Thesis (MA)--Stellenbosch University, 2000. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: After 1880 more and more Jews (mostly of East European descent) moved into the rural areas of South Africa. Initially they travelled across the country as hawkers but later settled permanently in many of the smaller towns. In most cases they opened shops or started businesses of another kind. Due to the nature of their work the Jews mostly came into contact with the Afrikaans speaking community. Although these two groups differed considerably in many ways, especially as regards language and religion, the Jews adapted and integrated fairly quickly. They became involved with the Afrikaans speaking community in various ways and made a substantial contribution. Although their involvement in and contribution to the economy can be considered as the most important, they also played a considerable role in other areas such as politics, education, language, sport and recreation. The presence of the Jews in rural South Africa was important not only because of their integration with the Afrikaans speaking community and the contribution they made as a group, but also because of the extent to which the two groups influenced each other. Both groups were culturally enriched and the South African country town developed a unique character due to the presence or the Jews and their involvement in the life and activities of the townspeople. Although the Jews were influenced by the Afrikaans speaking community and thus acquired new cultural assets, they still to a large extent retained their Jewish identity. On the whole there was a very good relationship between the Afrikaans speaking rural population and the Jews. After 1950 an increasingly large number of Jews moved to the cities. The depopulation of the rural areas, as regards to Jews, took place to such an extent that today only a few Jewish families remain in rural areas. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Na 1880 is Jode (hoofsaaklik van Oos-Europese afkoms) toenemend op die Suid- Afrikaanse platteland aangetref. Aanvanklik het hulle as smouse die landelike gebiede deurkruis. Later het hulle hulle egter permanent op die plattelandse dorpe gevestig - in die meeste gevalle het hulle 'n winkel of ander soort besigheid begin. Die Jode het uit die aard van hulle werk oorwegend met die Afrikaanssprekende gemeenskap in aanraking gekom. Alhoewel daar definitiewe verskille tussen dié twee groepe was, veral ten opsigte van godsdiens en taal, het die Jode redelik gou aangepas en ingeskakel. Hulle het op verskillende terreine by die Afrikaanssprekende gemeenskap betrokke geraak en 'n substansiële bydrae gelewer. Hoewel hulle betrokkenheid en bydrae tot die ekonomiese terrein as die belangrikste beskou kan word, het hulle ook op baie ander gebiede soos byvoorbeeld politiek, opvoeding, taal, sport en ontspanning belangrike bydraes gelewer. Die Jode se teenwoordigheid op die Suid-Afrikaanse platteland was nie slegs belangrik as gevolg van hulle inskakeling by die Afrikaanssprekende gemeenskap of die bydrae wat hulle as groep gelewer het nie, maar ook as gevolg van die mate waarin albei groepe mekaar beïnvloed het. Die Jode se aanwesigheid en hulle betrokkenheid by die dorp se bedrywighede en mense het meegebring dat albei groepe kultureel verryk is en dat die Suid-Afrikaanse platteland 'n unieke karakter verkry het. Hoewel die Jode deur die Afrikaanssprekende gemeenskap beïnvloed is en hulle as groep nuwe kultuurgoedere bygekry het, het hulle steeds in 'n groot mate hulle Joodse identiteit behou. Daar was oor die algemeen 'n baie goeie verhouding tussen die Afrikaanssprekende plattelanders en die Jode. Na ongeveer 1950 het daar geleidelik 'n toenemende getal Jode na die stede verhuis. Die ontvolking van die platteland met betrekking tot die Jode het in so 'n mate plaasgevind dat daar vandag slegs enkele Joodse gesinne op die meeste plattelandse dorpe oor is.

The pivot around which the controversy over the Board's political policy revolved was the question whether a collective Jewish attitude towards the government's racial policies should be formulated, or whether this was the province of individual Jewish protest. Stemming from this was the question of the extent of communal responsibility towards the individual who had fallen afoul with the law in expressing his protest. The complexity of formulating policy was exacerbated by the trauma of the 1930's and 1940's where the National Party and its leadership espoused a radical anti-Semitic ideology and a pro-Nazism policy. Added to this was the very real sympathy felt for the aspirations of survival of the Afrikaner People, conflated by a revulsion and antipathy towards the measures the nationalist Government took to attain this end. The solution hit upon by the Board was a policy of 'neutrality' in the political area. This dissertation is an attempt to highlight the problems with which the Board grappled and its central concerns in formulating policy vis-a-vis the political issues that were at the centre of the political life of South Africa. The study follows the evolvement of the policy of collective non-involvement from the 1950s and the gradual evolution it underwent in the 1970s and 1980s towards a commitment and a responsibility to openly and publicly speak out on the moral aspects of Apartheid. In view of the above, the thesis begins in 1930 with the promulgation of the Quota Act, which initiated the new antisemitic policies of the National Party, until 1978. The epilogue ends 1985 when the Board of Deputies abandoned its policy of neutrality towards the political arena, when the 33rd National congress of the Jewish Board of Deputies, passed a resolution condemning the Policy of Apartheid, thus adopting a collective stance towards the government's racial policies. Although this stance was in line with the views prevalent in the white community, it signalled a giant step in the Board of Deputies' drive to abandon its policy of accommodation towards the NP government and Nationalist forces. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Natal, Durban, 1995.

