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By
SHELDON KIRSHNER
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa—
Curiously ienough, the city of Toronto has a certain appeal for Jews in South Africa — a wealthy, astonishingly beautiful country blessed by a temperate climate but cursed by grave racial problems.
When Jews here think of Toronto, as they sometimes do in the company of a visiting Canadian journalist, they are invariably reminded of sons and daughters, relatives and friends virho'ye emigrated and gone to live in Canadla.
Because thousands of South African Jevys have immigrated to Canada (and to countries like Australia, Britain, Israel and the U.S.) in the past 25 years, Toronto is jocularly pronounced To-Run-To.
Usually', the person telling this joke has a broad smile denoting amusement. But no one is really laughing. The resort to gallow humor — a traditional escape hatch for Jews — masks a reality from which there is no exit.
South African Jews liave it good, the Jewish community here beiiig deeply integrated and respected. Yet, according to the World Jewish Congress, somewhere between 20,000 and 30,000 Jews have left South Africa in the last two decades or so.
What has happened is not very difficult to understand:
Jews, like many of South Africa'is 4.7 million whites, are torn by conflicting emotions over South Africa's policy of apa:rtheid [or institutional segregation] and the country- long-range viability and stability. As one woman, a mother of four in her early 40s, put it:' Tve got a lot out of this country. It has given me everything I have. I love it.ldonH intend to leave, but I may have to."
The reason why more Jews have not packed up and left is the generally cushy life they enjoy in this nation of sharp contrasts. In common with most whites, Jews have done well by South Africa — a military and industrial behemoth that is rich in strategic minerals and that is the breadbasket of southern Africa.
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Jewish contributidns
to economy, arts have been inimense
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Predominantly of Lithuanian prigin, Jews have contributed much to the South African economy, the arts, the free professions (especially medicine and law) and civic politics.
Men like Barney Barnato; Alfred Beit and Ernest Oppenheimer (whose descendants are no longer Jewish) were among the founders and developers of the immensely lucrative diamond and gold mining industries. Jews rejuvenated the wool industry by importing high grade French Merino sheep, and they opened steel, processed foods, garment and cigarette factories.
"We launched the industrial revolution in South Africa," said Marcus Arldn, an economic historian who is also the dhrector-general of South African Zionist Federation. "No one took the risks the Jews did."
, Jews, to this day, play a leading role in virtually every sector of South African life.
RaymondrAckerman, who was recently voted businessnpan of the year by the Financial Mail, runs a retailing empire. Tony Bloom and Natiekirsch are the proprietors of chain stores. Sol Kirzner is probably South Africa's most prominent hotelier.
Rudi Frankel is head of a food conglomerate, and Basil Hersov is big in mining. Morns Hellman was president of the Medical Asscciation of South Africa. Nadirie Gordimer is a world-class novelist, and Benjamin Pogrund is deputy editor of Johannesburg's Rand Daily Mail.
Barney Simon has a national reputation as a theatre director, and Sylvia Kaplan is president of the South African Association of Arts, two Jewish judges out of 14 sit on the highest court in the land, and Jews are the mayorsof Johannesburg and Cape Town, the largest cities.
Although Jews are not really attracted to the civil service, armed forces or the diplomatic corps, Abe Hoppenstein is South Africa's consul-general in New York City, On the national political level, Jews have no significant clout. However, Helen Suzman— \yho belongs to the opposition Progressive Federal Party — is undoubtedly South Africa's best known politician after P. W. Botha, the prime minister.
Surveying the scene, Thomas Langley, a Conservative Party pariiamentarian, noted: ^*There is no doubt about it. Jews have made a great contribution to South Africa."
And, although anti-semitism is far from being absent in South Africa, Richard Goldstone, a judge on the Supreme Court, ^pointed out: 'i can't think of any walk of life where Jews are prevented from entering."
' 'We're very much South Africans in our style," said Sylvia Kaplan, a doctor in her; private capacity.
"By and large, Jews are very well accepted," observed John Moshal, president of the Council of Natal Jewry, with headquarters in Durban.
Materially, Jews hardly knowihe meaning of deprivation, although there are Jews below the poverty line/ Indeed, on a per c^ita basis, this could well be one of the richest Jewish communities In the world. "We live very comfortable lives,'* said David Finkel-stein, a. 39-year-old pharmacist from the charming resort town of Fiiysna, whose sister has settled in London, Qnt.
Finkelstein, who has a lovely home and two BMWs in his garage, may typify the material advancement of this Diaspora community.
In Johannesburg, the centre of South African Jewry, Jews have drifted into such leafy and beautiful suburbs as Houghton, Bird Haven and Victory Park. In Cape Town, they're concentrated in Sea Point, which offers a panoramic view of a magnificent harbor. In Pretoria, they tend to congregate in the tree-lined eastern residential neighborhoods, one of which is known as Brooklyn!
Not surprisingly, given South Africa's hot
summers, many Jewish homes come with proverbial swimming pools, And South African housewives a disproportionate number of whom cannot imagine life without maids or gardeners — are therefore liberated in a sense some North American women might not bejgin to understand.
The languid existence enjoyed by so many Jewish women (or kugels, in local parlance) breeds a certain hauteur. One of the results of this lifestyle is a fairly high divorce rate. According to Ivan Sackheim, chairman of the Federation of Synagogues, ^ one in three marriages breaks up. Of eourse, this phenomerion is not limited to jews,
The affluent standard of living has had adverse demographic implications for the Jews of South Africa. Consider the bald facts.
