Friday night services and Shabbat observance:

Rabbi Kemelman had a wonderful voice and formed a choir during his tenure. Myra Sutin, who was in the choir, recalls that the choir was a hit with Jewish travelers. Many made a point to spend Friday nights in Vryburg, in order to hear the choir sing. Other choir members included Riva and Claris Arenson. Both Myra Sutin and Merle Katz estimate some 20-plus people attended Friday night services during their childhood. 

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Phil Toube notes that the Friday night services were led by the most recent bar mitzvah boys. Maurice Joffe recalls sharing this remit with the Lieberthal twins, Wynne and Hugh, his contemporaries. David Rauff and Steven Scheckter also remember leading Friday night service before their bar mitzvah’s, in 1971 and 1972, respectively. Steven adds, “I particularly remember Oscar Goldberg davening in the old-style Hebrew.” Local members were key to leading services. In the 1960's, the chairman of the congregation repeatedly thanked Max Cohen, Mike Allen, Mike Shapiro, Mr. Chien, Joe Joffe and David Link for their support in leading High Holiday prayers. In the 1960s the role of shamash was performed by young members - Mervyn Lieberthal and then Leslie Toube.  

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By the late 1960’s Friday night services were still being held but they required mobilization. Brian Lazarus recalls coming home from boarding school for after his bar mitzvah in 1968 and trying to conjure up a minyan and “phoning each person and saying we are one short of a minyan tonight and each one would say OK I'll be there to make up the minyan (quorum), but I think after a few years of this they caught onto my antics.”

 

Services were followed by celebrated Friday suppers. Phil Toube cites dinners hosted by his grandparents, which included: five Toube’s, five Mendelow’s, Sam Lieberthal’s six family members, Willy Lieberthal’s four family members and the Silbert’s and sometimes the four Sussmans. Years later, when there was no Friday night service, the remaining families would light candles and say the kiddush– alone or with others - on a Friday night. In my childhood, we never missed a Friday night supper, which included chopped liver (covered with grated boiled eggs), a challah and grape juice. Though we had wonderful Friday night dinners in Kimberley – hosted by generous families like the Kleins – I pined for Friday nights at home more.  

 

Based on my conversations with Avi Hechter, there was a Saturday minyan (quorum) in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Avi recalls once being "sent to fetch Mr. Davidovitz as they were short for the minyan. He could not come. Rabbi Slonim then proceeded to say some bracha and Avi at the age of ten made up the minyan." By the late-1940s there was no regular Saturday minyan. Gita Franco, who left in early 1946 for Johannesburg, recalls a Saturday minyan in her childhood. A cousin of my father, Edith Ornellas (nee Engelberg), who spent three months in Vryburg in 1949 in addition to her school vacations, recalls a Saturday minyan. By the 1950s it would appear that there was no attempt to cajole for a Saturday minyan. Mervyn Lieberthal retrospect's, "we only had shul on Saturday if it was a chag or a bar mitzvah." Merle Katz recollects some 40 people in shul on High Holidays during her childhood. Though men and woman were separate – men on the right facing the ark and women on the left, there was no mechitzah (partition between men and women). Kids fluidly crossed the lines. Helen Kristeller (Mendelow) reminisces: “I went to sit with Doctor Seymour Hoffman on the other side because I was mad about him.”

 

Shabbat observance and kashrut:

As for Shabbat observance, it was not strict and even families who kept a kosher home recall tractability. Mervyn Lieberthal looks back, "We weren’t allowed to ride our bikes or write. However, it was the only day when there was a matinee at the movies so we went." Others confirm that the Sabbath lost to the Saturday movies at the Elliot Cinema. The same Elliot family contributed towards the Shul. Selwyn Leibowitz adds that comics were swapped at the movies. Helen Kristeller reminisces that “none of the women in the families every knitted or sewed on Shabbas (think it was a family tradition).” Janice and Steven Scheckter recall that they were not allowed to write or play the piano on a Saturday. Jewish businesses, however, were open on a Saturday. Meish Arenson recalls accompanying his father Hymie to Solomon’s Stores on a Saturday to feed the considerable cat population kept in order to protect the grain from mice. Sports were very popular and never did the Sabbath stand in the way of recreation. Regarding dietary laws, the majority did not keep a strictly kosher kitchen, but endeavored not to serve milk after meat and eschewed pork products and shellfish. After the service of a shochet was no longer available, the Leibowitz and Arenson families had kosher meat sent from Kimberley.

 

Vryburg’s Jews were an exemplar of the, once widely embraced, South African philosophy I call “flexidoxy.” They accepted Orthodox hegemony and they shut businesses on the High Holidays, yet they drove to shul on Friday night and even on High Holidays (with the exception of Spider Blumberg), plus they ran their businesses on a Saturday. They respected the guiding principles of kashrut but, in the main, did not run a strictly kosher home. Above all, they were proud of their identity and did not obscure it. Moreover, they were a close community and lionized the collective. The famous mock wedding speaks volumes for the soul of the community. The community is what made the community.