 11
In October 1942, Churchill sent a message addressed to a protest meeting held in London
on behalf of Hitler’s Jewish victims. He spoke of “the systematic cruelties [?!] to which
the Jewish people - men, women, and children - have been exposed under the Nazi
regime [as] amongst the most terrible events of history” .., but again his conclusion was
that “when this world struggle ends with the enthronement of human rights, racial
persecution will be ended”. 12
It is quite clear from all the foregoing Churchill quotations - industriously assembled by
Gilbert - that (a) they tended to understate the enormity and singularity of the Nazi “Final
Solution of the Jewish Question”, that (b) they included no reference to any possible
interference with the Final Solution while the enormous crime was actually in progress
and (c) they did not include any appeals to anyone in or outside Britain for assistance to
the victims.
Gilbert’s laudatory treatment reached still greater heights in his 1991 biography of
Churchill. His account of the Prime Minister’s career was full of glowing tributes. In
fact, he concluded his 1066 page treatise by saying that “as the years pass and the
historical record is studied without malice, Churchill's actions and aims will be seen to
7 Gilbert, Holocaust, p565.
8 Ibid., p186.
9 Ibid., p231.
10 Ibid., p232.
11 Ibid., pp. 450-1.
12 Ibid., p485.

have been humane and far-sighted”. 13 He also suggested that “perhaps not enough has
been made of [Churchill's] magnanimity”. 14
Without denying Churchill's critically important role in Allied victory in World War II,
the question nevertheless remains: just how humane and magnanimous was he when it
came to dealing with Jews? Churchill’s attitude to the unprecedented plight of the victims
of Hitler's Holocaust was, at best, one of relative indifference, even when by the
admission of his own government (if not Gilbert’s) he knew full well what the Nazis
were doing to the Jews of Europe.
Looking at specific events, what did Churchill do when he learned about the Warsaw
Ghetto uprising, as all the world did of course, in April 1943? Did he utter a public word?
Did he send planes with supplies to Warsaw, or even as a show of solidarity, as he did
when the Poles staged their ill-fated Warsaw uprising in August 1944? 15 Did he consult
Roosevelt and Stalin on these matters in 1943 as he did in 1944? Did he issue a
declaration supporting the Jewish Fighting Organization as his Foreign Secretary did for
the Polish Home Army in September 1944 demanding that the Polish freedom fighters be
treated by the Nazis as regular combatants with all the implicit threat of Allied
reprisals? 16 Did he call in the representatives of the Polish Government-in-Exile,
headquartered in London, to urge them to give Jews fighting in the streets of Warsaw
more help, especially from their fairly significant weapons' stockpiles (or perhaps
through diversionary actions)? 17 Did he call a single meeting of his staff or cabinet to
consider what, if anything, might have been done to assist the martyrs and heroes of the
Warsaw Ghetto?
At the time of the Polish uprising in Warsaw in August-September 1944, Churchill and
Roosevelt exchanged many messages concerning assistance to the Polish insurgents and
contacts with Stalin to facilitate it. The record speaks for itself. 18 In the case of the Jewish
Warsaw uprising in April-May 1943, they did not exchange a single message. (It is
noteworthy, of course, that Jewish resistance in Warsaw actually lasted longer than the
resistance of six sovereign states in the 1940-1941 period, i.e., Belgium, Holland,
Luxembourg, Denmark, Yugoslavia and Greece).
During the Polish rising, Churchill made two speeches in the House of Commons. On 26
September, 1944, he paid tribute to the heroism of the Polish insurgents in Warsaw and
specifying various ways in which Britain had been trying to assist them “despite the very
great practical difficulties and in the face of heavy losses [of Allied aircraft and crews]”.
13 Gilbert, Churchill: A Life (London: Heineman,1991) p959.
14 Ibid.
15 According to Gilbert’s account in Second World War (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1989) p596:
“In all, 306 Allied aircraft flew over Warsaw ... forty one .. had been shot down and at least two hundred air
men killed."
16 Note Stanislaw Mikolajczyk, The Rape of Poland, Pattern of Soviet Aggression (New York: McGraw
Hill, 1958) p90 and also Frank P. King, ‘British Policy and the Warsaw Uprising’, Journal of European
Studies, Vol. 4, No. 1, March 1974, pp. 1-18.
17 See Bernard Wasserstein, Britain and the Jews of Europe 1939-1945 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979).
This was an occasion on which much assistance could have been given. The Jews of Warsaw were badly in
need of weapons which the Polish Home Army had but shared very minimally. (p305; fn. 119)
18 On Churchill-Roosevelt correspondence see Warren F. Kimball (ed.) Churchill and Roosevelt, The
Complete Correspondence, Vols. II and III, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984).

This was followed by a speech on the House floor, 5 October, after the Polish insurgents
in Warsaw had already surrendered. Here, Churchill expressed admiration for the Poles
and expressed “sympathy with the Polish nation”. When the Jewish resistance movement
fought the Nazis in the ruins of the Warsaw Ghetto, Churchill made no mention of it in
any public statement or speech. 19
Analogously, Roosevelt remained entirely silent when the Jews fought in Warsaw,
although he and his administration sent messages to Stalin and exchanged various public
statements with the Polish Government-in-Exile during the subsequent Polish rising. It
was ironic, however, that five days before Mordechai Anielewicz, leader of the Ghetto
resistance, perished in his Warsaw bunker, President Roosevelt did send a public message
to Poland, but it recognized and honored a completely unrelated Polish national
anniversary. 20
Naturally, when one considers why it was that the Allies remained entirely passive
bystanders while Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto fought and died the question of decisionmaker
attitudes is obviously important. In the case of Churchill’s partner, Roosevelt, we
have timely, relevant testimony from the public record: Roosevelt's own opinion of Jews
expressed to a Vichy official on 17 January, 1943, in Casablanca - almost exactly within
three months of the Ghetto uprising. According to the State Department's official
account:
The President stated that he felt the whole Jewish problem should be studied very
carefully ... the number of Jews engaged in the practice of the professions (law,
medicine, etc.) should be definitely limited to the percentage that the Jewish
population in North Africa bears to the whole of the North African population.
Such a plan would therefore permit the Jews to engage in the professions, at the
same time would not permit them to overcrowd the professions, and would
represent an unanswerable argument that they were being given their full rights. ...
The President stated that his plan would further eliminate the specific and
understandable complaints which the Germans bore towards the Jews in
Germany, namely, that while they represented a small part of the population, over
fifty per cent [sic!] of the lawyers, doctors, school teachers, college professors,
etc., in Germany, were Jews. 21
19 See Robert R. James (ed.) Winston S. Churchill, His Complete Speeches 1897-1963 (London: Chelsea
House, 1974). Those who like to give the Prime Minister the “benefit-of-the-doubt” on such matters
because of his allegedly time-consuming burdens of war leadership should be reminded that Churchill did
find the time to give a fairly substantial speech in the House of Commons on 17 November, 1944 addressed
to the Jews of Palestine (including even Jewish children). The Prime Minister was greatly distraught by the
assassination of Lord Moyne, and appealed to Jews to oppose terrorism. Obviously, some things really
required speaking out! See pp. 7034-7035.
20 See Department of State Bulletin, Vol. VIII, No. 202 at p. 404 on 8 May, 1943 for a congratulatory
message to the President and people of Poland on 3 May.
21 See Department of State Publication 8414, Foreign Relations of the United States, The Conferences at
Washington 1941-1942, and Casablanca, 1943 (US Government Printing Office: Washington DC 1968),
p608. The President's figures reflected some wild antisemitic stereotypes. At the beginning of 1933 Jewish
physicians constituted about 11 per cent of all German physicians; Jewish lawyers were 16 per cent of the
German total. See Saul Friedlander, Nazi Germany and the Jews Volume 1, The Years of Persecution (New
York: Harper Collins, 1997), pp. 29-30.

As is evident from the Rosenman collection of presidential pronouncements, Franklin
Roosevelt, just like Winston Churchill, did not make a single speech or broadcast
touching on the issue of the Nazi extermination of the Jews during the whole course of
the Second World War. The closest reference was a statement issued in the Presidents'
name and behalf on 24 March, 1944, shortly after Nazi troops entered the territory of
Hungary. 22
From the perspective of ‘results’, it is clear that under Churchill's stewardship, and
without opposition from Roosevelt, British warships did much to keep the few Jews
escaping Hitler's European inferno from reaching the shores of British-occupied
Palestine. Under the Prime Minister’s direction, various partisan organizations
throughout Europe, Yugoslav and Polish among them, received all sorts of weapons,
equipment and technical and material assistance, but no such things were offered to the
Jews. Many Allied planes were lost over Warsaw in 1944 in what was, for the most part,
a futile attempt to supply Polish insurgents, but none could be found or flown to help
Jews in 1943. An attack on Auschwitz was talked about in official British circles, with
apparent support from Churchill, in 1944 but nothing came of it.
How accidental was it, one might reasonably ask, that while literally thousands of trains,
carrying their suffocating Jewish cargo, rolled endlessly toward extermination camps in
Poland from places that were geographically close to Britain (and also to southern Italy
from 1943 onwards), none were ever attacked by Allied aircraft or commando units?
There were trains from France, Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg, Western Germany,
Norway, Hungary, Italy, and also from Yugoslavia and Greece. Was it not the case that
the safest job in the German military-security apparatus during World War II was killing
Jews at Auschwitz and elsewhere because the Allies never sought to interfere with the
killing process? The Nazi crews escorting Jewish death trains during the Holocaust
suffered literally no casualties in carrying out their ghastly tasks. Death camp guards and
doctors lived exceedingly well.
If there would have been clear symbolism in Allied attacks on German railroads
employed in the Nazi Final Solution, the British Government did not appear interested in
it. Perhaps the balance of political benefits seemed to be on the side of modest
indifference to ‘humanity’ as far as Jews were concerned. In any case, we do know that
on 1 August, 1946, Churchill, somehow, managed to say publicly that he “had no idea
when the war came to an end, of the horrible massacres [to which Jews were
subjected]”. 23
Gilbert’s few references in his biography to Churchill's interface with Jews or Jewish
concerns during the Second World War are, necessarily it would seem, few. The most
extensive discussion occurs in just three very short paragraphs on pages 783-4; these
indicate Churchill's support for an Auschwitz bombing mission in July 1944, support
which, somehow, of course, did not sufficiently impress the Royal Air Force to cause it to
carry out the mission; and there are some references to British intervention with the
22 See Samuel I. Rosenman, The Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt, 13 Vols. (New
York: Macmillan, 1941-1950).
23 This statement was made by Churchill in the House of Commons on 1 August, 1946. It is included in a
speech titled ‘Palestine’ which appears in the collection edited by his grandson, Winston S. Churchill,
Never Give In, The Best of Winston Churchill’s Speeches (New York: Hyperion, 2003)., pp. 425-426.

Hungarian government concerning Jewish deportations. This intervention Gilbert links to
the saving of “more than a hundred thousand Jews”. 24 By the time these events had
occurred, over ninety percent of Hitler’s Jewish victims in Europe were already dead, and
the issue of Allied victory over the Third Reich was no longer a matter of any serious
dispute - at least outside the Führer's bunker.
The Warsaw Beginnings
For the morally challenged, the question arises as to how one might exonerate British
leadership for its silence during the early years of Hitler’s butchery of European Jewry,
during 1940 and 1941 when the murders were more gradual but when they were also
embarrassingly more in public view. Gilbert suggests an answer to this in his treatment of
Nazi policies toward Jews before Barbarossa, i.e., before June 1941 and the introduction
of the so-called Einsatzgruppen in the east. The effect of this is to conceptually soften the
earlier form of mass murder involved in ‘ghetto-ization’.
The genocidal misery of the Warsaw Ghetto, unlike Auschwitz, was virtually on public
display, prominently located as it was in one of the great capitals of Europe, governed by
decrees posted on public streets and walls, visible from many intersections outside the
Ghetto, connected to the city by a public telephone network and accessible to public
streetcars from which non-Jews could see the emaciated corpses of Jews scattered on the
sidewalks.
In this instance, Gilbert's vehicle for a sugarcoated interpretation is an essay on the Final
Solution in the 1995 Oxford Companion to World War II. 25 Here we find him saying that
after their conquest of Poland the Nazis began to implement a scheme confining Jews in
“restricted areas”. He defines the situation of the Jews as follows: “A medieval concept,
that of the ghetto, was revived. But whereas in medieval times the ghetto, such as the one
in Venice, was a centre of Jewish creativity, under the Nazi scheme it was a place of
confinement and poverty”. 26
He goes on to say that the “food ration imposed upon [Jews] was even smaller than that
imposed upon the non-Jewish inhabitants of Poland”. 27
Clearly this interpretation, in light of the officially promulgated Nazi decrees and actual
experience, leaves much to be desired. ‘Poverty’ is something people can live with for
centuries. The size of the Jewish food ration being smaller than that of the Poles is the
least important aspect of the Nazi ghetto regime. The importance of a 184-calorie per day
ration is not that it was smaller than the Polish food ration. Its real importance derives
from the fact that human beings cannot survive very long if they are fed a 184 calorie
daily diet. And if such a diet is reinforced by deliberate crowding of many people into a
very small area (actually hundreds of thousands of people forced into about 2 square
miles of urban space), hunger and exposure combine to terminate lives. Deprived of fuel,
as well as food, over 90 percent of ghetto households did not have any heating in an area
24 Gilbert, Churchill, p783.
25 See Martin Gilbert, ‘Final Solution’, in I. C. B. Dear and M. R. D. Foot (eds.) The Oxford Companion to
World War II (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995) pp. 364-371
26 Ibid., p364.
27 Ibid.

where the mean high temperature in January is 2 degrees below freezing and the mean
low is 12 degrees below.
The regime of death from starvation, disease and exposure was made possible by cutting
off the Jewish population of the ghetto from virtually all regular and lawful economic
intercourse with the external world, from the sort of linkages which precisely
characterized medieval and renaissance ghettos of Europe. Jews who entered the Nazi
ghetto were stripped of all their real and large-object property beyond whatever they
could carry on their persons or drag on a cart. Thus, even for purposes of smuggling and
illicit trade, there was an overwhelming dearth of appropriate resources which that sort of
activity could be conducted.
Most of the inhabitants of the ghetto had no gainful employment. There was a relatively
small class of high-risk smugglers and well-to-do people who could sell their jewelry,
gold, foreign currency, furs, or other such assets, in order to meet personal needs. These
people were a source of employment - but a constantly declining and doomed source - to
thousands of other Jews, on the model of Wladyslaw Szpilman playing piano in a popular
ghetto café for the economic elite. There were tailors, barbers, shoemakers, tutors,
doctors, nurses and sundry others who could delay starvation by servicing this trade.
There were also people working for the Germans, but most of them at extremely low,
near-starvation level wages. What extended the existence of some inhabitants of the
ghetto - at a terrible price - was smuggling, which the Nazis routinely punished with
death, often of very young children who engaged in this desperate trade at an
unspeakably desperate time.
While Gilbert does say in another part of his article that the ghetto “was in itself a
horrifying solution, the murder of whole communities of people by slow starvation”, 28 he
also presents misleading and inaccurate information likely to persuade the reader that
things in reality were not quite so bad. He claims that by June 1941 “the death toll ... had
reached 2000 a month in Warsaw” and concludes that it would take “20 years or more” to
achieve total destruction of Polish Jewry. According to Jewish Warsaw expert, Israel
Gutman, the average rate of mortality for the period from May 1940 to June 1941, was
4,219 whereas Gilbert's language suggests that the alleged 2000 in June 1941 was the
apogee of the ghetto death rate. Given mortality figures by Danuta Dombrowska in the
1972 Encyclopedia Judaica, the Jewish population of Warsaw - using linear extrapolation
- would have been extinguished not in twenty years but in about five. 29
Unfortunately, any presumed linear extrapolation is absurd in its fundamental
assumption. If one locked up a hundred people in a room, depriving them of food and
water, and extrapolated the death rate from the results obtainable after the first day - to
what might happen in 6 months or a year - one could actually conclude that most people
could live without food or water for months, or even indefinitely.
28 Ibid., p367.
29 Note Israel Gutman, The Jews of Warsaw, 1939-1943 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982).
See Table 1 on p63 and Table 2 on p64. See also Raul Hilberg, S. Staron and J. Kermisz (eds.) The Warsaw
Diary of Adam Czerniakow, (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1979), p310. Czerniakow reports the number of
funerals in the Ghetto in October 1941 at 4,716 and at 4,801 in November. He reports 5,550 deaths in July
1941 and 5,560 in August 1941 (p398). His figure for January 1942 is 5,123 (p328).