The 1934 census listed 100^000 Jews, the majority of whom were the ofbprinjgs of settlers who arrived in South Africa between 1880 and 1910. The 1980 census showed 119,000 Jews. Whereas Jews comprised 4.5% of the Caucasian population 50 years ago, they now' comprise 2.6%.
In 1934, Jews were multiplying by an annual rate of 3%. "By now, it's probably negative," said Marcus Arkin.
Referring to a recent study, Arkin said that the population of the; community will be under 100,000 by the year 2000. "
This points to a low birth rate among Jews/ Stuart Buxbaum, in an "article in Jewish Affairs, theofficialorganof the Jewish Board of Deputies, the representative body of South African Jews, said: "Child bearing (in) Jewish women begins later and ends earlier . . ."
But the falling birth rate, a byproduct of
Frank Bradlow
affluency, is not the only problem afflicting South African Jewry.
It is an aging community.
hi 1934,5% of Jews were over 60. In 1980, the figure was around 20%. "This is a rapidly aging — and diminishing — community," said Arkin. .
In the last 10 years, several thousand Jews from Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia) and Israel have immigrated to South Africa. But their presence, which may or may not be permanent, does nothing to change the basic demographic picture,
And the movement of Jews from the country (platteland) to the city since Worid War II has not had any significant effect on Jewish . demography either. (Twenty-five rural synagogues, however, have been closed since 1974.)
intermarriage, which Arkin estimates to be in the 12% to 15% range, is relatively low by North American or Western European standards, possibly because the emphasis on racial separate development here miltates against mixed marriages.
But the phenomenon is growing, warned Bernard Moses Caspar, the Chief Rabbi of South Africa, in an interview. "We are getting to the danger mark."
All this talk about a contracting community does not appear to worry Michael Katz, the 39-year-oId chairman of the Jewish Board of Deputies. Jewish institutions, he claimed are "more dynamic" than ever.
"The state of the community, spiritually, is a very healthy one."
In some ways, he is correct. The network of Jewish schools, though suffering from financial ills, is a model of its kind. The Zionist Federation remains strong and vigorous by all accounts, and there has been something of a religious revival, in the estimation of Aleck Goldberg, the outgoing executive director of the Jewish Board of Deputies.
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Exodus has
hurt country
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Despite the community's strong institutions. South African Jewry has been sapped by an incremental exodus of some Of its finest young, middle-class professionals.
in the view of informed observers, the outflow was in large measure due to the 1960 Sharpville massacre, the 1974 Portuguese withdrawal from Angola and the 1976 Soweto riots. The events of 1960 and 1976 underscored the volatile and volcanic nature of inter-racial relations in South Africa. The Portuguese flight from Angola was a disturbing commentary on the prospects of white rule in Africa.
Needless to say, racial violence and the fall of the vyhite settler regime were not the sole causes of Jewish emigration. Zipnistically-inclined Jews went to. Israel, and Jews seeking greater professional opportunities looked abroad for advancement.
Today, when Jews consider the option of emigration, they are confronted by conflicting developments.
Michael Katz
• Some are cheered by the government's belated recognition that non-whites, such as Indians and Coloreds, must be given a parliamentary voice. Some are worried because Blacks have not been included in this so-called New Dispensiation.
• Some feel secure in the knowledge that South Africa, having signed an historic non-aggression treaty with neighboring Mozambique, has begun to break out of its isolationist laager.
• Some, noting the upsurge of urban terrorism, are not so upbeat in their assessment of the future.
Frank Bradlow, vice-president of the Jewish Board of Deputies, said that Jews are "more optimistic" these days because they , are "getting used to" the situation in South ■ Africa. ■ ",■
He thinks that emigration will decline because South Africans have experienced difficulties in immigrating to Western countries with unemployment problems. But if barriers were to be lifted, he added, emigration would rise.
"There's more scope for a young professional overseas than here."
Arkin, who must be theoretically com-1 mitted to living in Israel, remarked that Jews, being a minority within'a minority in a multiracial society, feel insecure. "Insecurity is a part of the South African way of life," he said.
Asked if another internal upheaval could" trigger an exodus, Arkin replied in the affirmative.
Rabbi Scott Saulson, executive director of the South African Union for Progressive Judaism, told this reporter it is his impression that most Jews have considered the possibility of leaving.
"They either don't think that the government's policy (of apartheid) will work, or they think that they will have to jpay too high a price for stability,"
Rabbi Caspar voiced similar sentiments. ' 'There are many young couples with "hildrenwhoare worried about the future — . not because of anti-semitism, but because of the potential for political instability. They look at what's happened in Zimbabwe (from which whites have emigrated) and they wonder...."
Isadore Kahanoyitz, a Pretoria educator, is blunter.
"I would encourage my children not to live in South Africa," he said, stressing he was speaking personally. "I can see there's going to be tremendous conflict, and I donH know whether it's fair to inflict on our children an involvement in that cpnfUct.
"History has shown no one is prepared to change (a political system) until change is forced upon them."
In Cape Town, the teenage daughter of a community leader struck an uncertain and pessimistic note.
, Six out of 10 of her friends are seriously . thinking of leaving upon the completion of their education, she disclosed. "It's the political uncertainty." -
After a pause, she murmured, "I may leave,too."        '_ .;
In another corner of Cape Town, a 33-year-old mother, the wife of a well-to-do doctor, said:
"I'm happy here, but on some days when the odd bomb goes off, I feel it's time to move on."" ■ ■ ■ .
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