Though I have been fastidious in approaching this dissertation as a careful and
dispassionate scholar, I cannot claim to be a totally disinterested observer. My late father, Rabbi Mordechai Fachler, was recruited to South Africa as one of the earlier members of the Kollel Yad Shaul.158 Subsequently he was involved with institutions associated with both the traditionalists and accommodators having served as a dean at the Yeshiva College Campus and as a pulpit rabbi in several large shuls. I myself lived in Johannesburg for 25 years, was educated in various religious institutions before entering Wits University. For the past twenty-three years I have lived in Israel. My background has provided me with the perspective of an insider-outsider.
155 Anthony Balcomb, “From Apartheid to The New Dispensation: Evangelicals and The Democratization of South Africa”, Journal of Religion in Africa, 34(1) (2004):7-14.
156 For a discussion of the rabbinate’s response to Apartheid, see Shimoni, Community and Conscience, 36-46.
157 Available at https://torahdownloads.com/shiur-1029508.html . Accessed on 2 January 2022. On the other hand, Dennis Isaacs declared “the Orthodox rabbinate was [not] deafeningly silent to the evils of Apartheid”
(Dennis Isaacs, Praise God in His Sanctuary (Pinetown, 2000), Preface).
158 For his impact on South African Jewry see Dana Kaplan, “South African Orthodoxy Today,” 77.
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Undoubtedly, my background provided a degree of familiarity with the more fine-grained distinctions within Orthodox Johannesburg that may have eluded an outside. Similarly, my background provided an unusual degree of access to key individuals and institutions. Many of those I interviewed are personal acquaintances, while some I met for the first time at the interview. My knowledge of my subjects notwithstanding, I have attempted to offer an account that is objective and fair. When using material derived from these oral history interviews, I have tried as much as possible to find corroborative documentary evidence. It is my sincere hope that this is reflected in this completed work.
This dissertation relies primarily on untapped archival sources from the Rochlin Archives at the South African Jewish Board of Deputies, private collections of papers, oral history interviews, contemporary reports, articles and letters from the South African Jewish press, and audio lectures of those involved in the traditionalist and innovator camps. It also makes liberal use of Johannesburg’s only Hebrew journal, Barkai, which has not been systemically used by other scholars. Owing to the fact that the contributors to this monthly were keenly aware that the readership was confined mainly to fellow intellectuals, they appear to have felt freer to express their views. This in turn provides us with seemingly candid commentary on contemporary issues. These sources, along with the academic literature cited above, guide this study and serve its primary aim of piecing together, as accurately as possible, a narrative history of Johannesburg Orthodoxy that provides fresh insights into the past. This study also aims to restore recognition to the many players and organizations whose contributions, positive and negative, have been suppressed, overlooked or forgotten. Secondarily and importantly it seeks to add another dimension to the study and variability of Orthodox Jewry worldwide while also adding to our knowledge of South African Jewish history. In the broadest sense it also contributes to further understanding of the universal phenomenon of religious revival movements and their relationship with modernity.
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CHAPTER TWO: RABBI ISAAC KOSSOWSKY AND THE IDEOLOGICAL DIVIDE IN JOHANNESBURG ORTHODOXY
1. Introduction
In 1924, hopes were high that Chief Rabbi Judah L. Landau’s successful
establishment of a Provisional Federation of Synagogues would strengthen and unify the Johannesburg Beth Din. A year later, in 1925 events took a dramatic turn with the unexpected death of the joint head rabbinical judge, Dayan Moishel Friedman, at age 63. The
Johannesburg Orthodox Hebrew Congregation not only lost their spiritual guide but also their representative at the Beth Din. Unprepared to have Landau exercise exclusive jurisdiction over this rabbinical court, the congregation applied to the Provisional Federation to assist it with covering the costs of a new rabbi, or rav, the Hebrew and Yiddish title for rabbi preferred by the congregation. They wanted this rav to be brought from Eastern Europe and granted with authority over the Beth Din equal to that of the Chief Rabbi, as had been the case with their deceased spiritual leader.1 Offended by these demands, the UHC saw no need to assist with the costs of a new rabbi even if he were to occupy a seat on the Beth Din that was located at the UHC. They considered themselves unbound by the 1915 arrangement with Friedman and regarded their rabbi as eminently qualified to lead the entire community unaided. In fact, they opposed making any financial contributions to the nascent Federation, surmising that Landau’s services to that organization was akin to fair payment on their part.
These disputes notwithstanding, a permanent Federation of Synagogues soon came into being with the UHC representative elected as its president, and delegates representing Berea, Jeppestown, and the JOHC comprising most of the remaining executive members. The enhanced status of a permanent Federation failed to resolve the question of the Beth Din’s centralized authority and as late as September 1928, the JOHC was insisting they would only accord this court full recognition once their prospective spiritual leader was appointed as its head.2 Further exacerbating the Beth Medrash’s dispute with the UHC was the former’s plans to move its premises to Saratoga Avenue in Doornfontein, which already had its fair share of congregations, and whose population was already well served by the nearby Wolmarans Street synagogue. When the Federation dismissed the UHC’s request to compel the JOHC to drop its building plans and formally join the UHC at its premises, where a hall would be provided for it, things came to a head, and the UHC seceded from the FOS. Over the next few years, the JOHC, contending for the title of Johannesburg’s most prestigious congregation,
1Mazabow, The Quest for Community, 167.
2 Ibid.,168.
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erected an ornate new building, procured the services of the world famous cantor Berele Chagy, and appointed the esteemed Rabbi Isaac Kossowsky from Wołkowysk, Poland, as rav of its Beth Medrash. Seeing no other recourse, the UHC in 1933 reversed itself and re-joined the FOS.3 As a condition for re-joining, Landau was officially appointed Chief Rabbi of the newly expanded Federation of Synagogues of the Transvaal, while Kossowsky served as Rosh Beth Din and rav of the FOS. This move probably averted acrimonious competition while introducing some modicum of unity to the Orthodox Jewish community.