Is it unreasonable to speculate on what Churchill’s Government might have done, or at
least said, even in the bleak 1940-1941 period, if Germany had announced publicly that
English prisoners of war would henceforth receive 184 calories of food per day?
Thesis Revisited
In his 1995 essay on the Final Solution, Gilbert revisited his basic interpretation of the
Holocaust:
Details of the killings of Jews reached the West only in fragments ... after the
events had taken place. [?!] ... the killings, ... were taking place ... far beyond the
range of Allied bombers, ... the destination of the deportees was unknown,
referred to as “somewhere in the East”. ... the Germans, ... used every type of
deception to hide the true destinations and fate of the deportees. ...
Details of killing of Jews at Auschwitz II (Birkenau) did not reach Geneva,
London, and New York until the summer of 1944. ... Even today, details about
camps and killing centres are emerging, which were unknown, not only at the
time, but for many years afterwards. ... 30
However Jan Ciechanowski, Polish Ambassador to the United States, wrote shortly after
the War with reference to the summer of 1942:
The Polish Government was being fully informed about the murder of the Jews
owing to the perfect system of daily [in London] contact which it had successfully
set up with the Polish Underground.
From information I was receiving and constantly communicating to the American
Government and to the press, and describing in my numerous speeches in many
American cities, the monstrous pattern of Hitler's mass extermination of Polish
Jews and of Jews brought to Poland from other countries was becoming clearly
evident. The Polish Underground insistently demanded that our government
present these facts to our allies and especially to the American Government.
General Sikorski was working on it overtime in London and I was following up
his requests to the President, the State Department and the Combined Chiefs of
Staff. 31
Among Gilbert's more ludicrous myths is the oft-cited claim that Nazi killings took place
“far beyond the range of Allied bombers”. Oddly enough, he only needed to read the
very informative article by Richard Overy on strategic air offensives published in the
same volume in which his own Final Solution article appeared to discover that his claim
was demonstrably false. 32 One could even say that Gilbert could have reread his own
30 Gilbert, Final Solution, p370.
31 Jan Ciechanowski, Defeat in Victory (Garden City, NJ: Doubleday, 1947), p117. See also Polish Ministry
of Information, The Black Book of Poland (London: 1942); Jan Karski, Story of the Secret State (Boston:
Houghton Mifflin, 1944); Raul Hilberg, Perpetrators, Victims and Bystanders: The Jewish Catastrophe
1933-1945 (New York: Harper Collins, 1992), pp. 205-8.
32 See Richard Overy, ‘Strategic Air Offensives’, I. C. B. Dear and M. R. D. Foot (eds.), The Oxford
Companion to World War II (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995) pp. 1066-1076. Allied bombers

Auschwitz book, p322 for example, to prove that his allegation was absurd. If the Allies
bombed targets in the immediate vicinity of Auschwitz, then obviously they could reach
Auschwitz. If they flew from Italy or Britain to Warsaw, then obviously they could have
flown the shorter distance to Auschwitz, too. When the Allies liberated Rome on 4 June,
1944, they were only about 600 air miles from Auschwitz. Could anyone seriously claim
that this was too far to fly for all the planes in the Allied arsenal? The distance between
South-East England and Warsaw is about 900 air miles. Even in early 1943, with some
realistic fuel tank modifications, several Allied planes, including the British Lancaster
bomber, the American B-17 and Jimmy Doolittle’s B-25, were all capable of reaching the
Polish capital. Much could have been done if only the Allied leadership had had a
sufficient moral and political interest in the matter.
Gilbert’s latest relevant contribution is a book titled Churchill and the Jews, A Lifelong
Friendship, Henry Holt and Company, New York, 2007 [Reviewed by John Simon in the
Rosh hashanah 2008 issue of Jewish Affairs – ed.]. Insofar as this work deals with
Churchill’s role vis a vis Jews during the years of the Holocaust, it is nothing short of a
monumental intellectual travesty.
Gilbert tells us that the Prime Minister proposed in December 1942 to the Royal Air
Force that it might conduct “two or three heavy raids” over Berlin with warnings to the
Germans that such raids were “reprisals for the persecution of Poles and Jews”. 33 He
notes that the Chief of the Air Staff, Sir Charles Portal, told Churchill that any actions
“avowedly conducted on account of the Jews would be an asset to enemy propaganda”.
Sir Charles was perhaps entitled to an opinion, but Gilbert, amazingly, concludes:
"Churchill had no power to overrule his air chief on operational matters but he continued
to keep a vigilant eye on Jewish issues." 34
How could Portal's opinion about a subject so clearly political - the question of what
would or would not make effective enemy propaganda and how that might count in a
decision - be defined as an “operational issue”, and one over which even the Prime
Minister had no power to overrule a bureaucratic subordinate? Was antisemitism an
‘operational’ issue?
Gilbert mentions the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, but takes no note of Churchill’s failure to
address that event. 35 He does not mention anywhere in this book the name of Szmuel
Zygielbojm.
On the subject of refuge, especially in Palestine, Gilbert says:
...the number of [Jewish] refugees able to escape Nazi-dominated Europe was
minimal. If more had been able to leave, there were still 33000 unused Palestine
did fly from Libyan bases to the vicinity of Vienna and from Egypt to Ploesti-Romania, during the June
1942 through September 1943 period. Those were substantially longer distances than flight from Southeast
England to Warsaw.
33 Gilbert, Churchill and the Jews, p197.
34 Ibid., pp. 197-198. Emmanuel Ringelblum noted in a 25 June, 1942 entry: “Day in, day out, in hundreds
of cities throughout Poland and Russia, thousands upon thousands of Jews are being systematically
murdered according to a preconceived plan, and no one seems to be taking our part”. See Jacob Sloan (ed.)
Notes From the Warsaw Ghetto, The Journal of Emmanuel Ringelblum, (Berkeley: Ibooks, 2006), p301.
35 Gilbert, Churchill and the Jews, pp. 198-9.

Certificates within the 1939 White Paper quota. From 1 April 1939 to 31 March
1943 the total number of Jews reaching Palestine both legally and illegally had
been 41,169. This left 33,831 certificates still unused. 36
All of this might suggest to the unwary reader that the British authorities in Palestine,
over which Churchill presided as Prime Minister, welcomed Jews, although,
unfortunately, few could make use of the haven that was so generously being offered to
them. Nowhere in his book does Gilbert mention the Struma incident, where ultimately
hundreds of Jews drowned because British authorities would not allow their ship to reach
Palestine. There is no discussion here of British warships firing on Jews attempting to
enter mandate territory.
Gilbert seems to have forgotten that Churchill, but for one endnote reference in the last
volume, did not even mention the Holocaust in his monumental post-war history.
Recently published Cabinet war records testify to virtually total indifference of the
British leadership to the plight of the Jews. 37
Above all, however, Gilbert offers the Prime Minister’s reputation a familiar sanctuary.
Whatever it was that the Nazis were doing to Europe’s Jews, it simply was being done
too far away for the British to be able to intervene.
The fact, however, was that the physical distance which separated Winston Churchill
from helping the Jews - if he had really wanted to help them - was only a few city blocks
in London itself. For that was the headquarters of the Polish Government in Exile which
Britain hosted from 1940 until 1945. Is there any record of the British Prime Minister
approaching that government - whether under the leadership of General Wladyslaw
Sikorski or Prime Minister Stanislaw Mikolajczyk - to offer help, encouragement, and
concrete suggestions, let alone pressure, toward rescue operations, aid, or perhaps
disruptive attacks on the railroad traffic carrying Jews to their deaths in Poland's
extermination camps?
When in July 1944 the British received reports that Jews from Hungary were being
gassed at a “previously unheard ... rate of 12,000 a day”, Chaim Weizman and Moshe
Shertok of the Jewish Agency urged the British to bomb the “railway lines from Budapest
to Auschwitz”. 38
According to Gilbert, Churchill wrote to Eden, “Get anything out of the Air Force you
can...” 39 In the upshot, however, no such action was taken. Gilbert notes complacently
that “Churchill's emphatic instructions did not need to be carried out. Three days after he
endorsed the bombing of railway lines leading from Hungary to Auschwitz, the
deportation of Jews from Hungary to Auschwitz was halted, apparently on the initiative
of Hungary’s Regent, Admiral Horthy”. 40
36 See Norman Brook’s World War II British War Cabinet Noteboks, 1942-1946, (London: British National
Archives, CD-ROM, 2008).
37 Gilbert, Churchill and the Jews, p211.
38 Ibid., p212.
39 Ibid.
40 Ibid.

Was this a problem solved or a problem neglected? The gassing of Jews “on arrival” in
Auschwitz did not end until November 1944; the last Jewish transport arrived in
Auschwitz as late as 5 January, 1945, from Berlin. For all his vivid accounts and
prodigious industry, Sir Martin has not been a just custodian of the Holocaust story. The
extermination of European Jewry in World War II was ultimately the outcome not only of
Nazi policies but of the passivity and complicity of people whom Raul Hilberg called
bystanders, the three principal Allied powers foremost among these. This aspect of the
Holocaust has been seriously misrepresented by Martin Gilbert.

IMMIGRATION RESTRICTION, PLAGUE
AND THE JEWS IN CAPE TOWN, 1901
Gwynne Schrire
The advent of HIV/AIDS, the most extensive and fearful pandemic the world has known,
has made all previous pandemics pale in significance. Previously the most feared was the
plague, from the Latin plaga meaning a blow, usually administered by a god. 41 The blow
or blame has often fallen on the Jewish community. The Jews were made the scapegoat
of the 1348 plague, or Black Death, resulting in extensive massacres throughout Europe.
This article will examine what happened in Cape Town, when the 1901 plague reached it
from the East.
The 1348 plague, Giovanni Boccaccio believed, “started in the East either through the
influence of the heavenly bodies, or because of G-d’s righteous anger at our wicked way
of life…Against this plague all human wisdom and foresight were vain”. 42 The
unpredictability, high death rate and rapidity of the disease caused panic wherever it
struck.
Yiddish memoirist Glückel of Hameln (1646-1724) was a witness to, and recorded,
another plague pandemic. In July 1664:
…it began to be whispered that the Plague - not upon us! - had broken out in
the gentile quarter. Three or four Jewish houses were afterwards infected
and the people living in them died so that the houses remained unoccupied.
We had no peace with the gentiles in the town who rushed to redeem their
pledges. Though we knew that they were infected, we had to let them redeem
their pledges.
The family decided to move to Glückel’s father in Hameln, stopping off to spend Succot
with her brothers-in-law in Hanover. There, her four-year old daughter Zipporah
developed a boil under her arm. An old lady calling herself a healer asked to look at it
and, having done so, rushed into the synagogue calling out, “Flee from here! All who
can, fly and run! For our great sins we have the true plague in the house. The little girl
has the pestilence!” Wrote Glückel, “Well, you can imagine the wailing and confusion
among the women, especially among such a timorous crowd. Men and women rushed
from the synagogue during the most solemn prayers from the holy festival and quickly
thrust the maid and the child out of the house”.
The family was afraid that if they did not manage to “keep the whole thing secret from
the authorities great troubles would befall the Jews if, G-d forbid, the Duke heard of the
matter…” They dressed the maid and child in old torn clothes and sent them to a small
village to lodge with some peasants. When Glückel’s husband went to deliver food to
41 Giblin, James, When Plague Strikes: the Black Death, Smallpox, AIDS, Harper Collinc, New York,1995, 6
42 Boccaccio, Giovanni, The Decameron, Garden City Books, New York, 1949,1,2

them, his brothers held him fast so that he would not try to hug his child. They wept with
joy when the latter, having recovered, was allowed to return after Simchat Torah. 43
English diarist Samuel Pepys lived at the same period and commented on the plague that
struck London in the years 1665-6:
“But Lord, to see in what fear all the people here do live would make one mad”
(28 July 1666)
“How everybody’s looks and discourse in the street is of death, and nothing else,
and few people going up and down, that the towne is like a place distressed and
forsaken” (30 August, 1666). 44
People living in Cape Town, Muslims believed, would be safe from the plague because of
a prophesy by Imam Abdullah bin Kadi Abdus-Salaam (Tuan Guru, 1712-1807), founder
of the first madrassah in the city. He had foretold that all Muslims who lived within the
circle of kramats (shrines) that encircled the peninsula would be safe from fire, famine,
plague, earthquake and tidal wave. 45
But it was not to be so, because another great plague pandemic to befall the world
reached Cape Town in 1901.
Considering the dread the pandemic instilled among the populace, the fact that it killed
nearly twelve million people world-wide, and that it had local repercussions, it is
surprising that there is so little reference to it in Cape Town Jewish history. Israel
Abrahams, in his The Birth of a Community, makes what may be an oblique reference
when complaining about the difficulty in obtaining sufficient matzah for Passover that
year: “The war was still on and afflictions of all kinds were not in short supply, except –
‘the bread of affliction.’” As the first night of Passover, 15 April, occurred when the
epidemic was at its height, it can be presumed that one of those ‘afflictions’ was plague. 46
The Cape Town Jewish Philanthropic Society appears not to have met during the
epidemic because its minute book jumps from 24 February, when the plague began to
take hold, to 9 June, when it was in retreat. 47 Neither Saron and Hotz in The Jews in
South Africa 48 , nor Dr Louis Herrman in The Cape Town Hebrew Congregation 1841-
1941 49 mention the plague.
The omission is surprising, unless memories were short or the writers wished to gloss
over something that reflected poorly on the community.
By this time, the role of heavenly bodies and righteous anger had been discounted as
playing a role in the transmission of the disease. The responsible bacteria had been
identified in 1894 by Alexandre Yersin, a student of Louis Pasteur, while working in
43 Gluckel of Hameln, The Life of Gluckel of Hameln 1646-1724, Abrahams, B-Z transl, New York, 1963.46-52
44 Le Gallienne, Richard (ed), Passages from the Diary of Samuel Pepys, Random House, New York, undated, 174
45 Du Plessis, ID and CA Luckhoff, The Malay Quarter and Its people, Balkema, Cape Town,1953,33
46 The boat carrying the matzot broke down and arrived late .Abrahams, I, The Birth of a Community: A History of Western Province Jewry from Earliest Times to
the end of the South African War 1902, CT Hebrew Congregation, Cape Town 1955 p 128
47 Minute Book of Cape Town Jewish Philanthropic Society 1897 - 1903, Alexander Papers, Archives of the University of Cape Town
48 Saron,G, and Hotz,L, The Jews In South Africa: A History. Oxford University Press, Cape Town, 1955.
49.Herrman, Louis, The Cape Town Hebrew Congregation 1841-1941, Mercantile-Atlas, Cape Town no date,

