Introduction

Two books have been indexed for this blog:

• The South African Jewish Yearbook: Directory of Jewish Organisations and Who's Who in South African Jewry 1929, 5689-90, edited by Morris De Saxe and published by the South African Jewish Historical Society in 1929
• South African Jewry 1967-68. A Survey of the Jewish Community; Its Contributions to South Africa; Directory of Communal Institutions; and a Who's Who of Leading Personalities, 2nd edition, edited by Leon Feldberg and published by Feldhill Publishing Co, Johannesburg, South Africa in 1968.

Together they provide an invaluable snapshot – forever frozen in time – of South African Jewry and its immense contribution to South African life.

This blog has 3204 biographies (779 from 1929 and 2,425 from 1967/8) and several longer articles. Every word in the biographies and articles is searchable through the search box. This is useful if searching for locations, spouses, type of employment etc. Use the page, label or search box to find the information you are seeking.

To distinguish entries from the two books, the records for 1929 have '1929 Yearbook' at the top. Where a person appears in both Yearbooks I have put their entries on the same page.

The longer articles are from the 1967/8 book and are, to quote from Leon Feldberg’s introduction: “Contributions to South African Jewish historiography. Louis Herrman has written the first comprehensive survey of the role which Jews have played in Medicine in South Africa. Gustav Saron studies some of the forces which went into the moulding of South African Jewry at the turn of the century. Edgar Bernstein presents a broad panorama of our Jewish community as it is today, Jacob Newman extends the picture with a survey of Jewish religious life, and Eugene Duschinsky with a survey of Jewish life in the small towns of the Platteland. Eric Rosenthal calls to notice some interesting Jewish associations with the field of Science in South Africa. Muriel Rathouse depicts one of Johannesburg's notable Jewish pioneers [Hyman Morris]". They can be accessed Here.

This project is in memory of my father, Lionel Harris Hodes, General Secretary of the South African Zionist Federation from 1969 – 1973, for his communal service and contribution to South African Jewry.

Jeremy Hodes PhD

Albury, Australia

June 2026