Jewish Migration to Vryburg

The first Jews to arrive in Vryburg came from Germany and England, traveling through Kimberley and the Diamond Fields around 1880. I picture them as risk-takers—adventurous and pioneering, but also, at times, pushed by circumstance. In the decades that followed, more Jews arrived from Eastern Europe, particularly from Poland, Latvia (Courland), and Lithuania. Many were fleeing economic hardship, political repression, rising antisemitism, and the threat of twenty-five years of conscription. South Africa offered the possibility of work, safety, and a new beginning.

 

Drawn North: Diamonds, Trade, and Opportunity

Once in South Africa, the diamond rush drew many families to Kimberley and the Barkly West area first. From there, some pushed further north as routes opened and towns grew. Ikey Sonnenberg seems to have reached the area first seeking gold. But Jewish settlement was also bound up with colonial expansion. Charles Sonnenberg and Solomon Solomon reached Vryburg with a war party sent to curb the local Boers and counter Paul Kruger's Boer Republic and German influence as Britain pressed north toward Rhodesia. The two pioneers stayed, and their early business became one of the town’s foundational enterprises, employing scores of young Jews and family members. The expansion of the railway line—from the Cape through Kimberley to Taungs, Pudimoe, Vryburg, Mafikeng, and onward toward Bulawayo—helped make Vryburg a key agricultural, commercial, and strategic centre by the early 1900s. Jews became part of Vryburg’s public and commercial life, often playing prominent roles despite their small numbers.

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Livelihoods and Resilience in a Remote Town

In Vryburg, Jews earned their living as farmers, peddlers (smouse), shopkeepers, hoteliers, and later as professionals. Their stories feel quietly heroic to me. Many arrived with little money and spoke neither English nor Afrikaans. Some came alone, leaving parents, spouses, and siblings behind, and the first years could be harsh.

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And still they stayed. They were gritty and resilient. Over time, they built businesses, relationships, and a place for themselves in a remote and demanding environment—sometimes with remarkable success. Once established, they sent for family members to join them. They also were a magnet for landsleit whop were already in South Africa. 

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One central figure in Vryburg’s story was Simon Lieberthal. His life helps me understand what “migration” meant on the ground—years of movement, trial-and-error work, and gradual stability. Born in 1872 in Talsen, Latvia, he emigrated to South Africa in 1891. He arrived with Lewin Freidman (43) and Isaac Mendel Blumberg (33), both also from Talsen. Oupa Lewin and Simon were related, and Simon later married the daughter of his lifelong friend and business partner.

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After six months in Cape Town, Lewin and Simon moved to Port Elizabeth for two years, then to Aberdeen (Eastern Cape), then to Middelburg (Karoo) for about fifteen years, before finally reaching Vryburg. Simon began by taking orders for photographs, then opened a produce store, and later a grocery. After World War I, Simon created the Double Crown Yeast Factory in partnership with his brothers-in-law. Success did not come easily and it required many pivots. 

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Community, Identity, and Assimilation

What stands out to me is how deliberately Vryburg’s Jews tried to hold on to community and Jewish identity. At the same time, assimilation was real and complicated. In a distant town—and on surrounding farms—Jewish partners were not always easy to find. Some Jews married outside the community, including non-white partners.

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Even when people crossed communal boundaries, many kept meaningful ties to Jewish family and community. From what I can tell, “assimilation” in Vryburg rarely meant a clean break; it was often a negotiation—ongoing, uneven, and deeply personal. The insistence of these "wayward" Jews to maintain ties with the community and be buried as Jews is the strongest evidence of this. The continued ties between identifying Jews and the progeny of these wayward Jews were further evidence of this solidarity. 

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Privilege and Precariousness in White South Africa

Identity in South Africa was complicated and deeply sensitive. Jews were classified as part of the dominant white minority and, as such, benefited from structural privilege under segregation and apartheid. In practice, that often meant better access to healthcare and education than non-white South Africans, and access to spaces that were closed to Black South Africans, so-called Coloureds, and Indians—tennis clubs, the hockey club, rugby clubs, the bowling club, and the golf course.

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Passing through Huhudi, the contrast between white (including Jewish) homes and those of Black residents is unmistakable. After 1950, Jews were also able to trade on Market Street following the forced displacement of the Indian community.

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And yet, this privilege coexisted with a persistent sense of vulnerability.

