GIDEON SHIMONI Zionism in South Africa An Historical Perspective In the comparative perspective of Hegemony of Zionism Diaspora Jewish communities, especially in English-speaking countries, the dis• From the outset, Zionism functioned in tinctive, perhaps even unique, attributes South Africa within the unified of South African Zionism lie in its. organizational framework of the Zionist hegemony in Jewish communal life and Federation which not only coordinated its centrality for Jewish identity. Indeed, the activities of all Zionist societies and Herzl's famous exhortation that groups, but also acted as an initiating Zionism "conquer the communities" authority. The contrast with the position was fulfilled in the South African in North American Zionism may serve to case to a truly remarkable degree. illustrate the singularity of the South There can be no doubt that judged by African movement.1 In the U.S. and almost any criterion — membership, Canada, the existence of organizations fundraising capacity, press resources, with federative pretensions such as the political vitality, or youth affiliates — Zionist Organization of America or the the Zionist Organization has always Zionist Organization of Canada never been the pre-eminent institution in the managed to encompas^ all Zionist life of the community. societies and political groups. Moreover, whereas in South Africa fundraising developed within the Zionist Federa• tion's orbit, in the United States it Gideon Shimoni is lecturer in Contemporary Jewry at The Hebrew University, Jerusalem. evolved independently of the Zionist This article forms part of a book on the relation• Organization. Thus the United Jewish ship between South African Jewry and Israel, Appeal in America is today linked to edited by Harold Blumberg, to be published funding of local needs whereas in South during 1980 by Turtledove Press, Ramat Gan. Africa the equivalent Israel United Ap• A major work by Dr. Shimoni entitled Jews and Zionism: The South African Experience 1910- peal (IUA) is scrupulously separated ¡967 is shortly to be published by Oxford from local needs and remains under the University Press. aegis of the Zionist Federation. FORUM-37: SPRING 1980 72 FORUM-37: IN THE COMMUNITIES To be sure, synagogue congregations flowed from this task created important and various traditional benevolent and precedents for the hegemony of Zionism Chevra-Kadisha societies preceded in the South African community. The Zionist societies in the communal evolu• Federation kept a strict lookout over in• tion of South African Jewry. But it is a cidents of antisemitism and threats to fact of considerable significance that the Jewish rights. It even defended Jews first Jewish institution to achieve a wrongly accused of illegal liquor trading, national organizational framework was and arranged prayer minyanim.4 the South African Zionist Federation, Indeed, it was only after a struggle, formed in 1898.2 Moreover, in the cir• and with grave reservations, that the cumstances which obtained after the Zionist leaders permitted the establish• Anglo-Boer War, that Federation ment in 1906 of an overall represen• became, de facto, the first representative tative organization in the form of the institution of the community vis-a-vis Jewish Board of Deputies, modeled on the governmental authorities. Its presi• the body of that name in London. When dent at that time was Samuel Goldreich, the idea was first mooted at a public who exerted a profound formative in• meeting in April 1903, Yiddish- fluence on South African Zionism. speaking Zionists deliberately attempted For Goldreich, Zionism was not just to disrupt the meeting by booing and one movement or stream among others shouting. An English-speaking observer in Jewish life. Zionism was synonymous reported that the proposal "gave rise to with Judaism; it was Judaism at its noisy interruptions on the part of the best. "We dare not forget," he averred, alien [i.e., new immigrant] Zionist ele• "that nothing which concerns the Jew is ment and from this point onward this foreign to us. The South African Zionist element became unmanageable....The Federation is charged with the proper expressed intention of the Zionist op• care of the local aspects of the Jewish position was to stifle everything that was question." In his view these aspects not under the direct and absolute control ranged from synagogue affairs to im• of Mr. S. Goldreich, as President of the migration and naturalization matters. Zionist Federation."5 The Zionists "We have deserved the name that has argued thus: been bestowed on us by the Zionist Zionist organisations have direct and Congress... 