Hong Kong. Yersin also noted that the disease was transmitted by rats. 50 The role of fleas
was discovered three years later, but it was some time before this revolutionary idea was
accepted, the prevalent belief being that the plague originated in filth and poor sanitation.
In 1898, the Bombay Plague Research Committee had defined the plague as a “disease
which is essentially associated with unsanitary conditions in human habitations, the chief
of which are accumulation of filth, overcrowding and absence of light and ventilation.” 51
Compare this definition with the following contemporary descriptions of Jews in Cape
Town:
Dwellings of the Jewish community are much overcrowded and ill-ventilated.
These people herd together and overcrowd to an alarming extent. They are
exceedingly afraid of fresh air and ventilation, and close every aperture in their
rooms, notably when they have any illness. Their mode of living is objectionable
and dirty in the extreme. They seldom ever bath and their bodies are covered with
vermin. 52
Cape Town… is full of those Polish Jew hawkers who live in dirtier style than
Kafirs. 53 The lowest class of Russian, Polish and German Jews, filthy and evil smelling. 54
…the greasy dress of the Jewish refugee … the glimpses of indescribable dirt and
squalor…through open doors and windows… 55
...Jews, who overcrowd and cohabit promiscuously. Amongst them filth and
vermin abound, and they have great objection to ventilation, the crevices all being
wedged up with rags in many of their rooms. Some of these people are worse than
the natives in these matters. 56
Elizabeth van Heyningen, 57 a historian of the plague in Cape Town, believes that one of
the factors behind the passing the following year of the Immigration Restriction Act,
which limited the immigration of Jews and Indians, was the fears the plague aroused. As
there was a perceived belief in the responsibility of Jews and Asians for the plague, the
omission of the subject from local Jewish history is all the more remarkable. Immigration
restriction had first been mooted at a plague prevention conference held in 1899, when
the plague had reached India and there were fears that it might come to South Africa. One
conference recommendation was that steps be taken to provide for the prohibition or
restriction of immigration into South Africa from countries in which plague was
50 Coppin, B, La Peste: Histoire D’Une Épidémie, Gallimand, Paris. 2000,42
51 Quoted in Van Heyningen, E, Cape Town and the Plague of 1901, in Saunders, C and Phillips, H (eds) Studies in the History of Cape Town, Ed Saunders,C,
Phillips,H, Van Heyningen,E (Eds) 4/1984.69
52 Wynberg district surgeon Dr Claude Wright 1902 medical report, quoted in Shain, The Roots of Antisemitism in South Africa, 1994, 45
53 Quoted in Shain, M, Jewry And Cape Society; The Origins and Activities of the Jewish Board of Deputies, The Cape Colony Historical Publications Society Cape
Town,1983, 10
54 Quoted in Shain, 1994, 51
55 Cape Times 1908, Quoted in Shain 1994,52
56 Dr C Wright, 1897, Quoted in Shain, 1994, 33
57 Van Heyningen, 1984. p75

prevalent. 58 The subsequent 1902 act was aimed, in the words of Governor Sir Walter
Hely-Hutchinson, at Asiatics, “paupers and persons suffering from ‘loathsome
disease’”. 59
One of the victims was this writer’s great-grandmother. On her recovery, adverse public
opinion influenced the family to leave Cape Town and return to Europe.
The plague pandemic started in China in 1894, reached India in 1896 and arrived in Cape
Town in 1901, spread by the British army during the South African War. The Cape Town
harbour had been invaded by an armada of ships. Sometimes there were over 120 ships at
anchor in the bay, many waiting months before they could be unloaded. 60
The military took over the South Arm of the docks. In the ships arrived camp kettles,
canned food and compressed cakes of tea, tents, clothing and tobacco, saddles, harnesses
and hairbrushes, artillery, swords and guns. They offloaded horse shoes from Germany
and Sweden, mule shoes from the United States 61 and horses, fodder and, inadvertently,
ants from the Argentine (the latter soon made itself at home and replaced the local
species, at considerable cost to the local fynbos.) From India, the ships carried boots,
helmets and rats. 62 The rats carried fleas and the fleas carried the plague bacillus.
The war created employment opportunities both for labourers and call girls. 63 (“I went to
the docks and the boats daily as a stevedore”, wrote one Eastern European Jewish immigrant
to his wife, “There I worked for three weeks. In the first week I earned 8 roubles [16/-], the
second week 16 roubles and the third week 20 roubles but I saw it would be the end of my
health before that of my money and I could not carry on anymore”. 64 ) There were 600
houses of ill fame in Cape Town. A brothel keeper complained that “he would not keep
Jewish girls because they would not keep their places as quiet as French girls, and could
not pay as much for their protection as the French girls”. 65
The first cases of the plague, soon isolated, arrived in March 1900 on board the SS
Kilburn from Argentina, which docked with its captain dead and three of its crew ill.
They were all sent off to quarantine in Saldanha Bay, the matter was hushed up and the
outbreak contained. In November, cases cropped up in King William’s Town among
Africans, so that the belief arose that Africans were susceptible because of their
unhygienic living standards. 66
By September, dead rats started turning up in the docks, particularly in the South Arm,
and dock workers began to fall ill. The Medical Officer of Health for the Cape Colony,
58 Van Heyningen, 71
59 Shain, 1983,23
60 McKenzie, R (editor), Cape Journal, No 1, 1998,8
61 Coetzer, Owen The Road to Infamy (1899-1900: Colenso, Spioenkop, Vaalkrantz, Pieters, Buller and Warren, William Waterman, Rivonia, 1996, 17-
19
62 The rats – and their fleas - might also have come, like the ants, from Argentina in the hay for the horses.
63 The Salvation Army report, 1902, quoted in Hallett, R. Policemen, Pimps and Prostitutes- Public Morality and Police Corruption Studies in the
History of Cape Town Saunders , C1/1984,pp 5,11,25,31 Some of the call girls were Jewish, as well as some of the pimps and brothel-keepers.
64 Kretzmar, T, Unpublished letter, by kind permission of the late Dr J Kretzmar, Cape Town.
65 Hallett, R., op cit, 31
66 Van Heyningen, 73-5

Dr AJ Gregory, blamed “the old insanitary conditions of many parts of the city especially
ancient storm water drains which created a labyrinth of rat runs”.
For the rats, Cape Town was a pantry. Unwanted waste from the fishing boats at
Roggebaai and its fish market littered the shore-line. Untreated sewage ran into the bay.
The offal from the Shambles (abattoirs), between the Grand Parade and the beach, was
dumped in the sea nearby for the tides and the rats to dispose of free of charge. 67
Similarly, the refuse of Somerset Hospital was dumped twice daily on the beach by the
assistant cook. 68 The Woodstock Station Hospital was no more sanitary. It was:
Badly situated on a flat stretch of beach close to the city and wedged in between
the sea and the railway line. Moreover, the foreshore is not of the cleanest and the
city council in its wisdom has constructed the sewage outfall in the immediate
neighbourhood ... it lies in the teeth of the prevalent south east winds, which
churn up clouds of dust. 69
That wind called the Cape Doctor would blow the winter’s accumulated dirt into the
ocean. Some areas of the city were never cleaned. Neither the City Council nor the
ratepayers had the incentive to spend money on sanitation. Regular street sweeping and
water-borne sewerage was only instituted by the City Council after the 1896 typhoid
epidemic and the 1901 plague.
The war resulted in an influx into the city of refugees from the Witwatersrand, most of
them penniless. As with the refugees from the 2008 xenophobic attacks, there was an
outpouring of assistance from private individuals and communal organisations, but the
arrivals only exacerbated the existing poverty and overcrowding. Twenty-five thousand
people arrived between September and October 1899, of whom 3 000 were Jews.
“Next to Bombay, Cape Town is one of the most suitable towns I know for a plague
epidemic”, stated Prof. WJ Simpson, the plague authority appointed to advise the
government. 70 He reported that Cape Town had an extraordinary proportion of ancient
and filthy slums, occupied by a heterogeneous population. The Africans were unfit for
town life; the poorer coloured people were even dirtier in their habits, while the Malays
and Indians possessed the habits of the Asiatic, and the poorer class Portuguese, Italians,
Levantines and Jews were almost as filthy as the others. “Living in the same insanitary
areas, often living in the same houses, the different races and nationalities are
inextricably mixed up, so that whatever disease affects the one is sure to affect the other,”
he wrote. 71 Jewish living conditions were identified as a contributory factor. 72
Simpson did not believe that fleas transmitted the disease, but that rats became “infected
by eating contaminated food, or by passing over infected clothing or places… Filth
67 McKenzie, R, Cape Town Harbour, In The Cape Journal, 1, Cape Newspapers, Cape Town. 1998, 8,
68 1884 Rules and Regulations, Quoted in Laidler, P.W. & Gelfand, M, South Africa, Its Medical History 1652-1898 A Medical and Social Study, Cape
Town ,1971,.433
69. The British Medical Journal , quoted in De Villiers, J.C. Hospitals in Cape Town During the Anglo-Boer War, South African Medical Journal,
January 1999, Vol 89, No 1, p.76.
70 Van Heyningen, 69
71 Simpson lecture on plague, MOH 46 f668 22.5.1901 in Van Heyningen, 75.
72 Shain, The Root of Antisemitism in South Africa, Johannesburg, 1994,45

associated with darkness and dampness is peculiarly favourable to the growth of the
microbe… Old dilapidated, dark, insanitary, and overcrowded houses… infected by rats
are particularly dangerous. Rats and house vermin often carry the infection from dirty
into clean houses.” 73
The incidence of the plague was small at first, but the numbers of people affected
gradually increased as did the virulence. In February 1901, Cape Town was declared an
infected port, and the British Army stopped landing troops there. The deaths peaked in
March, with 81 people hospitalised. By May there were about 33 deaths a week. The last
plague victim was discharged from hospital on 27 November. According to the Medical
Officer of Health, 204 whites were infected with the plague, with 69 deaths, 431
Coloureds (244 deaths) and 172 Africans (76 deaths). 74
The Cape Town Hebrew Congregation’s 7 th Avenue Cemetery in Maitland contains
graves of Jews who died of the plague. All of them died at the Uitvlugt Plague Camp and
all had “Bubonic Plague” listed as the cause of death. The 16-year old Barnett Berman
died on 6 March 1901 followed two days later by 50-year old dairy man Samuel
Kamenetz. They were joined in April by Judel Aberman (45), Sunder Freedman (24),
Andrew Osoler (23) and Jacob Kaplan (60) and in May by a male pauper called Baker or
Becker. 75
The highest mortality was amongst the Coloureds, but it was the Africans who suffered
the most, being blamed for its spread because of the association with lack of hygiene and
because the first plague casualty was an African. Although there were 50% more cases of
plague among the soldiers than there were amongst the civilian population, public
criticism, blame and fear was not directed against the army, but against outsiders - the
‘other’. This was unjustified because the plague was introduced into the Cape by the
military and the military was to blame for its spread through its negligence in failing to
report the dead rats in the South Arm. It was also the military that was responsible for the
disease spreading from the docks to the city through its camp in Green Point. 76
But blame – and bigotry – is not always rational. Whenever plague struck, fear for one’s
own life outweighed any concern one might have felt for the life of another and
unfocused prejudice was directed at all strangers, including Africans, Asiatics and East
European Jews.
Before the days of microscopes, the causes of disease were not understood and plague
was thought to be a pestis manufacta - a disease spread by human malice. When the
Black Death struck in 1347-1350, wiping out between a quarter and a half of Europe’s
population, the Jews were held responsible. The story spread that a Toledo-Jew, Jacob á
Pascate, assisted by a Rabbi Peyret in Savoy, had dispatched to all countries and cities a
host of Jewish poisoners with toxin made from the flesh of basilisks, spiders, frogs and
lizards (alternately from Christian hearts or the dough of the host). To a frightened
populace, schooled in clerical antisemitism and eager to seek a scapegoat, the Jew made a
73 Van Heyningen, 79
74 van Heyningen, 77
75 For this information I am indebted to Paul Cheifitz, who surveyed and recorded the burials in the cemetery.
76 Van Heyningen, 85

convenient target. Under torture, some Jews confessed. Despite bulls from Pope Clement
VI pointing out that Jews suffered as badly as the others and despite edicts from Emperor
Charles V, massacres of Jews started in southern France, spreading through Switzerland
to Western Germany, then to Belgium, northern Germany and Bavaria. Over 350 Jewish
communities were attacked and their Jewish inhabitants killed, according to a
contemporary chronicler “murdered, drowned, burned, broken on the wheel, hanged,
exterminated, strangled, buried alive, and sentenced to death”. 77
Different periods devised different preventive measures. Pepys reported fast days, flight,
sealed houses, and a drop in demand for wigs, lest the hair came from victims. Glückel of
Hameln wrote about flight and the exclusion of sick people from the town. Boccaccio
described flight and wrote that the entry of any sick person was forbidden and that orders
were given to cleanse the city of filth. In Cape Town 550 years later, similar precautions
were taken – flight, exclusion and cleansing operations.
The Cape Town City Council hired two more sanitary staff to clean the city, offered
between 3d and 6d for a rat body brought to the incinerator (the Harbour Board offered
sixpence per rat tail), and distributed handbills that emphasised cleanliness: 78
For cleanly people in cleanly homes which are free from rats there is practically
no danger of getting the plague…DIRT, OVERCROWDING, WANT OF
VENTILATIONS AND THE PRESENCE OF RATS encourage the presence of
Plague on any home or locality. 79
The Council’s half-hearted attempts to prevent the spread of infection by employing an
additional two cleaners and issuing handbills did not satisfy the Government. Anyway,
neither the rats nor the new immigrants could read English. The Government overruled
the Council, instituting a Plague Board to enforce regulations. 80 This body’s first task
was to set up a plague hospital (a site was chosen at Uitvlugt, near Ndabeni), and its
second was to clean the city.
The number of cleaners was increased from two to 160 Europeans, 100 Africans
and 280 convicts from the Breakwater Prison. These were offered a day’s
remission for each day’s service – the work was hard, unpleasant and dangerous
and there were fatalities among both the cleaning and the hospital staff. 81
Where a case of plague occurred the house was evacuated, hosed down with
disinfectant, thoroughly cleaned and white-washed. Clothing and household effect
were disinfected or, if too dirty, destroyed. Over 2 000 houses were demolished
77 Graetz H, Popular History of the Jews, Vol 4, Hebrew Publishing Company, New York 1926, 41. Goldberg, D and Rayner, J, The Jewish people:
Their history and their religion. Penguin. 1987; Johnson, Paul, A History of the Jews, Weidenfeld and Nicholson, London, 1987,105, Shain, Milton,
Antisemitism, Bowerdean London 1998, 39, Ausubel, N, Pictorial History of the Jewish people, Crown, New York, 1961,95,
,
78 The Cape Argus in August 2007 had an article about a job-creation project for the Men at the Side of the Road organisation that planned to train
people to kill rats. The SPCA had complained because the method of killing the rats would have been cruel to the rats.
79 Van Heyningen, 79
80 Van Heyningen, 80
81 Van Heyningen, 81-82

