The Educational Value of South African Jewish History by Dr. J. H. HERTZ, Chief Rabbi of the United Synagogues of the British Empire

WHEN I was asked to contribute a few lines for the South African Jewish Year Book, I was in doubt whether it would be possible for me to accede to the courteous request. Many and overwhelming indeed are the calls upon my time and energy, but I felt in duty bound to welcome the appearance of a Jewish Year Book for South African Jewry, in whose service I spent such a large portion of the best years of my life. I could not bring myself to refuse sending a contribution, even if only these jottings on "The Educational Value of South African Jewish History” to a publication appearing under the auspices of a body like the South African Jewish Board of Deputies. Twenty-six years ago, I was the prime mover in the establishment of the Board. And as for the Year Book's other god-parent, the South African Jewish Historical Society, its beginnings really go back to the paper, “The Jew in South Africa," which I read at the first Zionist Conference at Johannesburg in July, 1905. That paper was the result of years of careful search and unwearied collection of every historical item with any bearing on the story of the Jew on the South African Sub-Continent. It appeared in the Proceedings of the Conference; it was reprinted in pamphlet form and, in substance, was republished in The Jewish Encyclopædia. It has been plagiarised more than anything else I have ever written. Nearly every subsequent writer on the subject of the Jew in South Africa has freely drawn upon it for his facts usually without acknowledgment of the source whence he derived his information. As mine was the first attempt to present the story of the Jew in all the South African colonies, I invited additions and corrections to be embodied in a future survey of South African Jewry. Some corrections duly reached me from several quarters, but they were not very helpful. Few people seem to understand how valueless is an unsupported assertion or denial in regard to facts that are otherwise authenticated. It is one of the main functions of a historical society to rule out everything subjective in historical evidence. It teaches the difficult art of seeing historical facts as they are, and not as we should have liked them to have been. In this way, the South African Jewish Historical Society will gradually gather together the building stones for the construction of the history of the Jew in South Africa.

The importance of such an authoritative presentation of Jewish life in South Africa, both for the Jew and the non-Jew, cannot be overestimated. As I have repeatedly urged in and out of South Africa, such self-knowledge is vital for the Jew's self-defence. In all newer countries the Jew is, according to popular fallacy, a late-comer who reaps in ease what others have sown in tears and travail. The Jew, it is declared, has not undergone the hardships of the pioneer, and has had no share in the building of any paths for the civilisation of the younger lands he inhabits. As these insidious suggestions usually go unchallenged, they end in becoming the general opinion voiced from the platform and in the Press. Is it a wonder, then, that the Jew's admission to these new countries is looked upon as a matter of grace and bounty; that the gates are often barred against the Jewish immigrant; that the rights of even the Jewish citizen are in many quarters held to be inferior both in antiquity and in kind, to those of the population who have other racial and religious affiliations?

The Jews of America saw the serious danger of leaving this ignorant prejudice undisturbed. It was my privilege to attend the constituent meeting when the American Jewish Historical Society was organised on 7th June, 1892. During the 37 years of its existence it has brought to light the romance of the early Jewish settlements in the New World, as well as the wonderful story of Jewish participation in every avenue of American life. The value of the historical material it has collected, for the cause of peace and goodwill between Jew and non-Jew in America, is incalculable. Over and over again have I pleaded that it were well if the Jews in the Overseas Dominions—in Australia and Canada no less than in South Africa—were to imitate the American example. Thus, only self-delusion can blind us to the fact that, as a consequence of the ignorant assumption that the first Jews did not arrive in South Africa before the discovery of the Diamond Fields, the respect enjoyed by South African Jewry is not always commensurate with its services and sacrifices to the country. In this case, as in so many, ignorance is the great enemy. What is wanted is Knowledge, and this knowledge to be broadcast, or at any rate to be thoroughly assimilated by members of our own community. It is quite true that the anti-Semite remains as unconvinced by history as he is by logic or justice, yet it is essential that Jews at least should be taught the truth, that we ourselves should not plead guilty off-hand to any fantastic failings that hireling scribblers or fanatic reactionaries choose to fasten upon us. It is essential that Jews, at any rate, should no longer look upon themselves as interlopers, as exploiters in the lands of their birth, but rather as active co-partners in the upbuilding of the new democracies of which they are members.

From what has so far been said, it is evident that the organised attempt of any Jewry to know itself is far more than a question of self-defence. It invariably leads to self-respect. It strengthens the Jewish consciousness of that Jewry and helps it to realise its place among the other Jewries of the world. It is to the eternal glory of South African Jewry that, though 8,000 miles away from the main currents of Jewish endeavour, it has to its credit an enviable share in the task of the resurrection of the Holy Land. An even greater achievement is the luminous example of Jewish Brotherhood it has set to other and larger Jewries, in readiness of sacrifice for alleviating the misery of our tortured brethren in the hate and hunger zones of Eastern Europe.

Self-knowledge thus leads to a heightened self-consciousness. But it does more. For wherever there is a true Jewish communal consciousness there arises in time a Jewish communal conscience, a divine awakening to that Jewry's spiritual needs of to-day and to-morrow. Such Jewry begins to see things in the light of Jewish history. Charity, it realises, is only one of the three pillars of Religion. No religious community can endure, as the late Mr. Israel Zangwill once bitterly exclaimed, if it depends upon schnorrers or pogroms to keep it alive. In a living Jewry, Charity is accompanied by Worship and by Religious Knowledge. There is little need to stress the importance of Worship to South African Jews, as its array of beautiful synagogues amply testifies. Not so in regard to Religious Knowledge. Great and eternal truths have been entrusted to Israel at its very birth. There can, therefore, be no compromise for Jews who desire to remain Jews on the question as to the foundation of all Jewish education. That must be religious. In the course of my Pastoral Visit to the Overseas Communities,

I found schools in which the children were not taught the Shema, the Prayers or any of the Blessings; in which they were not taught Bible History or even the Festivals of the Jewish faith! If the Principals had been members of the Yevsektzia, pledged to fight all religion like true Bolsheviks, they could not as thoroughly have eliminated all trace of Judaism as they had done. In such communities I insisted that it was their sacred and unshirkable duty to end such appalling and disgraceful conditions; and pointed out to them that anyone who was colour-blind to the religious side of Israel's life and had nothing but contempt for Orthodoxy and ridicule for the immemorial rites, customs and prayers of Israel, could only cremate the souls of the children who were unfortunate enough to come under his influence. It is my earnest hope that in South Africa at any rate there is general understanding that Jewish education is the training of the Jewish child for Judaism, by filling his soul with reverence to his Maker, and preparing him for a life of loyalty and beneficence unto Israel and Humanity.

Let this be my concluding word: Religion is the very life of the Jew. “There is no community anywhere," says Prof. Haffkine, "which has relinquished the Torah for even one generation and has survived that separation." Such is the uniform teaching of Jewish history; and is it not also the teaching of South African Jewish History? South African Jewry has, I trust, thoroughly learned this uniform lesson of all Jewish history. As in philanthropy, as in Jewish national endeavour, it will take the large, the eternal, the pan-Jewish view, in the matter of Jewish education. It has it in its power to become a pattern to other Jewries in rearing its children as God-fearing Jews and Jewesses, in whose souls resound both the thunders of Sinai and the glad tidings of Israel's rebirth amid the hills and valleys of the Holy Land. With the help of God, South African Jewry will rise to the full level of its spiritual possibilities.

London, Erev Shavuos, 5689.