Kossowsky’s arrival in South Africa in 1933 marked the first time a classically- trained Lithuanian Torah scholar and an internationally acknowledged Torah sage with a scrupulously religious personality held a senior rabbinic position in Johannesburg.6 Certainly, he enhanced his congregation’s prestige, but it is unclear whether the congregants, let alone the community at large, was ready for this radically different style of spiritual leadership.
Contemporary accounts suggest an uneasy relationship between the rabbi and his
congregation. While Johannesburg provided Kossowsky a safe haven from an increasingly ominous Europe, his new community’s limited engagement with rabbinic scholarship appears to have troubled him.7 Soon after his arrival he quickly discovered the gulf in religious
observance between his new position and that which he had previously occupied in Poland.
In a letter to his brother-in-law, the world renowned sage Chaim Ozer Grodzinski, concerning a get [Jewish divorce document] signed by someone who kept his shop open on the Sabbath (conduct which would normally render the signer invalid as a witness), Kossowsky wondered whether an exception could be made owing to local circumstances. “Desecration of the Sabbath is so rampant,” he reported, that no one “would even consider it a disqualifying
5 See Sowden, ‘"Chief Rabbi J.L. Landau, ”32-33.
6 There were several individuals and small community rabbis who were alumni of well-known Lithuanian Yeshivas, but none held the same position of seniority as did Kossowsky. Rabbi Moishel Friedman, from the little we know of him arrived at a much younger age and likely did not gain the same reputation in Eastern Europe as did Kossowsky. (See Kaplan and Robertson, Founders and Followers, 99).
7 See Simon, “Orthodox Judaism in South Africa,” 191, where Simon states that “Jewish scholarship was almost non-existent”.
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factor in a witness.”8 A year later he must have been even less pleased to discover that some synagogues had a loose relationship with tradition. In 1934, the Yeoville Synagogue resisted calls to remove female members from its mixed choir, and only conceded to an exclusively male choir for the smaller Sabbath morning services whose participants tended to be more observant than the larger Friday evening gathering.9 As a recent arrival Kossowsky must have wondered how the Chief Rabbi, who had direct jurisdiction over this synagogue, tolerated such breach of traditional Orthodoxy.10 An admirer of his, who at one time served as his English-language tutor, recalled Kossowsky’s disappointment with the overall state of affairs:11
South Africa was a disillusionment to Kossowsky. He found neither the reverence nor the learning that he had expected here … He laboured to move the community more nearly to the pattern of East European Jewry he had left but it was an unavailing struggle. Sociologically South African Jewry
belonged to a different world.12
Indeed, Kossowsky probably struggled to establish a support base in Johannesburg. In Poland, he had been one of the heads of the ultraorthodox non-Zionist Agudath Israel
movement (“the Aguda”), whose traditional Cheder [religious primary school] and Yeshiva system, with its resistance to secular education, he considered ideal.13 At that time, however, Johannesburg did not have its own Aguda affiliate. The only viable ally that existed in the city was the local branch of the religious Zionist Mizrachi movement (“Mizrachi”) which was founded in Europe in 1902 by Rabbi Isaac Reines, and which believed religion should sit at
8 Ibid, 176 citing Ahiezer, Part 3 Chapter 25. A get is used in a Jewish civil divorce, which requires two valid witnesses.
9 Gus Saron, “The religious and congregational scene “(unpublished) cited in Mazabow, Quest for Community, 204, n. 41
10 Ironically, Landau, upon becoming rabbi of the Johannesburg Hebrew Congregation had banned mixed choirs at his own congregation (see Simon “Orthodox Judaism in South Africa,”94).
11 Gerald Mazabow, “Great Leaders in an Illustrious South African Past: Rabbi Isaac Kossowsky – the Embodiment of a Memory,” Jewish Tradition, Pesach [Passover] 2007, 12.