and rebuilt. 82 Those living in the infected houses and their contacts were
inoculated and the rats and vermin killed.
The Parade, where many Jewish immigrants traded, had a bad reputation: 83
Saturday by Saturday the ‘Grand’ - Heaven save the word - Parade gets worse.
The rotten trash that is put upon the sale there would be a disgrace to Petticoat
Lane. Not only this but the trade is now largely carried out by Polish Jews, who
import the commonest off-scourings of Houndsditch goods. Then these frowzy
gentry stand around... until whoever purchases is sure to be heartlessly
swindled. 84
The Plague Board banned public auctions on the Parade, causing many to lose a
source of income.
As the plague had originated in the East, Asiatics were implicated. The San
Francisco city authorities, refusing to accept the theory that the plague was caused
by rats, blamed Asian immigrants and quarantined thousands. Only when that
proved ineffective did they accept the rat theory, and killed 700 000 rats. 85 In
Cape Town, there were complaints that the people who ran Chinese laundries and
Indian and Chinese shops were oblivious to sanitation and cleanliness 86 and
attempts were made to prevent the movement of Asians.
As the Africans were considered the most unhygienic, their homes were suddenly
invaded by sanitary officers and police, their possessions confiscated and, like
little Zipporah of Hameln, they were forcibly removed. This, plus the fact that
they were being singled out, caused much dissatisfaction, particularly as they
were not allowed to return to their homes to avoid the disease. Being told that it
was all for their own good was of small comfort and those working in the docks
went on strike. After a protest meeting was broken by mounted police, they were
then moved under an armed guard to a municipal location established at Uitvlugt,
Ndabeni, not far from the Uitvlugt Plague Camp. Others were sent to a location
run by the Harbour Board below Portswood Lodge in the docks. This, the
beginning of imposed racial residential segregation, was to be the forerunner of a
pattern of locations, townships, reserves, group areas, black spots and Bantustans.
There was an additional advantage in removing them to the Cape Flats because
other people could now move into their previous homes, thus relieving
overcrowding elsewhere. 87
Dirt and overcrowding was clearly stated in the handbills and messages as being
factors encouraging the spread of the disease. Because of their alleged lack of
hygiene, Jews were singled out. Dr. Gregory described Jews as being “often dirty
82 McKenzie, R (editor), The Cape Journal, Album 3, 1998, Cape Newspapers, Cape Town. 1998, 29
83 My maternal grandmother’s father bought her a pair of shoes on the Parade when they arrived o f the boats in 1904. When he came home, he found
f
that both shoes were for the same foot.
84 Shain, 1994,32
85 Giblin, JC, 51
86 Van Heyningen, 74
87 Van Heyningen, 98-99, 82

in their habits, persons and clothing”. 88 The Wynberg district surgeon, Dr HC
Wright, felt the cleanliness of the Africans compared most favourably with that of
the Jews of the lower class. “No wonder Pharaoh found fit to ‘let the Children of
Israel go’” he quipped. 89 In his 1901 Public Health report, Dr Wright complained
that Jewish “houses are filthy in the extreme” and the children of “80 per cent of
that persuasion bathed once a month.” The following year he reported that Jews
“remain a sickly crowd, entirely oblivious to decency and sanitation. Many of
their habitations are unfit to be used as such, and as they are large vendors of
food, some serious notice should be taken of their mode of life and preparation
and storage of articles of food.” 90
In April 1901, some neglected District Six properties occupied by Africans and owned by
Marcus Arkin in Vernon Terrace, Vandeleur Street, Mount Street and Caledon Street
were condemned as unfit for human habitation. The Colonial Office took them over
temporarily on condition that the government put them into a proper state of repair. 91
Arkin was prepared to evict the tenants on the very favourable terms offered by the
government but Benjamin Levin, the holder of the second mortgage of the Vernon
Terrace properties, objected. 92 When the Colonial Office returned the houses to Arkin in
September, his lawyers instituted what Van Heyningen has described as an “acrimonious
correspondence” over the condition in which the properties were finally left. She also
noted that an examination of the street directories seems to indicate that the identifiable
coloured names were replaced by Jewish names. 93
My interest in the plague in Cape Town was first aroused when I was given a copy of my
Great Uncle Harry Schrire’s memoirs. He had written:
There was an outbreak of bubonic plague in Cape Town at the end of the Anglo-
Boer war, and my parents, who were considered fairly well-off with an income of
£50 per month from rentals from the property in Harrington Street, decided to
take a trip to Europe. They had been offered £5 000 for the property by a man
called Kaiser but refused to sell because there was a boom at the time. 94
Furthermore, I was aware of the panic of a society fearful of being struck down in
their turn because I had read Daniel Defoe’s Diary of a Plague Year, Pepys’ diary
and Boccaccio’s Decameron. It made sense that, like Glückel of Hameln, they
chose to flee from Cape Town. Pepys recorded:
I find all the towne almost going out of towne, the coaches and waggons being all
full of people going into the country…But, Lord, how empty the streets are and
melancholy, so many poor sick people in the streets full of sores, and so many sad
88 Shain, 1994, 45
89 Van Heyningen, 96
90 Shain, 50
91 Van Heyningen, op cit, 83-84
92 He said that if the Government repaired the houses and placed coloured tenants in them, it would affect the value of the houses. Mr Levin demanded
that the occupants be replaced with those of a more desirable class.
93 Van Heyningen, 102
94 Schrire, Harry. Unpublished memoirs, c 1960, type written manuscript in possession of his son, Arthur Schrire

stories overheard as I walk, everybody talking of this dead and that man sick and
so many in this place, and so many in that. 95
Recently, I obtained a copy of an epic autobiographical Hebrew poem consisting
of 150 verses, each having eight rhymed lines, entitled The History and
Happenings, Reasons and Adventures, From the Day of My Birth, to the Day of
My Death, with a Short Critique in a Clear Language, in Songs and Prose, in
Remembrance for All Time. This was written around 1910 by my greatgrandfather,
Harry’s father. Some verses described the plague and his decision to
leave Cape Town. To my surprise, it contained information about his wife
becoming ill. I showed the verse to a doctor, who identified the symptoms as
possibly being of the plague. For the first time I realised that my greatgrandmother,
after whom I was named, had herself contracted the disease and that
they had decided to leave because the community had blamed them. Here are the
relevant verses in translation:
76) In the year Taf Resh Samech Aleph in the Boer War/People filled Cape Town
like locusts/Rich and poor and immigrants/ They have traded in every trade./The
prices of houses doubled/and like flies easily found gold /From buyers and traders
and middlemen/ who came from all the corners of the country.
77) Since there were so many people, abandoned and crowded together/ the
plague started to cut down the nation/ From under the ground, there were many
small animals/ That were brought in ships from across the sea/ From dirt, neglect
and lack of cleanliness/ Black and white fell fatally wounded/ Both the fainthearted
and men of vision/ dreaded death/ and walked like the shadows.
78) My wife was standing in the butcher shop/ when she noticed from afar the
hurley-burley of the town/ As the wagon went by, painted red/ With the people
working like devils against the disease/ In the sound of the congestion boys ran/
After the wagon that was taking the sick/ And she fell, fainted, without saying
anything/ And her skin was covered with wounds and bruises.
79) She was almost dead and lay sorrowfully/ For about ten days in a critical
condition/ And the moment she came out, her strength returned to her/ She saw
the wagon with its canopy open/ And the whiteness of death covered her face/
And her illness returned with greater strength/ Her face became so swollen that
her eyes could not be seen/ And she lay on her bed like a dead person.
80) When I saw from her that her disease was very bad/ and the quacks could not
help at all/ She came to my business on her feet/ and the reproaches of the women
fell on me/ “I was cruel”/ “I knew no mercy”/ “Even my small sons were
suffering a lot”/ Then in the sorrow of my soul/ I swore in my anger
81) To leave Africa without returning…/
95 21 June, 15 September 1665, Op cit, 174

83) We passed the examination house with shaking knees/ Because the doctors of
the town were examining every passenger/ And those who were forbidden to
travel overseas… Only our possessions were taken…
[He details the destruction of their pillows, linen and clothes, but they succeeded
in boarding the ship]
88) The disease attacked my wife again/ Through the night she became swollen as
risen dough/ She slept without strength, as a dove she would moan/ And I could
not call the doctor lest/ They would say the plague has started/ And I have worked
hard to make her disappear from their eyes/ And my heart was sad that she would
end and die like that.
89) Also she and her talking have pierced my kidneys/ because she believed they
would throw her body into the sea….And to the servants of the ship…/ they
believed that she had her period/ And I cleaned her room and changed her bed/
Changed her clothes from old to new.
90) …In two days/…we would come to London/ And her sickness has eased and
her skin grew back/ And she had white freckles and scars…
91) With fear and trembling we went from the ship to the shore/ With ashes on
her face and armpits…
Here is a first-person description of the conditions in the city when the plague struck and
how it affected them in their butcher shop. The writer too accepts that the rat-borne
disease was caused by “dirt, neglect and lack of cleanliness”, without the knowledge of
the role played in its transmission by the random leap of a hungry flea. Boccaccio had
complained that “no doctor’s advice, no medicine could overcome or alleviate this
disease” 96 – my great-grandfather would have agreed. He describes his wife’s symptoms,
the panic in the street when the ambulance wagon chased by excited youngsters came by
to take victims to the Uitvlugt Plague Camp, the criticism of their neighbours, the
medical examinations at the docks and the destruction of their possessions that might
have been contaminated. He describes their fear that the doctors might prevent them from
boarding or leaving the ship and how they made use of ashes, in lieu of face powder, to
disguise her scarred face and armpits (the glands affected by bubonic plague).
The 1901 plague had several results. Firstly the plague, according to Van
Heyningen, gave respectability to the racism which was already entrenched. The
unfocused prejudice was directed not only at Africans, but at almost every group
which was poor and living in unhealthy conditions. The intolerance embraced all
Asiatics, Russian Jews, Italians, Portuguese and others of Mediterranean origins
and revealed a heightened jingoism which was not wholly indigenous. 97
Simpson, for example, thought the plague would have been stamped out had it
also been possible to isolate in locations the Malays, the Coloured people and the
poorer class of Europeans who were “seldom of British origin, but are foreigners
96 Boccaccio, op cit, 2
97 Van Heyningen, 75

from every part of the Continent, consisting largely of Portuguese, Italians,
Levantines and Polish Jews”. 98
Secondly, the Africans were removed from the city and placed in separate residential
areas, a result of “a complex blend of prejudice, fear, expediency and paternalism”. They
were the most severely affected and the biggest losers.
Thirdly, the prejudice equating Jews with dirt and disease made the climate more
favourable to pass an act the following year to limit the entry to the Cape of these
supposedly dangerous disease-harbouring aliens.
Milton Shain held that despite suspicions that Jewish living conditions were a
contributory factor to the epidemic, Jews did not receive differential treatment during the
plague. This he attributed to the respect in which the Jewish establishment was held and
the belief that the East European Jews were capable of improving with time. 99 However,
the fear of contagion from these dirty East European aliens was more powerful than any
respect given to the assimilated local Jews and provided a convincing reason to pass the
Immigration Restriction Act hastily before the end of the 1902 parliamentary session. 100
This was spelt out by Dr. Gregory, who said the Bill was aimed at the exclusion of
Asiatics and, perhaps, Russian Jews, and should be framed to exclude undesirable
persons by reason of their becoming a danger to the health of the community. 101 This
association is clearly indicated in the words of a speaker at a protest meeting who said
that the Colony was “infested from right to left with undesirable aliens.” 102 The
subconscious choice of the word ‘infested’, one used for vermin, sends a clear signal.
Sadly modernity did not change this association. A Nazi propagandist, justifying the
Final Solution, wrote:
A commendable achievement is also the far-reaching elimination of the Jews. If
for instance Lublin, Lemburg and Reichshof during the last decades owing to the
spread of the Jewish plague belonged to the most disgusting places of Middle
Europe, now each of these cities, after the Jewish crust has been removed, … has
thus again become congenial to the German. 103
And finally, my great-grandparents moved overseas temporarily, where my greatgrandfather
met a young lady who, like him, was a keen Zionist, could speak Hebrew and
had even corresponded with Herzl. My great-grandmother decided she would make a
good wife for their eldest son, and as for their second son, my grandfather, he was left
behind to study in Frankfurt, becoming the learned man I faintly remember.
98 Van Heyningen, 95
99 Shain, 1994, 45
100 Shain, 1984, 22
101 Dr Gregory’s suggestions as to the framing of the Aliens Act 1902, Shain, 1984, 25
102 Said at a 1903 ratepayers meeting held to protest about Chinese, capitalists and aliens, Quoted in Shain, 1984, 54
103 Dr Friedrich Lange, 1945, Quoted in Weinbreich. M, Hitler’s Professors: The Part of Scholarship in Germany’s Crimes Against the Jewish People.
YIVO, New York, 1946, 168

WHY DO JEWISH EGALITARIANS NOT CIRCUMCISE THEIR
DAUGHTERS?
David Benatar
David Benatar is Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy, University of
Cape Town.
Many contemporary Jews espouse egalitarianism (of the sexes). However, Jewish
egalitarians are not all of one stripe. For some, the extent of their egalitarianism is
limited. My question is not directed to these restricted ‘egalitarians’. Instead it is posed to
the other egalitarians – those who go much further and advocate complete equality of the
sexes in Judaism. Very many Jewish egalitarians fall into this category. On their view,
women should be allowed to don tefillin (phylacteries), tallitot (prayer shawls) and kippot
(skullcaps), and to become rabbis or cantors. On this view, women may be counted in a
minyan (quorum for prayer), may be called to the Torah, and a girl’s batmitzvah need be
no different from a boy’s barmitzvah. Indeed, although equal treatment is not the same as
identical treatment, the most committed of Jewish egalitarians seem to understand the
former as requiring the latter. This may be because it is the surest way of responding to
the traditionalists, who often justify their differing treatment of the sexes by saying that it
is merely different treatment and not inequality.
There is, however, one matter about which these Jewish egalitarians do not seek identical
treatment of the sexes – brit mila, the covenant of circumcision 104 . Although they are
quick to advocate a neonatal ceremony for girls in order to avoid these girls being
deprived of the attention given to newborn boys, they do not suggest that girls too should
be circumcised. The irony of this silence is compounded by their attempts to parallel the
ceremonies in numerous other ways. Thus, among the names given to the ceremonies for
girl-children are ones that are obviously intended to match that of the circumcision
ceremony or boys – including brit bat (the covenant of a daughter) and hachnasat bat
l’brit (the entering of a daughter into the covenant) 105 . Among the possible timings of
these female ceremonies is the eighth day, and one reason for this option is the allegedly
egalitarian one that this “is the same day on which a ceremony for a boy would be
held” 106 .
Thus it seems that egalitarianism is cited for establishing a ceremony for girls (and thus
not focusing only on boys), and for having it on the same day as the ceremony for boys.
Yet, egalitarianism is not thought to require the same ceremony for girls as for boys – or
at least as similar a ceremony as is possible. This, it might be suggested, is because the
most committed of Jewish egalitarians typically do not require anybody to perform any
rituals. They are more interested in religious rights – entitlements or permissions to
104 There may be a few who do, but they do not enjoy support from mainstream egalitarians who seek
identical treatment of the sexes in every other matter.
105 See, for example, “Berit Mila Program of Reform Judaism: Ceremonies for Girls”,
http://beritmila.org/Ceremonies%20for%20girls.html (Accessed 10 August 2005)
106 Ibid.

perform those practices one chooses – than in religious duties or requirements. However,
this explanation is inadequate because Jewish egalitarians are neither agitating even for a
religious right to circumcise Jewish girls, nor actually circumcising their daughters in all
cases that they would (or do) circumcise their sons. Thus even if circumcision is
understood as a religious option rather than a religious requirement, it is curious that
Jewish egalitarians do not exercise the option for girls when they do for boys.
Jewish egalitarians’ failure to extend circumcision to girls is particularly strange when
they take brit mila to be a sexist ritual on the grounds that it is only for boys 107 . Why, one
wonders, not avoid this purported sexism by extending the practice to girls, given that
one is extending every other previously exclusively male religious practice to females?
This is particularly so, given not only the Jewish religious significance of circumcision as
a sign of the covenant between God and the Jews 108 , but also the strong attachment that
many otherwise non-practising Jews have to circumcision. The Jew bears this sign in his
flesh, but the Jewess does not. Half of the Jewish people lack the physical mark that is
widely associated with Jews. One would have thought that egalitarians would want to
rectify this oversight.
What explains the apparent blind-spot in an otherwise vigorous Jewish egalitarianism? A
number of possible justifications might be offered, but none are compelling within the
egalitarian paradigm:
Female circumcision is not a mitzva or precept.
First, it might be suggested that whereas circumcision of males is a mitzva, a
commandment or religious precept, circumcision of girls is not. But this justification for
not extending circumcision to girls is a non-starter for egalitarians. That a mitzva or any
other religious practice has not applied, historically, to females, is no impediment to an
egalitarian extending it to females. They are in the business of rendering such unequal
precepts equal. That is why they count women in minyan, why they allow women to wear
tallitot and tefillin, why they call women to the Torah, ordain female rabbis and are led in
prayer by female cantors. It is why they create neonatal ceremonies for girls to parallel
the brit mila for boys.
Nor would it be very convincing for egalitarians to retort that female circumcision could
never become as deeply culturally entrenched a practice as brit mila is for boys. First, one
could say the same about so many other practices. Second, egalitarians are not usually
that easily deterred. Even if it were unlikely that a female version of a religious practice
were unlikely to become as culturally entrenched as the historically male version, the
egalitarian quest is to get as close as possible to the egalitarian goal of complete equality.
Why give up before one has even made an attempt?
Female “circumcision” is a more radical procedure.
107 Dr Marjorie Cramer, for example, when asked by her Reform rabbi to enrol in a course to train Jewish
ritual circumcisers, initially said “Why would I want do such a sexist thing, a ritual only for boys?” (Nadine
Brozan, “Religious Circumcision in a Changing World”, New York Times, 19 October 1998.
108 Genesis 17:10ff.