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Outsiders Among Whites: Everyday Anti‑Semitism

Despite their relative social position, Jews were not fully accepted by many whites. People recall snide remarks, exclusion, and at times more overt antisemitism.

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Scholar Marcia Leveson (p. 3) captures the predicament of Jews in South Africa with particular clarity:

“Coming as immigrants to South Africa, worshipping differently, sometimes dressed in the clothing of the Eastern European shtetl (village) of their origin, speaking a foreign language or with a foreign accent, the Jews were obvious candidates—second only to the blacks—for the role of outsider, the other, in the cultural imagination of white South Africa.”

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Collective Resistance and Growing Confidence

An article uncovered by Anney Garnett in the Northern News (20 November 1915) suggests the Jewish community was not easily intimidated. It reports that George Green, manager of a C. Stark and Company branch at Curnow Siding, issued a public apology for an offensive advertisement. The apology implies collective protest—possibly even the threat of a boycott—and points to a community willing to use its economic leverage, backed by hard-won stability.

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In 1916, Woolf Friedman responded to a letter written by a person identifying as “British Born,” who criticized Russian Jews for supposedly not participating in the war effort. At the core of this accusation was a familiar falsehood: that of Jewish dual loyalties.

 

During the Great Depression, conditions became more unstable. Jews encountered growing hostility from the Greyshirts and heightened anti-Jewish agitation within the Nationalist Party.

 

Economic Crisis and Political Hostility: The Immigration Quota Act and Lost Futures

Reverend Bernard Wulf, interviewed by Eve Horwitz (a former Vryburger), for the Kaplan Centre, reflected on the rise of anti‑Semitism in the late 1920s. His testimony contextualizes the Immigration Quota Restriction Act of May 1930, promoted by Interior Minister D. F. Malan. Though based in Upington, his observations illuminate conditions in towns such as Vryburg. He describes how widespread poverty and despair made Jews a convenient target.

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BW: Their argument was Eastern European Jews are tainted with Communism, they said you come from Russia, everything is Russia, you come from a little shtetel from what's name then you are a Russian and maybe there was that anti-Semitic feeling against the Jews, and afterwards when Malan came to power and he was minister, he brought in the Quota Act, he said God forbid not against the Jews, it was against the Eastern Europe which was communistically ... and he excluded the Jew~ but he had to take in a lot of German Jews afterwards because the Act was not.

EH: Do you think politicians would gain favour by being anti Jewish, would they gain favour by being anti Jewish?

BW: Don't forget it was a time of Depression, a very big proportion of the Afrikaner were the poor whites, life is difficult then you look for scapegoats and the Jew is a scapegoat, in yiddish there is a saying "Ven orem keit cumt arayn in hoyse, der sholem beis geyt aroys" (When poverty come into a house, peace goes out) that's the way we must look at it ..

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This law effectively halted Jewish immigration from Eastern Europe to South Africa, including to towns such as Vryburg. One cannot help but wonder how many lives might have been spared from the Holocaust had that door remained open.

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War Years and Pro‑Nazi Activity in Vryburg

After the Great Trek centennial celebrations (1938) and the outbreak of World War II the following year, local Jews faced intensified hostility, particularly from the Ossewabrandwag. Antisemitism escalated as the Union of South Africa aligned with the Allies against Nazi Germany.

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In his 2021 book Hitler's South African Spies, historian Evert Kleynhans reveals that Vryburg served as a center of pro‑Nazi activity. The Ossewabrandwag leader Hans van Rensburg collaborated with German operatives, including Abwehr recruit Hans Rooseboom. After Rooseboom’s fall from favor, another German agent, Lothar Sittig—code‑named ““Felix,”—operated from Vryburg, establishing direct two‑way radio communication between South Africa and Germany.

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In later decades, the Afrikaner Weerstands Beweeging (AWB) became prominent in Vryburg—another unsettling reminder for the town’s few remaining Jews. Gradually, the Jewish community dwindled as families relocated to larger cities, often following their children.

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Vryburg in the Broader Jewish Story

While the story of Vryburg’s Jews is deeply personal to those with ties to the town, it mirrors the histories of many rural Jewish communities in South Africa and small towns across the world. It forms part of the broader Jewish experience: migration from Eastern Europe in search of safety, opportunity, and dignity. 

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