'the Jewish Consulate in specific instructions from Vienna to watch South Africa,'" he declared.3 In con• and safe-guard Jewish political interests. sonance with this conception of Zionism Zionists are instructed to take part in all Goldreich persuaded the High Commis• Jewish work and to care for all Jewish in• terests, in order to accustom governments sioner, Lord Milner, to recognize the to regard them as the representatives of South African Zionist Federation as the the Jewish people. The establishment of appropriate agency to facilitate permits other associations to deal specifically with for the return of Jews who had fled from the safe-guarding of Jewish political in• the Transvaal during the Anglo-Boer terests is thus not compatible with the policy of the Federation.6 War. The wide range of activity of a strictly local, communal nature which Owing to all these activities the Zionist ZIONISM IN SOUTH AFRICA: AN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE 73 Federation commanded a considerable was, in general, financially sound, adherence among South African Jews, whereas the Board of Deputies was who numbered some 40,000 by 1905. chronically short of financial resources.10 At its first Conference held that year, no Only after 1933 did the Board's finan• less than 75 delegates attended, cial position begin to improve; the representing societies in every part of acknowledged need to counteract rising the country, from Cape Town in the antisemitism gave it a new lease on south to Bulawayo, Rhodesia, in the public support. Throughout the years of north. By 1910 it embraced well over 60 their coexistence the Zionist Federation Zionist societies within its framework.7 was able to exert its influence con• From that time onward the record of stitutionally, from within the Board, Zionist membership has remained ex• through its own representatives as well traordinary, especially when viewed in as through the deputies of other Jewish the comparative perspective of Jewries institutions who happened also to be in the Anglo-American world. In mid- Zionists. The Board of Deputies on the 1946, when the first postwar Zionist other hand, lacked internal leverage in election took place, South African Jewry the Federation. Thus Jack Alexander, as a whole numbered 104,156 Jews. No who as Secretary-General of the Zionist less than 39,945 were shekel holders Federation was a key figure in Zionism, and of these 28,876 cast their votes. sat on the Board's Executive irom 1921 Two years after the creation of the State onward, with only a few years' break. of Israel, out of a population of 110,000 Whenever Alexander sensed a digression Jews, 50,000 adults were shekel from the Zionist line he sounded the holders.8 As recently as 1971, after alarm at the Zionist Federation. As he Zionist membership all over the world later recollected, "when we became real• had undergone a drastic decline, 36,000 ly concerned about the way the Board out of a total population of 118,000 was going... we decided to get more Jews were enrolled as formal members of Zionists onto the Executive."11 the Zionist Organization in South An instructive incident bearing on the Africa. In the elections held that year, relationship of power between the Board 16,763 people voted, representing and the Federation occurred in 1942. It 27.93% of the estimated adult Jewish concerned the objects of a War Victims population.9 Fund which the Board of Deputies had Even after the Zionist leaders had initiated. The Board had intended that become reconciled to the theoretical this fund's purposes include helping primacy of the Board of Deputies as a South African Jewish families that had representative umbrella organization in• suffered as a result of the war as well as corporating the Zionist Federation, they rehabilitating Jewish survivors of the zealously watched over Zionism's actual war in Europe. The Zionist Federation hegemony in the community. In practice, insisted that the Fund must the Zionist Federation was always the acknowledge the absolute primacy of more powerful of the two bodies. It en• Palestine in the reconstruction of Jewish joyed unflagging public support and life. This principle was accepted, but 74 FORUM-37: IN THE COMMUNITIES only after a stormy debate in the 'Board mula was the result of a compromise during which some Yiddishists con• between two main pressure groups demned the Zionists for attempting to within the Board of Jewish Education, dominate the Fund.12 Thereupon, the both of which were Zionist — the Zionist Federation charged the Board of Mizrachi Party on the one hand, and Deputies' Executive with lukewarmness Zionists belonging to other political toward Zionism on the mere grounds groupings within the Zionist Federation that they had permitted the Zionist de• on the other. In educational practice the mand to be questioned. How dared they "traditional" facet of the formula aimed allow the pivotal concept of a Jewish to expose the pupil to a modicum of National Home to be classed simply as observance and knowledge of basic texts, one of a number of rival political concepts, rituals and values of orthodox theories for the Jewish future?13 Judaism, while the "national" facet In the controversy which ensued, and aimed at fostering identification with the which was resolved only when the Jewish national revival epitomized by Zionist Federation felt satisfied that the the Zionist Movement and Israel.