Second, it may be suggested that in those cultures in which the genitals of young girls
and women are cut, the procedure is much more radical than is male circumcision. At
least part of, but often the entire clitoris is removed. This approximates not circumcision
but instead a partial or complete penectomy in men 109 . Female genital cutting is more
radical still when it involves, as it often does, the removal of the labia minori, excision of
much of the labia majori and then infibulating the girl or woman. Thus Jewish
egalitarians might claim that they do not perform female ‘circumcision’ because unlike
male circumcision, it is a quite radical and harmful procedure and thus at odds with
egalitarianism.
This justification for not circumcising Jewish girls (and female converts) fails because it
does not distinguish between female genital cutting the way it is usually performed in
other cultures and the way it could be performed by Jewish egalitarians. As I shall show
shortly, there is a form of female genital cutting that is no more radical than male
circumcision is. The second justification thus collapses.
Circumcision is uniquely male.
At this point it may be retorted that circumcision is uniquely male because only men have
a foreskin – the piece of tissue that is removed in a brit mila. On this view, circumcision
cannot be extended to females because females cannot be circumcised. Thus a covenant
of circumcision is not merely a historically sexist practice, but is also an inevitably and
unavoidably sexist practice.
If circumcision is defined as excision of the foreskin from the glans penis, then indeed
females cannot be circumcised. But this is a stunningly and literally phallocentric
conception of circumcision. Given how much egalitarians and feminists rail against
phallocentricism and call for a more inclusive view, it is hard to imagine how they could
consistently adopt this narrow definition of circumcision. On a broader definition,
circumcision also refers to excision of the clitoral prepuce, which is the female analogue
of the foreskin. Once circumcision is understood in this way, then it can no longer be said
that circumcision is uniquely and unavoidably male.
Circumcision benefits males but not females
Next it might be argued that although both males and females can be circumcised,
circumcision benefits males but not females. Thus egalitarians might justify restricting
circumcision to males on the ground that it constitutes a health benefit to them but not to
females. There are a number of problems with this argument.
First, assuming that circumcision does not harm females, this argument can only have
force if one sees circumcision as primarily a health intervention rather than as essentially
a religious precept. For if it is a religious precept independent of whether it bestows a
health advantage, then Jewish egalitarians seem bound to extending it to females (as long
as it is not harmful to females). Since many Jewish egalitarians do not practice male
circumcision for health reasons but only for religious ones, they are hard-pressed to
109 I say “approximates” because it is not quite the same. Given that the penis is not only an organ of sexual
sensation but also an instrument for both procreation and urination, removing it is, in ways, worse than
removing the clitoris.

invoke absent health benefits in females to justify why they do not extend circumcision to
girls.
Second, the reluctance to justify male circumcision on health grounds is appropriate.
Although it was once widely thought that male circumcision did bestow health benefits, it
is now far from clear that there is any such benefit 110 .
Female circumcision demeans women.
Finally, it might be argued that female circumcision demeans girls and women. To get off
the starting blocks, this objection must again appeal to female genital cutting in other
cultural contexts. It is often argued that in these contexts it is a form of male control over
female sexuality. In excising the clitoris, it is said, an important source of sexual pleasure
is removed. In infibulating a girl – sewing together what remains of the labia majori –
infidelity is prevented.
Even if one thinks that these more radical forms of female genital cutting treat women as
sexual objects to be controlled by their men-folk, it is hard to see how Jewish
egalitarians’ adopting the milder form of female genital cutting could be tainted by
association. This is so for a few reasons. First, one need not think that excision of the
clitoral prepuce diminishes sexual pleasure. Second, if one does think that it has this
effect, then one should think that removal of the foreskin has a similar effect 111 and one
would have no reason for thinking that the effect would be worse in females than in
males. Only a non-egalitarian could want to avoid a reduction of sexual pleasure for
women but not for men. Third, egalitarians take brit mila to be a sexist favoring of males
by affirming them and elevating their status. If this is so, and some rectification is
needed, then it is hard to understand how an analogous procedure introduced specifically
to grant the same status to girls could possibly be thought to be demeaning to girls. Either
preputial excision (in a given cultural context) is demeaning or it is not. If it is not, then it
is not for both boys and girls. And if it is, then it is for both boys and girls. It is hard to
see how egalitarians could think otherwise.
None of the above five justifications for Jewish egalitarians’ not extending circumcision
to females succeeds. What, then, is the real reason why Jewish egalitarians do not
circumcise females? One plausible answer is this. Many ‘egalitarians’ are not really
egalitarians. They are motivated not so much by egalitarianism as by advancing the
interests of girls and women. Where girls and women are at a disadvantage relative to
boys and men, as is often the case, advancing their interests is functionally equivalent to
egalitarianism. Both require improving the standing of females. However, egalitarianism
diverges from the advancement of female interests in cases where females are already
advantaged over males. The absence of a neonatal ceremony for girls is viewed as a
disadvantage for girls. This is why Jewish egalitarians want a parallel ceremony for them.
However, because circumcision itself, as distinct from the ceremony attendant upon it, is
110 Male circumcision may or may not be beneficial. The evidence does not clearly support either view. See
Michael Benatar & David Benatar, “Between Prophylaxis and Child Abuse: The Ethics of Neonatal
Circumcision”, American Journal of Bioethics, Vol. 3, No. 2, Spring 2003, pp. 35-48.
111 Some Jewish authorities have made precisely this claim in defence of circumcision. See Moses
Maimonides, The Guide for the Perplexed, New York: Dover Publications (Second Edition), 1956, p. 378.
(Translated by M. Friedländer.)

a cultural burden, those who are interested only in advancing female interests have no
incentive to extend this burden to females. But a true egalitarian would think it unfair that
a boy is cut while a girl is not. Therefore, a true egalitarian would either extend the
burden to females or remove it from males 112 .
It speaks either to the disingenuousness or, more likely, the self-deception of those
Jewish egalitarians who simultaneously insist that brit mila constitutes a sexist favoring
of males while declining to extend the same alleged favor to females. This paradoxical
stance suggests that whereas they say, and perhaps consciously think, that brit mila
favors boys over girls, they recognize at some deeper level that it does not.
Here we should note that a neonatal ceremony means nothing to the neonate. An infant
boy is unaware that he is the centre of attention. He is unaware that others are making a
fuss over him and rejoicing at his birth and his induction into a religious covenant.
Similarly, an infant girl for whom there is no such ceremony cannot feel deprived of any
of this. And if she is given such a ceremony it does her no more good than such a
ceremony does an infant boy. Thus the ceremony is more for the benefit of others. While
egalitarians who give a girl a batmizva ceremony comparable to a boy’s may plausibly be
thought to be benefiting her, giving an infant girl a neonatal ceremony to parallel a boy’s
cannot plausibly be said to be benefiting her. What does make a difference to an infant is
whether its genitals are surgically altered without an anaesthetic 113 . Jewish boys do bear
this burden, while Jewish girls do not.
If it were Jewish girls who were circumcised and Jewish boys who were not, I suspect,
given the foregoing, that feminists would offer strident arguments that circumcision
discriminated against girls and constituted a patriarchal control of female genitals. Even
if the surgery were performed by women, these women would be judged, as they are in
cultures that do cut female genitals, to be instruments of patriarchy. If men began to join
the ranks of circumcisers, it would not be hailed as the egalitarian advance that the
certification of mohalot – female circumcisers (of male children) 114 – has been in Jewish
egalitarian circles. Here it has been said that a mohelet – female circumciser – can give a
women’s touch 115 and that mohalot “may have a special ability to relate to mothers who
are having anxiety” about the circumcision of their sons 116 . But this sounds like
something we would surely not hear from feminists and egalitarians – namely,
recommending a male obstetrician because he brings a “man’s touch” and can relate to
the husband of the woman in labor. The irony of using egalitarianism to extend the status
112 For more on male disadvantage and the neglect of it, see my “The Second Sexism’, in Social Theory and
Practice, Vol. 29. No. 2, April 2003, pp. 177-210. When pushed on the question of burdens borne only by
men, many feminists would rather release men from the burden than extend it to females – but without
acknowledging that it ever was a burden borne only by the males of a given culture or religion.
113 Michael Benatar and I argue that the failure to use an anaesthetic is the biggest problem with neonatal
circumcision. See our “Between Prophylaxis and Child Abuse: The Ethics of Neonatal Circumcision”
“Between Prophylaxis and Child Abuse: The Ethics of Neonatal Circumcision”, American Journal of
Bioethics, Vol. 3, No. 2, Spring 2003, pp. 35-48.
114 Although there is biblical, talmudic and halachic foundation for allowing a woman to perform
circumcision, tradition has dictated that ritual circumcisers are men.
115 Mike Weiss, “A Woman’s Touch: Lillian Schapiro is charting new territory as an Atlanta mohelet”,
Atlanta Jewish Times, 8 June 2001. Accessed on-line (on 15 August 2005) at:
http://atlanta.jewish.com/archives/2001/060801cs.htm
116 Ibid.

of circumciser to women but not using it to extend the status of circumcised to girls
seems lost on our egalitarians. Yet on a true Jewish egalitarian view, there is nothing
wrong with a female circumciser, or rabbi or cantor – on condition that she is
circumcised.

“WHO IS A JEW” REVISITED
Arnold Levin
Dr Arnold Levin is a medical practitioner with a particular interest in overweight,
menopause, and HIV/AIDS research. He has authored ten books dealing with topics
encompassing public speaking, finance, personal relationships, dieting, and the running
of a successful business.
The question of “Who is a Jew” is indeed a very vexed one. It is of great concern
especially to Reform converts, and children whose fathers were Jewish but whose
mothers belonged to a different religious faith. The significance of this is of great
consequence in regard to acceptance of these individuals by the Jewish people.
Traditionally it was always believed, and unconditionally accepted, that Jewishness is
determined by the mother. Jewish conversion by the Reform movement is frowned upon
and its validity openly denied by Jewish Orthodoxy. In an attempt to provide some clarity
to this problem, the following scientific facts will be presented.
It has become universally recognised and accepted that DNA in the cell is responsible for
the development of the genetic personality of the individual. The exact mechanism of this
biochemical function is not relevant to this discussion. Suffice it to say that the human
characteristics which have evolved over millennia are dependent on the underlying
genetic profile and the influence of its surrounding environment, be that physical or
cultural. The DNA responsible for this manifestation resides in the nucleus of the cell.
There is, however, a unique situation in which a component of the cell structures outside
of the nucleus, namely the mitochondria, also possesses DNA. The mitochondria are the
“energy source” of the cell. This mitochondrial DNA does not play a role in the
personality profile, but rather it has a small influence in the production of those factors
necessary for the production of the energy as undertaken by the mitochondria. It is worth
repeating that only the nuclear DNA is responsible for the individual’s characteristics.
During conception, it is only the maternal DNA which is introduced into the newly
fertilised ovum. This is because the male mitochondrial DNA, as found in the neck of the
sperm, falls away during the process of fertilisation. Therefore, because of this maternal
mitochondrial DNA transfer, it has now become scientifically possible to trace the origins
of the different human species by assessing the presence of this DNA. Thus the evolution
of Man from his primate ancestors, and his subsequent migration throughout the different
countries of the world, can be accurately documented. As with individuals, the
characteristics and personality behaviour of the different human species is determined by
the nuclear DNA subject to its surrounding environmental influences. The latter includes
traditions and cultures which may have been propagated in some species of mankind
during many decades and millennia. The Jewish environment, or ‘yiddishkeit’, is one of
these influences.

If the above facts are accepted, and they are currently well documented, then it is the
parental DNA of the Jewish mother, as well as the Jewish father, either together or
singularly, which is responsible for the development of the Jewish personality. Perhaps,
as may reasonably be assumed, having both parents who are Jewish may result in a
“double dose” of Jewishness, which may be more influential than a “single dose” if only
one parent is Jewish and thus the Jewish characteristics are more diluted.
Notwithstanding this possibility, a single Jewish parent in a marriage is still capable of
transferring Jewishness to the offspring.
Therefore, there are two ways of acquiring Jewishness. The first is as described above.
The second would be through the learning and adoption of the Jewish culture and
traditions as implemented during the process of faith conversion. This confers
educational membership of the Jewish people, rather than through genetic transfer.
However, this does not imply that it will be of a lesser quality, as many converts have
become devout members of Jewish congregations, both Orthodox and Reform. With the
second method of acquiring Jewishness, it is interesting to speculate that a different
personality genetic DNA may add some additional strengths to the Jewish characteristics.
Hopefully, the above discussion will offer acceptable guidelines when considering the
question “Who is a Jew”, while at the same time bring comfort, strength and tranquillity
to those who have chosen to embrace Judaism rather than follow the traditions and
cultures of their inherited non-Jewish faith.