Bibliography: pages 366-388. / Historians of South African Jewry have depicted antisemitism in the 1930s and early 1940s as essentially an alien phenomenon, a product of Nazi propaganda at a time of great social and economic trauma. This thesis argues that antisemitism was an important element in South African society long before 1930 and that the roots of anti-Jewish outbursts in the 1930s and early 1940s are to be found in a widely-shared negative stereotype of the Jew that had developed out of an ambivalent image dating back to the 1880s. By then two embryonic but nevertheless distinctive images of the Jew had evolved: the gentleman - characterised by sobriety, enterprise and loyalty - and the knave, characterised by dishonesty and cunning. The influx of eastern European 'Peruvians' in the 1890s and the emergence of the cosmopolitan financier at the turn of the century further contributed towards the evolution of an anti-Jewish stereotype. By 1914, favourable perceptions of the Jew, associated mainly with the acculturated Anglo-German pioneer Jews, had eroded substantially and the eastern European Jew by and large defined the essence and nature of 'Jewishness'. Even those who separated the acculturated and urbane Jew from the eastern European newcomer exaggerated Jewish power and influence. Herein lay the convergence between the philosemitic and the antisemitic view. War-time accusations of avoiding military service, followed by the association of Jews with Bolshevism, consolidated the anti-Jewish stereotype. In the context of the post-war economic depression and burgeoning black radicalism, the eastern European Jew emerged as the archetypical subversive. Thus the Rand Rebellion of 1922 could be construed as a Bolshevik revolt. As eugenist and nativist arguments penetrated South African discourse, eastern European immigrants were increasingly perceived as a threat to the 'Nordic' character of South African society as well as a challenge to the hegemony of the English mercantile establishment. Nevertheless antisemitism in the crude and programmatic sense was rejected. The 1930 Quota Act ushered in a change and heralded the transformation of 'private' antisemitism into 'public' antisemitism. While this transformation was clearly related to specific contingencies of the 1930s, this thesis argues that there is a connection and a continuity between anti-Jewish sentiment, as manifested in the image of the Jew prior to 1930, and anti-Jewish outbursts and programmes of the 1930s and early 1940s. In short, anti-Jewish rhetoric at this time resonated precisely because a negative Jewish stereotype had been elaborated and diffused for decades.

Thesis contains the novel "Waterval" by Phyllis Sakinofsky. / Thesis (PhD)--Macquarie University, Faculty of Arts, Department of Media, Music, and Cultural Studies, 2009. / Bibliography: p. 128-138. / PART ONE -- Introduction -- Section One -- Early history -- The apartheid years - two realities -- Post-apartheid South Africa -- The creative response of Jews to apartheid -- Section Two -- Our relationship with the past: placing narrative in the context of history -- Rememory and representation -- Telling the truth through stories -- Section Three -- Imprints of memories, shadows and silences: shaping the Jewish South African story -- PART TWO -- Waterval: a work of fiction by Phyllis Sakinofsky / This is a non-traditional thesis which comprises a work of fiction and a dissertation. -- The novel is set in South Africa and provides an account of events that took place among three families, Jewish, Coloured and Afrikaans, over three generations. -- The dissertation is constructed in three sections. The first section describes the settlement of South Africa's Jewish community, its divergent responses to apartheid and how this is mirrored in its literary output. -- In the second section, the relationship between history and fiction since the advent of postmodernism is discussed, how there has been a demand for historical truthfulness through multiple points of view and how consequently there has been an upsurge in memories and memorials for those previously denigrated as the defeated or victims. -- Fiction has been re-valued because it is through the novel that these once-submerged stories are being told. The novel has the capacity to explore uncomfortable or silenced episodes in our history, tell important truths and record stories and losses in a meaningful and relevant way. A novel might be shaped by history but it is through the writer's insights and interpretations that messages or meanings can reach many. -- South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission report is an example of how the written word can expose the relationship between the re-telling of history and finding an alternate truth. By recording the many conflicting stories of its peoples, it has linked truth and literature, ensuring an indelible imprint on the country's future writing. The past cannot be changed, but how the nation deals with it in the future will be determined by language and narrative. -- The final section is self-reflexive and illustrates the symbiotic bond between the research and creative components, citing examples from the dissertation of how the two streams influenced one another. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / 145 p