The Vryburg story is part of much wider historical process of Jewish migration from Europe and mainly Eastern Europe and the evolving factors that triggered this movement are important to appreciate. There were also dynamics that explain why Jews initially moved to the rural parts of South Africa and their economic activities as traders (smouse) in these environs. Some ended up as farmers. The subtleties of the powerful old country and community networks (landsleit) help to explain patterns of movement to places like Vryburg, once Jews arrived in South Africa. These invisible, yet vital, networks also help to understand business dealings, marriages, why people ended up in places like Vryburg and even places of burial. Below are some helpful resources that provide the relevant context.

 

Jewish Migration in a broader historical context:

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Gur Alroey (2017) “Between the straits”: Jewish immigration to the United States and Palestine, 1915–1925, East European Jewish Affairs, 47:2-3, 150-168,

 

Between 1875 and 1914, roughly 3 million Eastern European Jews picked up and left the region, thereby changing the face of world Jewry beyond recognition. New Jewish centers were established where none had existed, while others went into decline. Until 1914, the primary catalyst for emigration was economic. In other words, Eastern European Jews had the option of either staying put or emigrating to a new country with better economic prospects. After World War I, and following the destruction of Jewish life in Ukraine, many Jews fled their homes and sought, above all, a safe haven. Put differently, emigration was imposed on them by a new reality – the murder and wounding of tens of thousands of Jews. (P. 151)

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Gur Alroey, 'For A Quiet, Satisfying life': The Jewish Immigration from Eastern Europe at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century and Its Reflection in Immigrants' Letters to the Information Bureaus, in From the Records of My Deepest Memory…” Personal Sources for the Study of Human Mobility, 18th-20th centuries (Ed. Oscar Alvarez Gila), University of the Basque Country Press, 2014.

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The era of mass Jewish emigration from Eastern Europe breaks up into four periods: The first covers the years 1875 to 1898; the second, 1899 to1914; the third, the years of World War I, 1914 to 1918; and the fourth, from 1919 until the United States shut its gates to immigrants at the end of 1924. During the first period—the longest of the four—some half-a-million Jews immigrated to the United States at an average of 22,000 a year. The primary reasons for their immigration were the economic crisis and the Jews’ worsening political position in imperial Russia. From 1881 to 1882, a wave of violence against Jews broke out in Russia, and many lost all their property. Ten years later, in 1891, the Czar expelled some 20,000 Jews from Moscow, and the number of Jews immigrating to the United States picked up substantially after that point. (P. 141).

 

How information travelled?

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C. Gershater, From Lithuania to South Africa, In The Jews of South Africa, edited by Gustav Saron and Louis Hotz (Editors), Oxford University Press, 1955. 

 

How did it happen that Lithuanian Jews went to South Africa? Lithuania was a small and compact community; contacts with the outside world were infrequent. A letter bearing a foreign stamp was, therefore, a great event, and within the community news travelled fast. The letter would be discussed in the market place, at the communal bath-house, and in the house of prayer. Itinerant preachers would spread the tale far and wide (p. 269).

 

Old country (landsleit) networks:

 

Diane Fine: Enlivening the ancestors: my personal journey:

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Fewiel Taube [Philip Toube] seems to have come from Talsi in Latvia, born in 1861. He remained closely connected to other families from the same region. The Immerman, Bergman, Friedberg, and Davidovitz families came from the same regions of Talsi and Tukums in the Province of Courland. The refugees coming to South Africa tended to travel to areas where others from their region had already congregated and stayed there recreating the communities of the home country. 