THE YODAIKENS: MIGRATIONS AND RE-
MIGRATIONS OF A JEWISH FAMILY
Anne Lapedus Brest
Anne (Lapedus) Brest was born in Dublin, Ireland, immigrating to South Africa in
1961. She is a professional photographer, and has been involved in genealogy and family
history research for over ten years, also on a professional basis. She runs a Jewish Irish
Group for Irish Jews on the Internet called “Shalom Ireland”.
The Yodaiken family (aka. Judeikin, Jodaiken, Yudaiken, etc) has been traced back to the
mid-1600s. Their original progenitor Yodaiken was Hirsh Hacohen, born 1641 in
Lithuania. They were Cohanim and from Judeike, as well as places like Kalnel, Zagera,
Wenden, and Voru. 117
The author’s great-grandfather, Avraham Menachem Mendel Yodaiken (1857–1932) and
his wife, Basia (nee Lapedus, 1860-1918) moved to Ireland from Lithuania in around
1890. There were Yodaiken cousins in Dublin already, which was probably why they
went there. At the time of their move, they had five children, Sam (b.1875), Paulina
(b.1880), Isaac Joe (b. 1876), Myer (b. 1886), and Rosie (b. 1890). They later had a 6 th
child, Maurice Simon (b.1892). 118
“Why Ireland?” people often ask. There are many theories, probably none of them
correct. Some say that the Jewish émigrés got tired of being on the boat, and got off at the
first port of call. Others say that when the boat docked in Cork Harbour, and they heard
‘Cork’ being called out, our grandparents thought that they heard “New York” and
disembarked. Hardly likely, but this is what we believed, as children, growing up in
Dublin.
The very first Jews in Ireland are believed to have arrived in 1067. More arrived around
1200, although nobody knows where they came from. In 1492, some Spanish/Portuguese
Jews ended up in Ireland to escape the Spanish Inquisition.
The first shul in Ireland dates back to around 1660 and the oldest cemetery to 1800.
In the mid 1800s through to 1890 came a large Jewish influx, mainly from Lithuania and
Latvia. (There was a smattering of Jews coming in from the Austro-Hungarian Empire
and Germany, but these were very much in the minority).
Although they arrived virtually penniless, the new arrivals prospered. Many were door to
door peddlers, some went into the drapery business, others became tailors, traveling
117 The research in this regard was done by the author’s cousin Lennie Yodaiken, a noted genealogist.
118 There had originally been seven Yodaiken siblings but two died in very early infancy. One can see this
in the family photograph, because there are three adult and three young children.

salesmen, butchers and bakers. From whatever little money they made, they put some
towards educating their children. Thus, the next generation of Irish Jews were dental
surgeons, doctors, solicitors, barristers, and opticians
One of these success stories was Robert (Bobby) Briscoe, (whose mother was a
Yodaiken, related to Avraham Menachem Mendel). Briscoe participated in the struggle
for freedom in Ireland, and ran guns and ammunition for the IRA (Irish Republican army)
during Ireland’s War of Independence. He was also involved in the effort to create the
state of Israel and helped many European Jews escape Nazi Germany and Europe. After
World War II, he was elected to the Irish Parliament (the ‘Dáil’) and became the first
Jewish Lord Mayor of Dublin.
Newly arrived Jewish immigrants to Ireland spoke Yiddish, read Yiddish newspapers and
stuck together, reminiscing about “der Heim”. They also brought their Jewish foods with
them. Dublin’s South Circular Road district was predominately a Jewish area,
comparable to Johannesburg’s Doornfontein around the same time. Known as “Little
Jerusalem”, it included several delicatessens and approximately six kosher butcheries,
where we bought our ‘fowl’ (‘chickens’ as they call them in South Africa), vuurst
(polony) and sausages. There were three large Orthodox shuls with choirs, and one
Progressive temple, in addition to numerous small shtiebl-type shuls, mainly in houses.
The Irish Jews, like their South African counterparts who were also of Lithuanian stock,
loved their gefilte fish, gehackter herring, pickled herring, chopped herring, Danish
herring and potted herring. We sang the same tunes in shul, had the same trops for the
leining and had a kiddush (‘brocha’) every Shabbat after services as our counterparts in
South Africa. Then, we used the Singer siddur (today they use the Artscroll).
The Irish Jewish community was at its peak in the 1940-1960 period, numbering close on
5500 souls. Everyone knew everyone else, and Irish Jews were noted for their infamous
fariebels. Today the community is closer to 1600, with 1200 in the Republic and 400 in
Northern Ireland.
Avraham Menachem Mendel Yodaiken was a scrap metal merchant, operating out of a
yard in Clanbrassil Street, in the South Circular Road district. An ardent Zionist, in 1912
he took himself off to the then Palestine to plough the land in Hadera (between Cesaria
and Tel Aviv). He died and was buried there in October 1932.
Of the six Yodaiken siblings, four (Isaac Joe, Paulina, Myer and Maurice Simon) went
off to South Africa and Rhodesia, the lands of sunshine and golden opportunity. Rosie
and Sam remained behind.
Myer (1886-1954) was the first to leave Ireland, arriving in Worcester, Western Cape, in
1900. He spent some years in Southern Rhodesia, served in the South African forces
during the German South West Africa campaign and afterwards returned to South Africa,
marrying Rebecca Samuels on 31 July 1918. The couple lived in Worcester for a time,
with Myer working in his brother-in-law, Louis Sakinofsky’s general store. They then
moved to Southern Rhodesia, where Myer had a chrome mine and a transport business
for moving his chrome ore and African Mines chrome ore to the rail head for loading into
railway trucks. He also had a farm with around 25000 head of cattle. Unfortunately, he

was all but bankrupted by a combination of the Great Depression and an outbreak of foot
and mouth disease. Various other business ventures failed, including a butchery for black
township residents in Lobengula Street, Bulawayo, and at one stage he had to resort to
selling specially cut up old newspapers to the mines to support his family. In October
1943, Myer returned to Bulawayo where he purchased the Charter Confectionery & Cafe
opposite the Palace Theatre. He also started a modestly successful wholesale stationery
company.
Paulina (1880-1943) married her cousin, Louis (Lozer) Sakinofsky in Cape Town in
1906. They had three children, Robert, Jeanette and Cecile. The couple eventually settled
in the Boland town of Worcester, where they opened a General Dealer shop, named
Robert’s Store after their son. A “friendly service store” that offered “dependable goods
of the utmost value”, it was later taken over by Robert Sakinofsky and his wife Maida
and in all operated for over sixty years. 119
Maurice Simon (1892-1965), the youngest of the Yodaiken siblings and the only one to
be born in Ireland, immigrated to South Africa in 1912, the same year his father left for
Palestine. He set up a motor business first in Cape Town and then in Johannesburg
(called Transvaal Motor Industries). In 1919 he married Annie (Audrey) Mallinick from
Kimberley and they had one son, Ralph Emil Yodaiken.
Ralph Yodaiken’s story is a particularly interesting one. Working at night for a
Revisionist newspaper he became an ardent Betarnik and was eventually admitted to the
SA branch of the Irgun Zvai Leumi (National Military Organization). He was involved in
the escape of five top Irgun commanders held in the British prison camp Gil Gil, Kenya,
being one of five local activists to make their passports available to the escapees. (The
passports were carried by Chief Rabbi Louis Rabinowitz, concealed in a loaf of bread and
picked up by one of the prisoners; the latter turned out to be a relative – also named
Yodaiken - whom Ralph had never met). 120
In 1947, Ralph worked with Jewish DPs from the East European concentration camps
who had walked across the Alps to reach Italy. He then made his way to Palestine and
saw extensive action as a machalnik during the 1948 Israeli War of Independence, saving
several men under his command. He accepted the flag of surrender for the Israelis
following a battle with the Egyptians at the Faluja Gap.
After the war, Ralph returned to South Africa to pursue his life-long ambition to study
medicine. He married Naomi Baumslag (also to become a professor), and the couple had
three children. In 1963, he took up a position as Professor of Pathology at Emory Medical
School in Atlanta, Georgia. He later became the Director of Occupational Medicine in the
US Department of Labour, remaining in that position until his retirement. He and Naomi
now live Bethesda, Maryland, USA.
Isaac Joe 121 (1876-1951) settled in Johannesburg in 1911, living in the city for the
remainder of his life. He left his wife, Sarah (Freedman) ex Limerick, Ireland, two of his
119 As told to the author by Maida (Hassall) Sakinofsky, Paulina’s daughter-in-law.
120 Written communication from Ralph Yodaiken to the author, June 2008.
121 As told by his grandchildren, Dawn Rostofsky Bloom, Merle Rostovsky Cohen, and Lynn Rostovsky
Neiman.

surviving children, Clarrice Jeanette Rostovsky, and Florence Klein. (His son Lionel
Trevor died in 1944 in Normandy, France, during World War II).
Of the two Yodaiken siblings who remained in Ireland, Sam (1874-1931) was variously a
rubber merchant, bought components of warehouses’ “about to be demolished” cars and
scrap metal dealer. He was married to Rosa Weiner and they had four children, Aubrey,
Reneé, Marjorie Jeanette and Leslie.
Rosie Yodaiken (1890-1960) married her cousin, Simon Lapedus, in Dublin in 1908.
They had three surviving children, Lionel, Bethel and Stanley (two other children, Mabel
and Cedric, died in infancy). Stanley married Julie Marcus in Dublin in 1920. The latter,
along with her two children, Robert Eric Lapedus and Anne (Lapedus) Brest - the writer
of this article - today live in Sandton, South Africa.

JEWISHNESS AND THE LIBERATION
MOVEMENT – A HELP OR A HINDRANCE?
Leon Levy
Leon Levy is a trade unionist and former anti-apartheid activist, who co-founded the first
multi-racial trade union federation in South Africa and served as President for nine
years. During the 1950s and 1960s, he was banned and detained frequently for his
activities, and was amongst the accused in the 1956-1961 Treason Trial. In exile in the
UK, he continued with labour relations research and dispute resolution. On returning to
South Africa, he wrote numerous publications on labour relations and the new labour
legislation. This article is based on a lecture he presented at Limmud in Cape Town in
August 2008.
Whether being Jewish was a help or hindrance in the liberation and labor movements
during the apartheid era is a very individual matter. People have different perceptions and
sensitivities, and therefore it is unwise to speak in the name of all Jewish activists in the
struggle for liberation.
I believe that being Jewish was a great help to the liberation movements, and the
positions and confidence that was placed in Jewish activists bears testimony to this. Many
Jewish activists were elected to the highest positions in the different liberation
organizations, and if their Jewishness was an issue that their opponents capitalized on, it
in no way hindered their contribution.
What I have come to believe is that, notwithstanding acknowledgement of all other
peoples’ passion and efforts in actively participating in the liberation and trade union
movements, Jewish people brought something very special to the struggle against
apartheid. Their own or family backgrounds were packed with experience in other
struggles and they passed these experiences on, either personally or to their offspring.
Each has a story of his or her own to tell; I will tell you mine, because it is not all that
different from those of many other fellow Jewish activists.
In truth, I am still exploring what were the influences and inspirations that persuaded me
to embark upon a course of confrontation with established South African racial ethics,
discriminatory practices and unjust legislation. But there are very many, varied and
diverse, reasons I can share. Searching for what influenced and inspired me is in essence
a matter of identity. Who am I, what am I and why? Why do I need to question myself so
rigorously - and why can’t I leave it for others, if they are interested, to think about the
likes of me and come to their own conclusions?
A lot of the answers to these questions concern values which for me, constitute a road
map and a sense of right and wrong when it comes to living one’s life and respecting
others. Such values matter and are worth discussing, but certainly not sermonizing about.

These days, a Jewish left wing activist who is concerned and vocal about right and wrong
and universal human rights, faces intolerant and thoughtless accusations of being a selfhating
Jew. There are resonances here of the intolerance of previous practices and
regimes, here and elsewhere in the world, which are designed to intimidate, suppress and
stultify progressive intellectual thought.
My own background comprises many strands. The problems of family, economic
circumstances, the rise of Afrikaner nationalism and the world at war were real concerns
to my generation. I was growing up in a country in which there was overt and active
support for fascism, and was exposed to talk about the Grey Shirts and Ossewebrandwag
which replicated the frightening activities of Hitler’s Storm Troopers and brown-shirted
thugs. Coupled with what everybody talked about regarding the persecution of Jews in
Germany and the arrival of German Jewish refugees in South Africa, these circumstances
made an indelible impression on young Jewish children. As a ten year-old, I was certainly
worried about the state of things. My brother recalls a letter I wrote to him when he was
in hospital, informing him solemnly that Mr. Chamberlain had declared war on Germany.
Then there was the backdrop of the Yidisher Kultur Farein, an organization which
attracted left-wing Jewish people like my late parents (who were also associated with the
Ort-Oze). 122 There were reminiscences of grand picnics - and photographs - as lasting
souvenirs of a Yiddish social movement which was to decline as the pre-war period came
to a close. My parents were Yiddishists, not Zionists, and actively supported the
development of Yiddish theatre and literature. We had a sizeable Yiddish library, which
included a full set of Shalom Aleichem’s works and those of other well-known Jewish
authors such as Shalom Ash. Abridged versions of Shalom Aleichem’s short stories about
Tevyah the Milchika and life in the shtetl were part of my bed time reading. The
beautifully bound books were donated by my mother to the Jewish Workers’ Club, but I
have no knowledge as to where they got to when the Club was no longer on the scene and
I was in exile.
My father passed away when I was five years old, but before then, he was active in the
campaign for the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Birobidjan and was eventually
elected its chairman. Stalin’s Soviet emissary, Gina Medem, who was in charge of
the Birobidjan project, was much talked about by my mother for many years after this
dreadful idea had faded away.
If not for changed family circumstances, I too would have been sent to the Yidisher
Volkshul. My older brother and sister were sent there, rather than cheder, to learn
Yiddish (although I have to say, we never heard them speak it). Perhaps they were able to
communicate with my father’s family, whom my mother brought out from Lithuania
about two years after he died.
My mother talked a lot about her home town in Lithuania and told stories about pogroms
and the gendarmes who would come into people’s homes. The nickname for the latter
was ‘Buttons’ - a reference to the numerous buttons on their tunics. My mother carried on
her interest in the Ort-Oze (she was secretary of her local branch in Johannesburg) until
122 i.e., the Joint British Committee of the Societies of Ort-Oze for promoting the economic and physical
welfare of East European Jewry.

her untimely death in 1965. Both my parents’ interests were entirely secular.
Although my maternal grandfather had a post as a shochet and a mohel at the Gardens
Synagogue in Cape Town and my paternal one with a shul in Johannesburg, we were not
brought up in a religious setting, and did not relate easily to religious ritual.
School at Yeoville Boys, and later Athlone High, in Johannesburg was neither interesting
nor seriously eventful. We were all English speaking, barring a sprinkling of Afrikaners.
During the early period of the war, many English-speaking teachers joined the armed
services, while a good number of Afrikaans teachers - with Nationalist sentiments
regarding the war and Jewish people - took the opportunity to show their hostility.
Most of the kids who lived in Yeoville were Jewish and attended the local school. One
incident which riled some us was when one of the teachers referred to Jews as
‘mongrels’. My brother and I, along with a number of others, reported this to our
respective parents, who met with the principal to protest. There was no
meaningful outcome to this intervention and the culprit was neither removed nor seen to
be remorseful. However, the anger that this incident generated and the radical approach
of some of the parents was a good lesson in standing up for one’s dignity.
When my twin brother Norman and myself were still young our sister, who had been a
member of Habonim, enrolled us in the Johannesburg Berea Hashstilim. This did not
make an impact on me. However, a year later a school friend introduced me to the
Hashomer Hatzair, which both inspired and influenced me considerably. This was
where I met Baruch Hirson and some others who became active in liberation politics. Joe
Slovo was just passing out of “the movement” and later emerged in the Young
Communist League (YCL).
The Hashomer Hatzair was unconventional, radical in its approach to family, religion and
social attitudes. The movement’s rejection of bourgeois values was far more pronounced
than I was to find in the Communist Party and later the liberation movements. Its
orientation was distinctly socialist and its emphasis was the class struggle and Marxian
political economy. With regard to the question of a Jewish state, its solution was strictly
Borochovian 123 and centered on the notion of a single bi-national state. However, the
Hashomer Hatzair’s primary focus was on socialism, and there was also some outreach to
the anti-fascist campaigns of the South African left. I stayed close to the movement until I
was seventeen, but was torn between the life of a chalutz on a kibbutz on the one hand
and the ideological pull of Marxism, the struggle against racialism in South Africa,
poverty in the African townships and unjust laws on the other. There was not enough
Zionism, religion or sentiment about Israel in my background to sustain an allegiance to
the Israeli solution to the struggle of the Jewish people against antisemitism. Like many
other Jewish leftists, I saw only a socialist solution to the Jewish problem.
123 Ber Borochov (1881-1917), early Zionist theorist and leader, “advanced a mechanistic ‘Borochovian’
explanation of the Jewish problem, based on the fact that the Jews, being guests everywhere, were never
fully integrated into the class structure of their society, and were restricted by law from following those
occupations that were closest to the core of national economies” (http://www.zionismisrael.com/bio/ber_borochov_biography.htm).

