Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 April 2022
During the first two decades of the twentieth century, research documents into the historical development of the Jewish community in South Africa were largely the work of individuals. The most notable of these were those of Rabbi Dr J H Hertz, of the Witwatersrand Hebrew Congregation who presented an address on the Jews of South Africa to the first South African Zionist Congress (1905), various papers by the amateur historians S J Judelowitz and S A Rochlin, Louis Hermann's History of the Jews in South Africa, covering the period to 1890 and S A Rochlin and Muriel Alexander's researches into newspaper files, the former covering Transvaal papers from 1892 to 1924 and the latter, Cape papers until the end of 1918.
1 The questionnaires, dated 10 April 1928, were published under the joint auspices of the South African Jewish Historical Society and the South African Jewish Board of Deputies.
2 The subcommittee consisted of J Alexander (Chairman), Dr H Sonnabend, Rabbi M C Weiler, C Legum and S Kuper (with Messrs Saron, Rich , Heidenfeld, Dwolatzky and Ovedoff)
3 The objectives of the Society were (1) The promotion and organisation of research into, and the study of the history and contemporary life of the Jews of South Africa (2) The establishment and maintenance of a Jewish Library, Archives and Museum, (3) the classification and indexing of such Jewish historical and sociological material present in the archives of the S A Jewish Board of Deputies (4) The publication of a comprehensive history of the Jews of South Africa in pamphlets, monographs and other publications
(5) The organisation of lectures and discussions of Jewish sociological and historical interest, including the holding of conferences
2 Fox, Cyril. The Jewish Chronicle Indexes: a Prime Resource, in: Shemot: The Jewish Genealogical Society of Britain. Vol. 13, no.3, September 2005, p23.Google Scholar