Jewish Historical Society Established in South Africa

(J. T. A. Mail Service)

A South African Jewish historical society has been established with the intention of compiling a complete history of South African Jewry and its institutions Branches of the society have been formed in the Cape Province, Transvaal, Orange Free State and Natal, and the activities of the society include the colony of Southern Rhodesia and the mandated territories of South West Africa.

In each centre the committees are engaged in research work in order to compile the history of the beginnings of Jewish life in their respective territories. Cape Town, the mother Jewish community, has entrusted the compilation of its history to Louis Herrmann, English master at the Cape Town High School.

I. M. Goodman, the Registrar of the South African Jewish Historical Society and editor of the South African Jewish Year Book, has visited Cape Town in connection with the forthcoming publication. He is visiting the larger centres of Jewish population for the same purpose.

The history will include articles on the Jew in public and civic life; the Jew in industry, commerce, agriculture, the professions; the Jew in art and literature, the Jewish woman; the Jew in mining and in finance; Jewish education; the Jewish ministry; the synagogues of South Africa; Zionism in South Africa; the Jewish Board of Deputies; the War Victims Fund; the Talmud Torah movement, the Jewish Guild movement, the Young Israel movement; the benevolent institutions of South Africa; and statisties of Jewish population in the provinces, cities, town and villages of South Africa. The book will contain a special article on South African Jewry’ contribution in service and sacrifice during the great war.

While organized Jewry in South. Africa dates only from 1841, there are records of individual Jews arriving in South Africa since 1670, eighteen years after the first white settlers arrived from Holland.