While still a member of the Hashomer Hatzair and quite young, I began attending
meetings of the Left Book Club. There, people crossed the color line, and enjoyed the
opportunity of talking to black, colored and Indian people and be entertained by a mixed
group of performers. From time to time, there would be African or Indian speakers who
talked about racism in South Africa. This multiracial setting was unusual and I was
certainly conscious of the fact that I was into something special. Involvement in a
multiracial struggle for basic human rights was to be the strategic direction of my life
from my teens, inside and outside of jail, amidst multiple banning orders and restrictions,
from my early twenties until exile at the age of 33 and beyond.
Eventually, I joined the Communist Party. Its members were no strangers to me. As a
schoolboy I helped in election campaigns. The election room was in our house and leased
by my mother to the local party branch. Over several years, candidates such as Issy
Wolfson, Hilda Watts (Bernstein), Michael Harmel and Percy Cohen stood for election to
the Johannesburg City Council. Members from all over Johannesburg participated, and I
came to know them well.
I also met many activists at the End Street Night School, where we taught Africans to
read, write and count. Myrtle Berman was the principal.
At the YCL, there was Ruth First and other men and women students of their generation.
They spoke inspiringly about unjust laws, the plight of farm and mine workers, the causes
of war and anti fascism and I, a schoolboy, held them in awe. The majority of white
people involved in all these activities were Jewish, but one bonded with them not because
of this but for their socialist ideals. Interestingly, it was the Hashomer Hatzair which
criticised the Jewish community for its obsession with conforming to religion and
community politics.
Inevitably, it was the labor movement to which I was drawn. I was greatly influenced by
the militancy, dedication and genuine culture of caring that I saw in people like J.B.
Marks, who led the great Miners’ Strike of 1946, and Betty du Toit, a clever strategist
and astute negotiator. I had read about them and later actually met and worked with many
such active trade unionist. Many were white and Jewish, with long traditions of
innovative and successful campaigning for the establishment of African trade unions,
industrial councils and federations. They were the pioneers of multi-racial trade union
organizations. Names that come to mind are Eli Weinberg, Issy and Julia Wolfson, Solly
Sachs, Beila Page and Katie Kagan.
It was Ray Alexander, however, whose influence and inspiration was particularly
significant. I struck up a great friendship and enjoyed an exceptionally important working
relationship with her. She was a master of good trade union governance and democratic
participation, creating an impressive shop steward culture which included solemn
responsibilities regarding careful attention to finances, attention to members’ basic needs
and arranging democratic, meaningful report-back meetings. This was the small
beginning of a shop stewards movement which in the years to come would be a vast
addition to civil society in the form of a shop steward movement under the auspices of
COSATU and other important trade union federations.

Ray was already transforming her individual trade union, the Fruit and Canning Workers’
Union, into a social union movement in its own right. She was way ahead of her time in
bringing together bread and butter trade unionism with the struggle against unjust laws
and issues such as housing, education, transport and crèches. She never forgot her roots
in Riga and her association with the equivalent of the Ort-Oze and underground activities
with her Jewish comrades.
I was to take a leaf out of Ray’s book when I became the President of the South African
Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU) and strongly supported the idea of a social union
movement involving an alliance with the ANC and other congresses in the formation of
what was to become the Congress Alliance. The Alliance stood the test of time, and
although its merits are now much discussed, it constitutes the strategic base from which
the political dynamics of South Africa flow today.
The work and influence of SACTU made a considerable impact on previously
unorganised workers who responded to the numerous campaigns regarding wages and
working conditions. They participated in protests and stayaways regarding pass laws and
job reservation. SACTU became the first Social Union movement in South Africa and
was an active force in the campaign for the Congress of the People, which adopted the
Freedom Charter in 1955. As a signatory to the Charter, SACTU was now committed to
the Alliance’s programme, which in turn had the effect of courting more police pressure,
raids on local offices and banning of leaders.
The formation of this multi racial trade union organization was inspired and influenced
by the legacies of a trade union leadership which came from different roots. Some, like
Johanna and Hester Cornelius, Anna Scheepers, Mike Muller and Betty du Toit, were
influenced by the poverty of the Afrikaner bywoner. Some of the Jewish trade union
activists carried on the traditions they learned in Eastern Europe
However, by the time we formed SACTU all the main actors - white, African, Indian and
colored - were banned and restricted. Those who came forward to carry the baton were,
like me, extremely young, inexperienced and mainly in their early twenties and thirties.
By the time we gained experience and became effective, the pattern of banning,
restriction, arrest and detention was continually repeated. This onslaught culminated in
the arrest of 156 people, constituting the effective new leadership of the Congress
Alliance and including 26 trade union leaders, on charges of High Treason. The
prosecution subsequently reduced the number of accused to thirty, including myself, and
cited those that were dropped as co-accused in the event of a successful outcome.
The Treason Trial inspired and influenced all the accused leaders of the Congress
Alliance. At its commencement, there were 23 white activists, of whom fifteen were
Jewish. The trial, in which the defense team was led by Isie Maisels, supported by
Sydney Kentridge, Bram Fischer, Vernon Berrange and others, lasted for nearly five
years and probed the rationale for our involvement in the struggle and the meaning of the
liberation movement.
Was the Jewish community concerned about the plight of Jewish victims of the struggle
against apartheid? Certainly not during the years before I went into exile. In fact, it

ostracized Jewish victims of banning, detention and imprisonment, which had the effect
of excommunicating them.
A little example I would like to give you is the experience I had when I was in solitary
confinement in 1960. Clergymen of different faiths visited detainees and prisoners to
comfort and talk to them about their health and families. When the local rabbi met me,
however, he told me that he did not know why he was actually talking to me as his
congregation was not interested in the political likes of people like myself. He did not ask
about my family, or whether I would like him to make contact with my mother or other
members of it. In spite of the need to talk to someone, I terminated the visit, preferring
rather to return to solitary confinement.
Did my Jewishness help or hinder my involvement. I think it helped and gave it
continuity, substance and purpose. However, I have to say that although the contribution
of the Jewish left was of historic value, the community as a whole, except for some
notable groups, did not share our enthusiasm or offer its support for a transformed and
non-racist society. This, however, was in line with prevailing attitudes of all white people
in South Africa. Now that we have a new dispensation, I would like to believe that
forums like Limmud will encourage and stimulate the present generation of South
African Jews to reach out to those members of the community who are continuing in the
footsteps of those who stood up to be counted.

MORE ABOUT YIDDISH COLLOQUIALISMS
Gabriel A. Sivan
Gabriel Sivan is a regular contributor and long serving member of the editorial board of
Jewish Affairs. He is associated with the World Jewish Bible Centre in Jerusalem.
Like many others, no doubt, I enjoyed reading Maurice Skikne’s article on ‘Yiddish
South Africanisms’ in your Rosh Hashanah 2008 issue. 1 Most of the words and
expressions that he quotes are definitely peculiar to South Africa, but almost a dozen are
not. Before going into this subject in greater detail, however, some preliminary remarks
would be in order.
Older members of the Jewish community (Liverpool) where I grew up spoke the North-
Eastern ‘Litvishe’ Yiddish which they had brought with them from Bialystok, Shishlevits
(Swyslocz) and Slonim – or, in the case of my paternal grandparents, from Zhetel
(Dyatlovo) and Sokolka. Though raised in an English-speaking home, my younger
brother and I soon grasped the meaning of Yiddish code words (e.g., shlissel) that parents
did not wish their children to understand.
While studying Romance philology as part of my degree course in Modern Languages at
Oxford way back in the 1950s, I came across a handful of Old French words that
eventually provided Yiddish with terms like davnen, kreplach and tsholent. They may
well have been familiar to Rashi, the ‘Prince of Commentators’, long before Jews
expelled from France adopted Middle High German as their vernacular. This knowledge
helped to spark my interest in our Mamme-loshen, an interest that has deepened in recent
years.
Let us now turn to some of the words included in Maurice Skikne’s glossary. I suspect
that kalakotke derives either from the Russian noun kolokol ‘(bell’) or from the verb
klokotat (‘to gurgle’). Klutche is identical with the Russian klacha (‘a nag’), while
kormenen is likewise of Russian origin, stemming from kormit (‘to feed’). The shape of a
matzah-meal fritter would account for its presumably Russian name, latka, meaning
‘patch’. Now for the derivation of moss (properly mo’es in Yiddish): far from being
unknown, it comes from the Hebrew ma’ot (‘money’ or ‘small change’), as used in the
term me’ot chittim (‘wheat money’), referring to the cash needy folk receive for their
Passover provisions, especially matzot. Putzeg derives, of course, from the German [sie]
putzt sich (‘she dresses herself up’) while in Israel today, puch (from the Polish word
meaning ‘duvet’) is used for the filling of a quilt.
1 For surveys of the Yiddish language, its origin and development, see also Encyclopaedia Judaica,
Jerusalem: Keter, 1971, vol. 16, cols. 789-798; Nicholas de Lange, Atlas of the Jewish World,
Oxford: Phaidon, 1984, pp. 117-120; The Encyclopedia of Judaism, ed. Geoffrey Wigoder, Jerusalem,
1989, pp. 741-2; and The Oxford Dictionary of the Jewish Religion, ed. R. J. Zwi Werblowsky and
Geoffrey Wigoder, Oxford University Press, 1997, pp. 743-4.

One could add several more expressions to the list given by Mr. Skikne. Among those
that I learned as a youth are Oyf dem ganev brent dos hittel (‘if the cap fits, wear it’), Hob
ikh a zorg (‘I couldn’t care less’), Man dost oyf zayn arbet (‘His effort is worthless’) and
the equally derisive quip, Nikolai ht gegangen in dr’erd fun dos. One proverbial
expression that I found years ago in an old compendium (and which I won’t attempt to
translate) crudely reflects the Jew’s defiance of Church-inspired antisemitism in Tsarist
Russia: Az man pisht oyf a tzelem peygert a galokh. 124
There are several (mostly derogatory) terms for a non-Jew in Yiddish. Skikne lists two of
them, shikse and yok, with the peculiarly South African chatez added for good measure.
Other such terms, which (though still current in Britain) he does not mention, are beytz,
sheygetz and yappe. Why did these pejorative words replace the neutral Hebrew – and
Yiddish – term goy (‘Gentile’), and where did they originate? There is no straightforward
explanation, but East European Jews lived in a mainly hostile environment where they
were subjected to verbal as well as physical abuse. Deprived of civil rights in Tsarist
Russia, they fell back on what might be called linguistic self-defence.
Only the origin of sheygetz, the masculine form of shikse, is indisputable. It derives from
the Hebrew word sheketz, a ‘detestable thing’, on the basis of Deuteronomy 7:26.
Shiktzah, its feminine equivalent, was modified to shikse in Yiddish, signifying ‘a
prohibited [i.e., non-Jewish] girl’. Tracing the origin of beytz (feminine beytzke) is more
problematic. Some years ago, it gave rise to an interesting correspondence in the
Jerusalem Post. Meir Ronnen had stated, in a book review, that although he grew up
among Yiddish-speaking Jews in Australia, his Liverpool-born mother was the only
person he ever heard using the term beytzke. His appeal for more information brought a
letter from Aryeh Newman, a veteran British oleh and native of Leeds, who suggested
that beytz might derive from the Hebrew word betzah (‘egg’), which – when translated
into Yiddish as ayer – came to denote an Irishman [Ayerland = Ireland. See Gwynne
Schrire’s review of Jewish Ireland in the Age of Joyce: A Socio-Economic History, in the
2007 Rosh Hashanah issue – ed.]. What Ronnen and Newman had in common was a
‘Litvak” ancestry, which would explain their acquaintance with one rather unusual
Yiddish term and probably dispose of Newman’s ‘Ayerish’ theory.
Maurice Skikne associates the word yok with an ‘English non-Jew’, but then derives it
from ‘the Yiddish Yakke – jacket’. This seems very far-fetched to me. After all, Jacke is a
German term and German Jews seeking refuge in Mandatory Palestine during the 1930s
were first dubbed yekkes because they insisted on wearing a jacket and tie even in hot
weather. Yok or yeykel originally meant ‘idiot’ or ‘blockhead’ and the resemblance to our
English word yokel may be sheer coincidence. True, the ‘local yokel’ was a gullible
country bumpkin, but this English term first denoted a species of woodpecker!
There were clearly social gradations, from goy to beytz in descending order. A goy might
be anyone from a university professor to one’s business partner; a yok had had perhaps
acquired a secondary education and his better half, the yeykelte, might be a saleswoman
124 Dr. Yosef Guri, of the Hebrew University’s Department of Russian and Slavonic Studies (now semiretired),
is currently publishing a series of multilingual works on spoken Yiddish. They include
Heren Gute Besoros – Let’s Hear Only Good News: Yiddish Blessings and Curses, 2 nd revised edition,
Jerusalem, 2004; and Oyfn Shpitz Tzung – On the Tip of the Tongue: 500 Yiddish Proverbs, Jerusalem,
2006.

or just a housewife. Sheyygetz was reserved for a less educated, working-class man
whose daughter (the shikse) was paid to do the housework or run messages. Beytzimer
were the lowest of the low; their children were street urchins who often caused trouble.
Yosef Guri, whom I have known for many years and who still lives in our Jerusalem
neighbourhood, has drawn my attention to some curious linguistic discrepancies. While
most of these Yiddish terms exist in both genders (goy and goye or goyte, beytz and
beytzke, sheygetz and shikse, yok and yeykelte), only some have a plural form (goyim,
beytzimer, shgotzim). Yok, for example, does not. Yappi, equivalent to beytz, is a term I
only heard when visiting relatives in Leeds. Dr. Guri maintains that it derives from the
Germanic type of Yiddish spoken in Courland (western and southern Latvia), where
some of those Yorkshire ‘Litvaks’ or their forbears originated.
Whatever their derivation may be and however they were employed, these pejorative
terms have lost their sting. Nowadays, in fact, a non-observant Jew may be called a goy
or a shikse, while any cheeky young devil may be described as a sheygetz. If more Jews
outside the yeshivah world make Yiddish their second language, won’t new epithets be
invented?

