How the Jews of Brandfort helped Winnie survive

TALI FEINBERG

“I was extremely grateful for the kindness shown to me by the Jewish community,” wrote Madikizela-Mandela in a message to Brandfort’s Jewish community on the launch of a historical booklet commemorating its Jewish community in April 2013.

“Had it not been for them, I would not have survived the brutality of apartheid. They understood what it was to be persecuted and have played a great role in helping me and Zindzi, my daughter, cross the racial barriers under very difficult circumstances.”

The booklet, written by Faisia Shaskolsky (nee Cheerin) was compiled after she visited her home town and found no record of the Jewish community that had once lived there.

In its heyday, the Jewish community of Brandfort comprised 117 people. At present there are none. The Brandfort shul is reputed to have been the oldest shul in the Free State.

Madikizela-Mandela was invited to attend the booklet launch in Brandfort in 2013, but told organisers it “would hurt too much” to go there. Instead, she sent a written message, which was read out by Country Communities Rabbi Moshe Silberhaft.

In it, she said: “I, of course, have many memories of Brandfort, some of them harsh, others sad, all too often of times of hardship, suffering and loneliness. Exile is never easy – something the Jewish people know only too well from their own 2 000 years of Diaspora existence – and I believe it is important to keep a proper record of it.

“For this reason, I welcome the memoir, paying particular attention to Jewish life in this small town, written by someone who grew up in it.

“I recall fondly the support and help given to me by some members of the small Brandfort Jewish community, such as the Levins, who are also mentioned in the book.

“I wish the publication every success and know that now, being part of the Brandfort library in what used to be called a township, it can help bring this little bit of history to life for the local people, particularly the young,” she concluded.

Madikizela-Mandela had developed close friendships with Jewish women in the community. “Betty and Lily Levin befriended Ms Winnie Madikizela-Mandela when she was banished to Brandfort during the apartheid era,” wrote Shaskolsky in the book. “It is said that only a handful or so of white people spoke to her. Piet de Waal, who also lived in Brandfort, was Winnie Mandela’s attorney and she referred to his wife, Adele, as ‘my white sister’. Betty, Lily, Adele and Winnie became firm friends.”

Selwyn Levin, son of the late Lily Levin, remembers how Madikizela-Mandela was given an allowance at his father Alec Levin’s general dealer store, but she never used up the full quota. When she was first banished to Brandfort, Levin told a newspaper that he would even employ her at his store, but that it might not be the kind of work she was looking for. This was the way in which the Levins welcomed her from the start, and she never forgot it.

Michael Levin, another son of Lily and Alec, recalls his mother regularly hosting Madikizela-Mandela for tea, and that this was a major form of support because it cut back on her isolation and loneliness. This was crucial as one had to gain permission to visit her. So, if she was not invited to other homes, she would have been very much alone. It became a very natural, easy friendship.

These visits were regular, but the two never discussed politics – only their children and village news. “That was my mom: in her own quiet way, she would help anyone,” says Michael.

In a short piece written by Betty Levin, now 91, she recalls how Madikizela-Mandela was allowed to visit her husband, Nelson Mandela, on Robben Island once a month. “She would come into our gift shop and select a very good gift for the doctor, who she said was very kind to her husband.”

For the small Jewish community, their political guest was just another woman in the village. In a newspaper article at the time, pharmacist Isaac Basson said: “As far as I’m concerned, Winnie is just another person who has come to live in our town. I hope she comes to like it here and decides to stay on.”

But others thought she would only bring trouble. When Lily Levin used to invite the struggle icon for tea, her son Selwyn recalls her asking their domestic worker to make the tea. After a number of visits, she told Lily that she would no longer be making tea for Mandela, as “she is only going to bring problems and trouble to the town”.

In paying tribute to Madikizela-Mandela after her passing last week, Shaskolsky writes: “Her connection with Brandfort encouraged me to place my book on the library shelves in the village, for the children to study and know and understand that we [the Jews] were there. We contributed to our village in the best way that we knew how.”

And, at the end of the booklet about the Jews of Brandfort, Shaskolsky writes: “For me it was home. It was the Free State in its enriched warmth. It gave me the strength and background to go forth with my life and to tackle each living moment to the best of my ability.”