Freedom, depression, and history – all in one Jewish novel

MOIRA SCHNEIDER

Liebenthal, in conversation with his son, Jayson, took us on the journey that became his fifth book and first novel, Ticket to Freedom? at its launch at the Jacob Gitlin Library in Gardens, Cape Town, recently.

“My writing career started about 10 years ago,” he says. “I recognised that it is the best therapy. The only escape from the depression was to write down my feelings.”

His book, he says, only partly factual, is the story of South African Jewry arriving in this country, not knowing the language, and settling in small towns.

Ticket to Freedom? revolves around the fictional story of a young couple, Morris Froman, 20, and Bertha Levin, 19, who had entered into an arranged marriage. It begins in the late 1800s in Russia, a time when the political situation in Eastern Europe was explosive, and things were very bad for the Jews. “Everyone was in a panic, and trying to get out,” says Liebenthal.

“They were introducing the May Laws, which stipulated what Jews were and were not allowed to do. There was very little they were allowed to do. This part of the story is 100% factual,” he says.

The May Laws included the forced removal of hundreds of thousands of Jews to rural areas. Only those considered useful to the government were permitted to reside in the two major cities of Moscow and St Petersburg.

“Everyone assumed that Morris was a ‘klutz’,” says Liebenthal, “but he wasn’t. In fact, he was secretly making plans to leave Russia.”

The couple made their way to the Baltic port of Libau (Liepāja), and boarded a ship to London, where they stayed in the Poor Jews Temporary Shelter among 1 400 other hopefuls. They had to find their own way to Southampton, and wait for a cargo ship to arrive.

The community decided that it would club together, and give the young couple the opportunity to go to what it called Zuid Afrika.

Liebenthal, 63, was in fact born in Vryburg, in the then Northern Cape. The family relocated to Klerksdorp in 1969, and after matriculating in 1972, he attended Wits Technikon, where he was the only student studying plastics technology.

He subsequently started his own company, and was in the plastics industry for 20 years. He has been in the printing industry for the past 27 years

“Liebenthal related that at the age of 45 he had suffered a heart attack, followed by severe depression. The usual number of electroconvulsive therapy treatments (ECT) given to manage the illness is between six and eight per episode – Liebenthal had a total of 33.”

A chapter at the end of the book is based on his experiences with ECT, when a female character, Kate, undergoes the treatment.

Liebenthal says that he writes late at night, and carries on “until my head is empty. It feels like the ink just flows from the pen”.

The best part of the process is creating the various characters. Surprisingly, his first order of business is to decide on the title, and things progress from there.

Liebenthal’s favourite character in this book is Gattoos, the servant who, with his wife and family, was given to Morris after he was offered the opportunity to start farming in Kaalfontein, a small town in the Little Karoo.

“They become the best of friends,” says Liebenthal. “Morris knows nothing about farming – he’d only ever been an office-worker in Moscow. Gattoos knows from Shabbos wine – of which there’s a never-ending supply.”

Gattoos becomes Morris’s financial advisor and mentor.

“There’s nothing he doesn’t know or can’t do – he just needs the lubrication of Shabbos wine and he’s on his way.” Between the two of them, they manage to build an empire.

The Froman family become the largest ostrich farmers in Oudtshoorn until disaster strikes and the feather market collapses, coinciding with World War I.

The next generation of Fromans is not as fortunate as the first, with a series of unfortunate events occurring.

Lieberthal is under no illusions about the profitability of writing in South Africa. “It is not about money because the market is so small. To me, it is an achievement and a hobby.”

He says the book is not autobiographical in spite of the fact that his grandparents were named Morris and Bertha, and hailed from Russia.

What is the central message of the book? “As life goes by, it catches us all,” Liebenthal says. “The real message is the consequences of taking that ticket,” says Jayson, “and whether, in fact, it was a ticket to freedom.”