SOME JEWISH BOOKSELLERS AND
BOOKSHOPS IN JOHANNESBURG: PAST
AND PRESENT
Reuben Musiker
Reuben Musiker, a veteran contributor to Jewish Affairs and a long-serving member of
its editorial board, is Professor Emeritus of Librarianship and Bibliography, University of
the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. Library Consultant, South African Jewish Board of
Deputies. He has published widely on issues of Jewish and general interest.
This overview of Jewish bookshops and booksellers in Johannesburg (which is by no
means comprehensive, and indeed is selective) is divided into two parts. Part One
consists of bookshops which are owned by Jews, and the stock of which is inherently,
though not exclusively, Jewish. Part Two includes Jewish booksellers whose bookshops
contain a variable degree of Judaica but whose stock is far wider, covering many
branches of knowledge.
PART 1: JEWISH BOOKSHOPS
Rubin’s Bookshop
Lipman (Lippe) Rubin was the pioneer founder of the landmark Johannesburg bookshop
‘Rubin’s Bookshop’, which existed from the early days of the Rand right up to October
1996, when it finally closed. Rubin was born in Shenburg, Courland in 1860. He
received his Hebrew education at Hebrew schools and Yishivot in Dvinsk, Vilna and Birz,
and remained a Hebrew scholar all his life. He also received a comprehensive secular
education at a government school and had a good knowledge of German and Russian, in
addition to his thorough knowledge of Hebrew and Yiddish. A deeply orthodox man, he
maintained his religious principles faithfully under all the varied and often difficult
circumstances of his life.
Rubin came to Johannesburg in 1896 and at first struggled hard to make a living. He was
among the city’s first Hebrew teachers and soon opened the small bookshop which grew
over the years, practically into an institution. He became a prominent member of the
City’s first Talmudical Society, established just three years before his arrival and lectured
in Mishnah in the Ponevez Shul. A fervent Chassid, he took the initiative in 1897 to
found the Chassidic Congregation in Doornfontein, and was a pillar of strength to this
community through all the years of its existence. He became the Congregation’s Reader
and year after year found him officiating at the services.
Rubin was also a Specialist Mohel, travelling throughout Southern Africa. During the
Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902), he went to Cape Town where he played a prominent role

among the Johannesburg Jewish refugees. The work he did there, coupled with his piety
and uprightness of character, won him the friendship and respect of such spiritual leaders
as the Reverend A P Bender, Reverend Abo Leib (the Ponedele Rav), and Rabbi Moshe
Chaim Mirvish. While in Cape Town, Rubin was also a bookseller.
On his return to Johannesburg in 1907, Rubin reopened his Hebrew Bookshop. The shop
rapidly became a meeting-placed for all interested in Yiddish and Hebrew literature and
journalism. A cultured and scholarly man, Rubin diligently read the various Jewish books
and periodicals that came into his shop and was always ready to discuss articles with his
customers. He carried the religious injunction of Tzeddakah faithfully into life, and many
of his customers who experienced financial hardship found in him a valued friend who
helped them with recommendations and securities at the Hebrew Benevolent Association.
His son-in-law, Alec Braun, was associated with him for many years in his business.
Rubin’s bookshop was at first situated in Commissioner Street and later relocated to
Harrison Street in Central Johannesburg. The enterprise specialized in Jewish books and
religious requisites but also had some general books. In later years, until its closure in
1996, it moved to Louis Botha Avenue, Highlands North.
Of how many booksellers can it be said that their hobby is giving away books! What is
not so well known about Rubin, and what made him a rara avis among the bookselling
fraternity, was that he was continually doing this. The Rand Daily Mail of 2 June 1946
reports that in that year alone he had donated 1400 books to the Johannesburg Public
Library and some 15000 to schools in both Black and White communities. He even ran a
circulating library at the beginning of World War II. This was in due course donated to
‘Books for Troops’ and several thousand books were supplied to a mobile library in the
Middle East. His philanthropy knew no bounds. One of Rubin’s treasures was a Bible in
stone print, probably one of six printed in Amsterdam about 1400 AD. Rubin donated this
almost priceless incunable to the Johannesburg Public Library without any fuss or
ceremony.
It is a matter of considerable pride to the author of this article to know that he was related
by marriage to Rubin through his great-aunt Chaya Dvorah Rubin (nee Musikant), who
was his. This fact is evident from a family tree compiled by the author’s late brother,
Mendel Musiker. The Rubin family resided at 124 Van Beek Street, Doornfontein, within
a stone’s throw of the author’s childhood residence at 22 Currey Street. The author
recalls frequent visits to Rubin’s home, which remained the home of his daughter Molly
Braun after Rubin’s death on 22 January 1948. 125
A matter of interest concerns Rubin’s forename. It is given in the South African Jewish
Yearbook as ‘Lipman’, whereas the obituary in the South African Jewish Times gives it
as ‘Liebman’. To his family and friends he was known as Lippa Rubin.
Chabad House
125 Rubin’s obituary was published prominently in the South African Jewish Times, 30 January 1948, p14.

Wendy Levitt, the present Manager of the Chabad House bookshop, has kindly provided
the following information. 126 The bookshop was started by Monty Arenstein in his
garage, probably late 1970s, early 1980s, to provide people with the opportunity to have
access to Torah literature, both Hebrew and English. In 1986, he handed his stock over to
Chabad House and it was relocated to Chabad’s premises in Yeoville, where is occupied
two book shelves. After four years in Yeoville, it was relocated to Chabad’s first store in
the Fairmount Centre and three years later to a larger shop, also in Fairmount. Two years
ago, the business was moved to the Balfour Park Shopping Centre.
The philosophy of the Lubavitcher Rebbe was that every home should have Jewish
books. The rationale is that books are our heritage, our Torah and our spirituality. A
Jewish home is affected even just by the presence of the books; how much more so when
they are studied and read. It was with this approach in mind that, as part of the Rebbe’s
Mitzvah campaigns, bookstores and libraries were started by Chabad all over the world,
making books available at reasonable prices, and ensuring the dissemination of Torah
literature everywhere.
Kollel Bookshop
This was opened in the Kollel at corner Grafton and Muller Streets, Yeoville, in 1970.
The shop has always stocked a wide range of books on every topic of Jewish interest, a
range of religious books as well as music discs, CDs and other items of Jewish interest. It
has always tried to maintain a completely apolitical situation by stocking books for all the
various sectors of the Jewish community.
All aspects of Judaism are to be found, including topics ranging from the Holocaust,
Jewish history, Ethics of the Fathers, Halachah and Jewish philosophy. A special feature
of the shop has always been the vast range of wonderfully illustrated books for children
of all ages. Some books are simply delightful stories containing easy to understand
lessons on conduct and behaviour for a proud Jewish child while others explain the
different chagim or give added dimensions to the meaning of being Jewish.
The Kollel Bookshop is the official stockist of all prescribed Judaic books for the Jewish
day schools. It is also the official distributor of Art Scroll Books in South Africa. Art
Scroll Books are the leading publishers of Judaic books in the world and produce the best
selection of Jewish literature. 127
In 1997, the Kollel Bookshop relocated to the Pick ‘n Pay Shopping Mall in Norwood. In
2007 it moved again, to William Road, Norwood.
South African Zionist Federation
Of historical interest is the fact that the 1929 South African Jewish Yearbook carried an
advertisement and list of hundreds of books of Jewish interest, available from the South
African Zionist Federation Book Shop. The Federation was situated in Progress
126 Personal communication 8 April 2008
127 Bookshop Opens on World of Torah, Jewish Herald 26 March 1985, p84.

Buildings, corner Commissioner and Von Wielligh Streets at that time. It is not clear
when this bookshop ceased to exist. 128
PART II: JEWISH-OWNED JOHANNESBURG BOOKSELLERS
There have been a good many bookshops in Johannesburg, owned by Jews, but which
were not inherently Jewish in their stock. These shops did contain some Judaica, but this
was not their primary focus.
With regard to the earliest Jewish Booksellers in Johannesburg, the Dennis Edwards
Directory of 1890 shows that of eleven booksellers and stationers in Johannesburg at that
time, two were Jewish. They were Israel Rudolph at 762 Market Street and Mendelssohn
and Scott at 635 Market Street. Emmanuel Mendelssohn, in partnership with R S Scott,
also founded the Standard and Diggers’ News, a pro-Republican newspaper which lasted
until the British troops occupied Johannesburg during the Anglo Boer War in 1900. This
confirms that Jewish booksellers were already in business in Johannesburg shortly after
the founding of the town. It is of course most likely that their book stock contained a
range of subjects beyond Judaica.
Arcadian Bookshop was located in Jeppe Street in the 1950s and later at the corner of
Harrison and President Streets in the City Centre. It ceased to exist in the 1960s. This
bookshop was owned by Albert Segal, who incidentally wrote the novel Johannesburg
Friday. He has been described as “elderly, of medium height, slightly built, with dark
hair and glasses and looking rather unhappy”. 129
Ballard’s Books, situated in Auckland Park, is not specifically Jewish but is owned by a
Jew, Mark Baskind (and Gavin Potgieter). The shop was started in 2001 with 4000
books.
Bookdealers of Bryanston, Melville, Rivonia and Rosebank consists of a chain of
second-hand bookshops, owned by Doron Locketz, which also specializes in remainders.
These shops are piled to their ceilings with books. Melville is strong in contemporary
fiction. Rosebank has much on Africana, biography and ‘militaria’. 130 Bryanston has
Africana and collectables.
The Bookdealers Chain has varying amounts of Judaica in all its bookshops. However,
Bookdealers of Rivonia is the chain’s flagship in this regard. The shop is located in the
Cloisters Shopping Centre in Rivonia, Sandton. This shop took over the Jewish stock
when the Chain’s Yeoville book shop closed down.
Louis Hyman was the founder owner of Books Unlimited, situated at 39 Greenhill Road
Emmarentia. He took it over in 1952 and ran it for what is surely a record-breaking fifty
years, until his death in July 2005. His younger son, Brian, continues to operate the
128 South African Jewish Yearbook, 1929, Johannesburg, pp270-274.
129 Herzog, Harald, ‘Bookshops of Johannesburg’, unpublished manuscript
130 Antony Wiley’s column in the Sunday Times 12 December 1999, p12, gives a profile of some of the
principal second hand bookshops, including Jewish owned businesses such as Collector’s Treasury and the
Book Dealers chain.

usiness. In 2000, Hyman expressed positive sentiments about the suburb and his
bookshop. He summed up the scenario in these terms:
Children grow up and leave. Parents grow old and leave the big house and live in
flats. There are always big changes of population, especially lately. More
Muslims are moving into the area, and this is good because young people are
coming back. 131
The establishment Butch Burman’s Bookshop was neither Jewish not was the owner
Jewish. It is included here to dispel the belief that Burman was Jewish. Burman’s real
name was Frank Yeoman and he assumed the name ‘Burman’ when he was a
professional wrestler before World War II. He began selling books by 1952, both new
and antiquarian. His shop was situated variously in Wanderers’ Street, Plein Street and
later in Pretoria Street, Hillbrow. Burman died in 1971. The confusion over his supposed
Jewishness almost certainly arose because he had a slightly Jewish appearance. Harald
Herzog quotes the journalist and sports writer Paul Irwin as relating the story of
Burman’s encounter, during his wrestling days, with a red-headed American ‘cowboy’ in
the wrestling ring. The frenzied crowd was on the side of the red-head. “Kill the Yid!”
they shouted. Little did they know that the ‘cowboy’ was Jewish, not Butch! 132
Collectors’ Treasury was founded in 1974 by Maisie Klass, whose two sons, Geoffrey
and Jonathan, are the present owners. This establishment is situated at 244 Commissioner
Street, and occupies no less than eight floors, consisting of an antique shop, a record store
(of over 100 000 vinyl records) and a music studio with a magnificent collection of
musical instruments.
The books are a big seller, and include Africana, art books, biographies, sports books,
natural history, literature, half a million out-of-print books and book materials such as
postcards, pamphlets, old periodicals, prints and posters.
The enterprise has added in recent years, an Internet presence, which, according to
Geoffrey Klass results in more orders in one night than a whole month of visitors to the
business itself. 133 The internet website www.abebooks.com represents about 5000
dealers worldwide with a stock of some 14 million titles.
The major bookselling enterprise Exclusive Books was founded by Philip Joseph in
Hillbrow. It has always concentrated on new books. A few shelves of Judaica are to be
found in all the branches. The chain’s flagship in Hyde Park, Sandton, is reasonably well
stocked with recent Judaica.
Out-of-Print second hand bookshop, not specifically Jewish in scope, is owned by Wolf
Weinek. There are some 2000 second-hand cookbooks in the Cookbook Emporium,
which is actually a shop within a shop, and is filled with recipes from bygone eras and
exotic locations.
131 Quoted by William Pretorius in his weekly column ‘Bookworm’ published in The Saturday Star, 8 April
2000, p14.
132 Herzog, Harald, ‘Bookshops of Johannesburg’, Unpublished manuscript.
133 Wiley, Anthony, Sunday Times 12 December 1999

Publix was part of a department store founded by I W Schlesinger, at the north-western
corner of Eloff and Commissioner Streets in the Carlton Hotel block
Random Books, 134 which was in business from 1950 until around 1970, was situated in
Rissik Street. It was principally a new books establishment. The original owner
(unidentified) was succeeded by Mr and Mrs Yudelman, a very friendly Jewish couple.
By about 1970, the shop had changed its nature and dealt mainly in stationery. At one
time, the shop did offer some Africana, an enterprise run in conjunction with Robin
Fryde, later of Thorolds’
Selected Books, owned by Dr H O Simon and Mr Hans Weiss, was situated in the 1940s
and 1950s in Hoek Street. The stock consisted mainly of new and second-hand German
books and some second-hand English ones. Dr Simon, a well known member of the
German-Jewish community, is described by Herzog as being a very friendly man while
the shop itself had a very civilised ambience. 135 Herzog remembers Simon as being in his
sixties, balding, dressed in a tan sports jacket, collar and tie, often smoking a cigar. In the
1950s, he became quite well known as a participant in quiz programmes on Springbok
Radio. He had a very pleasant manner and wore his learning lightly. He also founded,
with Dr Franz Auerbach, the Independent Cultural Association.
Robin Fryde has been a landmark name in the antiquarian book trade throughout the
second half of the 20 th century. Fryde qualified as a lawyer and took over Frank R
Thorold’s Africana Bookshop in 1962. 136 He has since then built up the business into
one of the best Africana and legal book enterprises in South Africa. In his description of
the shop, Michael Shafto quotes Fryde’s view of the business in these terms: “I lay great
pride on the mess. A bookshop should never be antiseptic, like a hospital. You know
what I mean? Gentle chaos is how I like it”. Shafto found that just about everything to do
with South Africa in the matter of books, ancient and modern, is there. Books are stacked
to the ceiling, and the shelves have skyscraper proportions. 137
Fryde has long been acknowledged as one of the country’s leading experts in antiquarian
and collectors’ books. His reputation extends internationally and he is held in such high
regard that he has served for many years as an Advisor and supplier to the Public Library,
Johannesburg and famed Brenthurst Library, Johannesburg, and also to numerous
overseas libraries, including the prestigious American Library of Congress. Fryde has an
uncanny knack of finding, at times almost miraculously, unique gems of Africana. Denis
Godfrey, in his book The Enchanted Door, gives this almost incredible example.
Fryde’s encyclopaedic knowledge of Africana books and their values is
unrivalled. The gem of Fryde’s personal collection, which the owner has vowed
will never be sold, is a first edition (1907) of the classic Jock of the Bushveld by
Percy Fitzpatrick, inscribed to Edward Sivewright, who gave Jock to the author:
“When you gave me the ugly puppy, neither of us realized he would grow into
134 Described by William Pretorius in the Saturday Star 22 April 2000
135 Herzog
136 Godfrey, Denis, The Enchanted Door, Cape Town: Timmins, 1962. Reprinted 1963, p122
137 Shafto, Michael, ‘To Behold History Amid Well Ordered Chaos’, The Star (Johannesburg) 23 May
1991.

this. Please accept this record of his doings as an expression of my gratitude for
the gift of Jock himself. Yours ever, Fitz...
This is one of two inscribed first edition copies of this book Fryde has in his private
collection. His personal collection of inscribed copies of books is truly remarkable and
surely unmatched and unrivalled.
Situated in Harrison Street, Universal Book Agency was stocked with new technical and
general books, as well as second-hand technical ones from around 1940 or earlier to
around 1970. The owner was Mr Josef Berjak, who usually wore a white dustcoat.
Herzog describes him as rather short, slightly podgy and middle-aged, and a man who,
although he never smiled, was quite friendly. In 1975, Berjak moved to Harold’s
Bookshop in Plein Street.
Vanguard Booksellers 138 existed from the 1940s until the 1960s and was located in
Joubert Street. The owner, Miss Fanny Klenerman, (a portly lady, according to Herzog),
was a trade union activist. Her assistant was Mr Joe Moed, and he was much in evidence,
a man of medium height, with short, curly hair and bespectacled. Around 1960, the shop
moved to Commissioner Street but closed down towards the end of the decade. Some
time after that, Moed and Klenerman married. She died in 1983. The famous activist,
Helen Joseph, worked here for a while. The bookstore was especially strong in art.
Acknowledgment
This article has been greatly enhanced by the author’s access to the manuscript of Harald
Herzog’s ‘Bookshops of Johannesburg’. This has been a labour of love by Herzog who
has devoted many years to the project which is his passion. Herzog’s work which locates
and describes some 200 book shops has been written from his encyclopaedic memory.
His detailed descriptions of the bookshops, their internal layout and their owners provide
a virtual panorama of the Johannesburg bookselling scenario covering much of the
twentieth century. Herzog remains hopeful of finding a publisher which would be a
fitting fulfilment of his magnum opus.
138 Herzog