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About Country Jews: 

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Adrienne Kollenberg, THE SA FRIENDS OF BETH HATEFUTSOTH ‘JEWISH LIFE IN THE SOUTH AFRICAN COUNTRY COMMUNITIES’ PROJECT

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The English Jews were followed by Jews from Germany. The Anglo-German Jewish community in the Eastern Cape paved the way for those from Eastern Europe, who came via London, where they were assisted by the Poor Jews Temporary Shelter. They left their homes mainly to escape antisemitism, poverty and the threat of 25 years conscription into the Tzar’s army, leaving behind them families they most likely never saw again. Some came penniless, with just the clothes on their backs. The lucky ones were able to get assistance from relatives or landsleit who had arrived before them. They knew nothing about the country they were coming to, and in fact, when they were offered free passage to South Africa on the Union Castle Mail ships in exchange for a year’s work on the diamond mines, many thought they were going to America to join family who had gone before them. They could not speak the language and many surnames were changed by immigration officers when the passenger gave their occupation, instead of their name - for example, a teacher was given the name Melamed and a tailor became known as Schneider. Most of these immigrants started out as smouse, with a donkey or horse and cart, going on to become general dealers in a remote village where they felt they could make a living. Or, as the anecdote alleges, where their horse died and they could go no further!

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The allure of rural South Africa:

Thought seeming counterintuitive to us, who live in an era of urbanization, there was an economic logic to starting out in the rural towns like Vryburg. Joe Davidovitz, who was born in Vryburg in the early 1930's, notes that his father once explained that when he arrived in South Africa the opportunities were in the Platteland. Herrman (p. 224) reminds us that the dynamic existed as early as the 1860's. The Cape Town community saw its members leave for "districts where competition was less to seek their fortunes." Later, Herrman (p. 256) notes: They went into remote districts and traded. They opened shops where there was no population, and farmers came from miles around and bought their goods." Herrman adds, "frequently villages grew up around them. More than one South African town started at the place of a Jewish storekeeper, as witness the town of De Aar, built on the farm and around the business place of the Friedlander brothers, who settled there in 1880, and Garies in Namaqualand, which grew up round the store established by Maurice Eilenberg."

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The smous

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Paul Cheifitz, A History of the Jewish Community of Potchefstroom and Environs, MA Dissertation, Faculty of Humanities, University of Cape Ton, 2009, page 18:

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It was common to begin one's trading life as a peddler or smous working on commission for a storekeeper in the town. Travelling to the distant farms they developed lasting relationships with the farmers and their workers and learnt of their needs and customs. It was this experience that stood them in good stead in their later commercial ventures. They also built up a vast network of contacts throughout the countryside which they could call back on at a later stage. Much bartering was done on the farms and these smouse often returned to town laden with skins, wool, and other produce which their general dealer backers could then sell. Many of these men opened small stores of their own, working their way up the economic ladder. 

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Louis Herrman, A HISTORY OF THE JEWS OF SOUTH AFRICA FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES TO 1895, South African Jewish Board of Deputies, 1935, p. 250.

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So the Boer gradually shifted a stage from the age of the patriarchs towards the late nineteenth century, and adorned his dwelling with oleographs and nick-nacks and cheap manufactured furnishings and trinkets, and the Jew increased his little capital until he could give up the hard rough life of the tocher and venture his savings in diamond buying or some commercial speculative concern where profits were more attractive. Meanwhile, he sent word to his relatives in Europe that he was "making a living," and sometimes sent money to assist them to emigrate." 

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Jewish Farmers: 

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Eli Goldstein, A GLIMPSE INTO THE ROLE OF JEWISH FARMERS IN THE SA ECONOMY

Many Litvak immigrants arrived with no profession or trade and were often forced to work as ‘tryers’, a South African Yiddish colloquialism referring to those who tried all sorts of possible activities to try and make a living – ‘trying’ this or ‘trying’ that. Many became itinerant peddlers (‘smouse’). The practice started in the cities, with smouse moving from house to house carrying their wares, sometimes on their backs or on small carts. These smouse went on ‘toch’ (Tocher was a Yiddish transliteration of the Afrikaner word tog, meaning to ride or travel) into the country, eventually procuring a horse and cart and supplying Afrikaans farmers with goods. Often, they would be paid in produce, such as milk and eggs. Debts were sometimes paid with cattle, leading to some smouse venturing into farming.

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