Weddings 

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I do:

The first Jewish Wedding in Vryburg took place in 1885 - way before there was a Shul. The last Jewish wedding took place around 1960. Not all couples were married in Vryburg. And not all local Jews married Jewish partners. Some spouses converted, others did not. Below we have a selection of wedding photos, pictures of Ketubot and marriage certificates of Vryburgers –  if you have a wedding picture or story that relates the Vryburg Jewish Community please send it to add to this collection.

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It seems that it was more common for the members of the community to get married in Johannesburg or Cape Town, as opposed to Vryburg. John Mandie (Jack) Silbert and Ester Freidman, were wed in Kimberley on 19 February, 1926. My parents, Isaac and Marie, for example got married in the Gardens Shul. In the case of Joe Joffe and Leila Harris, the 1951 wedding was held in Johanneburg but officiated by Rabbi Kemelman. 

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Marriages before the shul:

Louis Herrman (p. 234) notes that Kimberley Rabbi, Meyer Mendelssohn, who served the local community and the wider region around 1880-1884, was the first Jewish marriage officer in British Bechuanaland. At this point, we are aware of the following couples who were married in town before the Shul was built:

• Caeser Gers (listed as living in Vryburg and an auctioneer) and Mathilda Wallach were married on 12 September 1885. Gers was a widower and his family was originally from Sondershausen in Germany and settled in the Hopetown area. Matilda's family were settled in Kimberley and related to the Sonnenberg family. Matilda's aunt, Amalia married a Rosenblatt.  

• Herman Rosenblatt married Jeanette Rosenblatt, 26 October 1886 (click here to view the certificate).

• Henry Joseph Sonnenberg (born in 1870) married Rosalie Abrahams from Kimberley on 17 September 1894 (click here to view the certificate).

• Maurice Sonnenberg married Betty Sonnenberg on 21 October 1895 (click here to view the certificate).

• Harry (Aaron) Rauff and Selina Scheresefsky, December 1902, Taung. 

• Abraham Smollan from Roodepoort married Elona Hilda Smollan on 15 September 1908.

• Samuel Abelheim (son of Morris and Esther, from Lithuania) and Rose Smollan 16 September 1913 (click here to view the certificate).

• Henrietta Sonnenberg (born in Vryburg in 1891) married Irwin Audrey Hartog on 15 July 1914 (click here to view the certificate).

• Ida Sonnenberg (born in Vryburg) married Ralph Robert on 15 November 1914 (click here to view the certificate).

• Isaac Senderowitz from Taung married Bessie Joffee from Johannesburg on 12 August 1930.

• Marcus Getz and Matilda Satisky, 17 April 1931.

• Nathan (Rosie) Rosenberg and Dorothy (Dollye) Sklaar on 28 May 1936.

• Morris Wolpert and Dora Benjamin 14 January 1938.

• Willie Lieberthal and Sara-Bella Hesselberg on 27 January 1939.

 

There were doubt others and these will be reflected as they are uncovered. 

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Weddings after the shul was built:

The Simon Lieberthal Guild Hall hosted a few weddings:

• Charlie Toube and Helen Lieberthal. 

• 1943 Annie Alufovitz and Louis Goldenbaum.

• 1946 Max and Rhita Muskat.

• Mickey Silbert to Basil Goldman.

• 1949, Fay lpp and Gerry Aberman - who eloped to Vryburg.

• 1956 Chubbie and Esme Rauff.

• 1 April 1958, Harold Scheckter and Zelda Scheckter.

• 19 May 1958, Jeanette Marlene Cohen and Elhanan Wlodover. 

• July 1959, Riva Arenson and Jacob Minsky.

• 30 June 1963, Julien Gordon and Marion Rohloff. 

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Conversion:

Finding Jewish partners in the Platteland was not easy and quite a few Vryburg Jews had spouses who converted to Judaism. The Beth Din refused to share copies of its correspondence with the Vryburg community. Much of this correspondences dealt with the sensitive issues of conversion.

 

The Vryburg Hebrew Congregation members who converted to Judaism that I am aware of include: Esme Visser (Rauff), my own mother, Marie Cecile Gonin (Sussman), Rhita Rossouw (Muskat) and Christa Hendricks (Rohloff). Stephen Scheckter's wife Valda Vermaak also converted. After Harold passed away, Steven ran his father's business and he and Valda lived in town. Each of these women was an Eshet Hayal and deeply immersed in communal life. Cynthia Garb who lived in Delareyville for a while, recalls attending High Holiday services in Vryburg and being struck by the prominent role in the community of the local ladies who had converted. Steven Scheckter recalls that “all the siddurim were painstakingly covered in black plastic by Rhita Muscat.”

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Assimilation and inter-marriage:

Assimilation was not uncommon in rural South Africa and Vryburg has a few cases I am aware of. The first were the Klissers - William and Henry. Then there was Moritz Heiman Kallmeyer from Talsen in Courland. He seems to have been a farmer and was married to Carolina Eliza Janse Van Vuuren in Vryburg in 1897. He then remarried in 1902 to Susana Jacoba Angenest Raubeubach. By now he was living at Kareepan near Bloemhof. Besides being the first Courlander to arrive in Vryburg, he was also related to my great Grandmother Cipe Engleberg - who was a Kallmeyer from Taslen. The next identifying Talsen Jew we can chronicle in Vryburg was Moses Lemkus (Latvian). And although Moritz (Moshe Ber Haim Halevi) twice strayed in marriage, he was buried as a Jew in the Brakpan Cemetery. His younger brother Solomon who died unemployed and a bachelor is also buried in Krugerdorp. In 1898 a Philip Jacobson (a local trader born in Russia) married Lea Magdelena van Rooyen. Fritz Sonnenberg (born in Vryburg in 1892) married Ivy Brodziak on 21 July 1927. Later cases include, Morris Grace (Lithuanian), Ben Oshry and David Salmonson (Latvian), all farmers and two also had small stores. They married Afrikaans partners. A cousin of our father's who lived in Hartswater, Bennie Sussman, married an Afrikaans woman, Ansie Fourie. Bennie served as an ouderling (elder) in the NG Church. Dora Rauff and Polly Rauff both married out in 1938 in Vryburg. Polly married Charles Edward Stuart and Dora married Guy Mc Intyre. In fact, three of Isaac Rauff's four children married out. 