12 Edgar Bernstein, My Judaism, My Jews (Johannesburg Exclusive Books, 1962), 32. This assessment is supported by the long-time director of the Board of Deputies (see Saron “The religious and congregational scene, “(unpublished) cited in Mazabow Quest for Community, 204, n. 41). Similarly, Yaacov Rubik, editor of Barkai asserted that Kossowsky was unable to find a “synthesis between the old and new worlds” (“The Gaon Rabbi Isaac Kossowsky,” Barkai, October 1951,46). Compare to Louis I Rabinowitz who offered a rosier assessment claiming that Kossowsky “strengthened the right wing of Orthodox Jewry” (Louis I. Rabinowitz,
“On the Religious Scene,” Jewish Affairs May 1960) and asserted that Kossowsky was a “symbol of the consolidation of the community” (Federation Chronicle September 1978: 22).
13 See YouTube video “Lea Chagy Interview re Kossowsky Family,”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdtGlyV2bHw accessed on 16 November 2021. For Agudath Israel’s political activism regarding its educational institutions see Greenbaum, The Jews of Lithuania, 256-260; Isaac Kossowsky, “On Jewish Education in this Country,” (Hebrew), Barkai, November- December 1937, 1.
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the core of Zionism.14 Judging from his writings Kossowsky harboured reservations about Mizrachi’s national traditional curriculum, whose blend of religious studies with Zionism and secular subjects he considered inferior to the Cheder system.15 Nevertheless and despite apparently having no previous contact with Mizrachi in Europe he joined the nascent South African Mizrachi movement. Boosted by a visit by World Mizrachi head Rabbi Meir Berlin in 1931, the local Mizrachi was then attracting many community rabbis and a trickling of Lithuanian immigrants drawn to its religious message.16 Having had past ties with the JOHC and its former rabbi, the movement welcomed the new rabbi’s alliance with it and appointed him honorary life president.17 In turn the honouree gave his support and mentorship to its youth affiliate, the Young Mizrachi Association which would go on to claim to be the only organization committed to spreading Torah values.18 Armed with these allies Kossowsky engaged in a head-on and somewhat provocative battle against the establishment, and at times against Landau himself. Rebuffing an implied accusation in the Yiddish press that he had not adequately exercised his influence in Johannesburg, the apparently easily offended
Kossowsky argued he had single-handedly fought for Sabbath observance, family purity, and dietary laws.19 As examples he claimed sole responsibility for ending the purported practice of permitting kosher butchers to open their stores on Saturday evenings from six to nine o’clock in desecration of Sabbath in summer, and for halting the practice of accepting
converts in return for payment.20 Although begrudgingly acknowledging Landau’s assistance, he contended that the Chief Rabbi, after being apprised of the problems and the solutions he proposed, merely quipped that he had been waiting for someone like Kossowsky to set things
14 Greenbaum, The Jews of Lithuania, 115. In addition to the movement, Reines established a popular Yeshiva in Lida, Belarus, where vigorous religious studies were taught alongside a secular syllabus.
15 Isaac Kossowsky “On Jewish Education in this Country,” 1.
16 Mazabow The Quest for Community, 148.
17 See Mazabow “Rabbi Isaac Kossowsky,” 12; In 1919, a short-lived attempt to establish a Mizrachi branch in Johannesburg was chaired by Rabbi Moishel Friedman, and it used the Fox Street Beth Hamedrash as its social hall (J. Green, “Highlights, Incidents, Memories,” South African Jewish Observer December 1962: 2).
18 See Green “Highlights, Incidents, Memories,” 2.
19 Handwritten letter from Kossowsky to the editor of a Yiddish periodical in South Africa, titled “What does the Rabbi Do?” published in Isaac Kossowsky and Jacob Kossowsky-Shachor, The Book of the Footsteps of Isaac: Essays, Speeches, Treatises and Letters (Hebrew), (Bnei Brak: n.p., 2007), 307-308. From this and other letters it appears Kossowsky was zealous of his position, easily taking offence at anyone criticising his actions.
Coming from a position where his words were treated with reverence he apparently was unable, as Bernstein suggested, to accept the laity’s opposition.
20 Ibid., 208, 211. It is emphasised that these are uncorroborated allegations and in the absence of Landau’s response, they cannot be taken at face value. They do however indicate Kossowsky’s unhappiness with his colleague.
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straight.21 This thinly veiled criticism of Landau reflected a tense relationship between the two spiritual leaders.