Discovering Doornfontein’s lost Jewish world

STEVEN GRUZD

“If he moved quickly, on Simchat Torah, a young boy could collect chocolates from seven different shuls in half an hour,” said Ishvara Dhyan, a chef whose company African Secrets runs walking tours around Johannesburg. He brought to life the old days on his recent Jewish tour of Doornfontein.

Dhyan sported sandals and a large maroon kippah that matched his loose maroon trousers. The tour began on Beit Street, outside Ellis Park rugby stadium. Named for De Beers founder Albert Beit, this street was a beit (home) for Jewish Joburgers. “My dad brought us kids here on Sundays,” he said. “Apartheid had ensured that the rest of the city was dead. But Beit Street was alive.” By that time in the 1970s and 1980s, the Jewish community had long moved onto greener pastures.

Across from the stadium, Dhyan showed us where the Yiddishe Arbeiter Klub once stood. A haven for secular Jewish socialists, it was a hub for Yiddish language, art, drama, and song, before it burned down in 1948. I learned that Ellis Park had once been a vast lake, where Jewish working-class atheists loved to picnic on May Day and Yom Kippur. “Being Jewish was much more than religious,” Dhyan said, “It was tribal, ethnic, linguistic – a critical part of people’s identity.”

Dhyan described the three main types of Jews in the 1920s to 1940s: non-observant working-class people, ultra-orthodox yeshiva bochers (students), and materialistic Jews for whom shul twice a year was enough. By 1948, Jews faced the choice of making aliyah, keeping their heads down as “good whites”, or (as a tiny minority did) joining the anti-apartheid struggle.

About 22 000 to 30 000 Jews lived in and around the shtetl that was Doornfontein. Yiddish was their first language. These Litvaks had fled Czarist Russia’s pogroms for the gold, diamonds, and ostrich farms of South Africa. There were a few thousand Yekkes – German Jews – among them.

Many Jews who were platteland smouse (pedlars) and tradesmen sent their children to boarding houses in Johannesburg. One was situated on the Doornfontein campus of the University of Johannesburg (formerly the Wits Technikon). All that’s left now is a towering palm tree amid the ugly pink-and-grey zebra striped university buildings. Another, Herber House, stood in Bellevue opposite Ponte.

You can clearly see the word “tailor” among a triplet of tiny shops backing onto the boarded-up Alhambra Theatre. I tried to imagine my ancestors buying goods from these Jewish businesses in the wide dirt roads where horses and carts plied their trade.

The next stop was the neo-classical Doornfontein Synagogue, better known as the “Lions Shul” for the two golden lions perched on its veranda. Built in 1905 by the Yekkes, the lions were a symbol of the ruling British Empire. The shul displays ornate columns, pressed ceilings, and dark wood pews. Its shelves groan with religious books in Hebrew and Cyrillic script, brought from Eastern Europe over a century ago. The oldest working shul in Johannesburg, it still operates every Shabbat, where 25 to 30 people daven at its 06:00 services. I remember attending on Simchat Torah as a child.

The first Chassidic shul built in 1930 (destroyed in 1964) was not far away. Nor was the Ponevez Shul (1931-1974), built by immigrants from that part of Lithuania. The first Jewish old aged home – the Altesheim – was built across the road in 1927. It had its own shul, before it moved to Sandringham Gardens in 1962.

Old semi-detached Jewish houses are now used for University of Johannesburg departments. “Their stoeps (balconies) were an ‘early Facebook’ where everyone knew each other’s business,” said Dhyan. “There was no electricity or refrigeration. Mothers bought fresh food from the market daily, and had live chickens slaughtered for dinner.” Many rich Jews built their mansions across Saratoga Street.

The next stop was the grand Beit Hamedrash Hagadol, with its unmistakably churchlike narrow arched windows. A Magen David is imbedded in the black and white entrance hall’s paving. Today, it’s a gymnasium.

It was popularly dubbed the “Berele Chagy shul”, after its famous chazan of that name. Jews drove from across the then Transvaal on Shabbat to hear him sing. “South African Jewry is unique,” Dhyan laughed. “We have the biggest ‘secular orthodox’ population on the planet.”

Across streets strewn with garbage, flanked by art deco buildings sprouting satellite dishes like mushrooms, the next stop was the Great Synagogue on Wolmarans Street. In 1914, randlord Sammy Marks provided the money to build this breathtaking domed shul, modelled on the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, a Byzantine church that became a mosque and then a secular museum. Countless weddings and Barmitzvahs were held here.

In 1995, crime, grime, and shifting demographics caused the shul to close. A scaled-down version of this magnificent edifice became the Great Park Synagogue in Oaklands, which opened in 2000.

This shul still praises heaven – in a different way. It’s used by the African Zionist Revelation Church of G-d, and it was packed with (mostly Zimbabwean) worshippers, inside and out, when we visited. Oy! What would our bobbas and zeidas (grandmothers and grandfathers) think? The Magen David is still clearly visible on the cornices, exterior doors, lamp holders, and on the domed ceiling. Across the road, the Hebrew inscription, “Beit Talmud Torah” for the Hebrew High School is still carved across the lintel.

Nearby, Elfreda Court once sheltered penniless German Jews who escaped Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1939, waiting for their possessions to arrive by sea. One was artist Pieter-Dirk Uys’ mother.

Across the road was the Jewish Government School, built in the 1890s. “As Jews only believed in half the bible, President Paul Kruger built them half a school,” said Dhyan. Now known as IH Harris Primary School, it has heard Yiddish, English, Afrikaans, Portuguese, and French in its lifetime. It caters mostly for inner-city Francophone immigrant children today.

Dhyan said, “We need to know our history, and where we come from. If we don’t have roots, what’s the point? Joburg Jews don’t have that passion. We need to learn this, and hold onto it. It defines us as human beings.

“Johannesburg doesn’t value history. It doesn’t look after old sites. It’s the land of the lotto, of gold, and of getting ahead. It’s a little bit soulless. People are here to grab and go. We really need to preserve history better, and hopefully these tours contribute to that.”

It seems high time for a Johannesburg Jewish Museum, before there’s nothing left to preserve.

• If you are interested in these tours, email ishvara@africansecrets.co.za