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Morris Grace married Elie Elija Johanna Potgieter in 1936. Their marriage certificate lists them as living in Coetzersdam. Joe Joffe's 1983 interview with Eva Horwitz, tells their story and the complexities of identity, conversion and ultimately assimilation.

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Ella was a charming lady whom he subsequently married, and he had no alternative, it became a matter of companionship, he [Morris] had less [Jewish] education than I think I did, so what do you expect, why not, rather live a normal life and marry a Christian woman? What Yiddishe girl would like to go and live with a smous in Coetzersdam ... could you name one? you couldn’t, nor could anybody else

 

… he said your congregation don't want to help me to get Ella magayid, they are making obstacles. Actually it wasn’t the congregation, it was the Chief Rabbi of Cape Town who put very difficult obstacles in the way, she was in Coetzersdam and he wanted her in Cape Town and details which I dent knew what has happened.

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David Salmonson married Jacoba Jasmina Prinsloo in 1940. David is listed as a farmer and she a houseworker. According to their marriage papers, they lived at Gransvlakte near Vryburg. William Lewis from Schweizer-Reneke married an Afrikaans woman in 1940. Benjamin Kaiser married Winnifred Jessie Johnson in 1940. Sister Senderovitz is a curious case. Though she married out, to Dr. Brodziak, she paid shul membership fees and seems to have affiliated with the community. Though never married, Elias Helfer had a non-Jewish life partner, Susanna Botes and left a substantial portion of his estate to her. 

 

Crossing the racial divide:

Some Jews had non-European significant others, including one of the Abt brothers, Sam Friedman and Louis Sher. In his autobiography, Max Sonnenberg (page 124) recounts a trip the Kalahari near present day Mosopa and being hosted by a "handsome Jewish trader with a large coloured family." In researching this subject, a South African Rabbi I consulted with advised that the Beth Din's informal policy was not to convert non-Europeans. This approach predated the rise to power by the Nationalist Party in 1948. Sam Freidman, for example, was engaged with the community, attended services, and left money in his will to the Shul. Converting his partner Lena Titus and his progeny was not an option. Louis Sher's partner, Regina Abt, was the daughter of one of the Abt brothers. Joe Joffe highlighted the Louis Sher funeral:

 

We also had a case in Vryburg, some many many years age where we were called to do a burial by a Jew who lived up country and was married to a Colored lady and the police and the magistrate had discovered that in his Will he had requested to be buried in a Jewish cemetery in Vryburg, and it was a lot of humdrum, it was in the period of December holidays where everybody goes away for December holidays and it was the beginning of a heavy rainy season and we performed the burial in the Jewish cemetery. 

 

Louis and Sam pretended to be bachelors in order to protect their relationships and children. It is worth noting that the descendants of both Sam Freidman and Louis Sher have shown great interest in their roots. 

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Marcia Leveson (pp. 91-92) puts the life decisions of these Frontier Jews to form long-term relationships with people who were classified as non-white, Leveson notes: "The Jewish Bachelor who had come to make his fortune, or who could not afford to return to 'the old country' to look for a bride, frequently could not find a Jewish woman to marry and there was considerable intermarriage chiefly with Afrikaans women, or cohabitation with black or colored woman."

 

 

The intricacy of intermarriage:

Assimilation, was to a large extent the outcome of a large gender imbalance. Gus Saron (p. 100) notes that the 1904 census reflected 38,101 Jews, of which 68% were men. By 1911, the census reflected an improvement. Men were now only 59% of the 46,919 Jews. Reflecting on the issue of intermarriage in his study of Potchefstroom, Paul Cheifitz (page 22) notes: "There were those in the Potchefstroom who had strayed from the Jewish faith. A lack of suitable Jewish partners forced them to look to the wider society for husbands and wives. Not all immigrants practiced the same level of observance once they left their homes and quickly became assimilated into the host community." Cheifitz records four cases in his study- Maurits Italianer, Jacob Schwartz, Jacob Solomon and Abraham Rudolf.  

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Again, Joe Joffe's candid 1983 interview with Eve Horwitz sheds important light on these life choices and the issues as well as the complicated engagement between the community and those who married out. 

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.. there were lots of these type of yidden who lived in the bundu, in the faraway places, I knew of many more ... the one [Elias Helfer] lived on the road the Kuruman ... it is difficult to tell who he lived with, whether he cohabited with a Coloured, or a non Jewess … it is difficult to tell, a man must find natural ways out, and if it is not this one, it is the other one ... when you live in the bundu and you are ostracized from families, from congregations, from religion, you came once a year to shul, you don’t knew what to do any more, for 15 years you never go to shul, so it used to be our duty to go and visit these people, we used to get a lot of money from these people but as far as their personal lives were concerned, we tried to do all we could but there are limits to what you can do and to interfere in grown up people’s lives, you can interfere up to so much otherwise if you go too far they tell you to go to blazes, so I imagine there must have been quite a few cases in South Africa because if I can remember two or three cases in Vryburg, so you can imagine there must have been some cases in Kuruman.

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