Colonisers to Colonialists: European Jews and the Workings of Race As a Political Identity in the Settler Colony of South Africa

Colonisers to Colonialists: European Jews and the workings of race as a political identity in the settler colony of South Africa Mitchel Joffe Hunter 3814580 Thesis Submitted in Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Award of a Masters Degree in Sociology Supervisors: Professor Surendren Pillay & Professor Heike Becker November 2020 1 Plagiarism Declaration I, Mitchel Joffe Hunter, hereby declare that Colonisers to Colonialists: European Jews and the workings of race as a political identity in the settler colony of South Africa is my own work, that it has not been previously submitted for any degree or examination at any other university, and that the sources I have used or quoted from have been indicated and acknowledged as complete references. Mitchel Joffe Hunter Date: 27 November 2020 2 Abstract This thesis explores the shifting racial identification and politics of the emerging Jewish community in Southern Africa between the Anglo-Boer War in 1902 and the Union of South Africa in 1910. Through an investigation of their actions and thoughts on the cultural, economic, linguistic and political aspects of their lives, I show how the emerging Jewish community formed itself through the political subjectivity of White settlers. Understanding how racial categories were being amalgamated and partitioned in that period of state formation, I argue that the mainstream Jewish community colluded with the colonial state to join into the ‘unity of the White races’. I use Memmi’s (1967 [1957], pp. 19,45) analytic distinction between ‘coloniser’ – a European on African land - and ‘colonialist’ – a coloniser who supports colonialism and believes in its legitimacy - to examine how the process of subject formation is articulated through the political economy of racial capitalism and settler colonialism. When Jews from Eastern Europe (Yidn) began arriving in South Africa in the 1880s, they faced a settler population which simultaneously treated them as members of an undifferentiated European settler population, as candidates for assimilation into colonial Whiteness, and as dirty subjects under threat of colonial state violence. Though there were other possible responses to the colonial relationship that Yidn could have taken, such as linking the fight against antisemitism with other anti-racist and anti-colonial struggles, the community went through a process of colonialist refashioning. To understand this transformation, I focus on four aspects of life. Culturally, Yidn were classed as dirty subjects and Jewish communal institutions worked with the state to ‘clean’, i.e. ‘Whiten’ them up. Economically, Jews of all class positions learnt the exploitative practices of settlers in racial capitalism. Linguistically, Yiddish became classified as a European language by utilising racial hierarchies. And politically, Yidn became citizens by embracing the ideology of a White-only franchise. Focussing in on these processes of assimilation into power, I argue that the primary Jewish communal institutions embraced and internally enforced a colonialist political subjectivity. This thesis is based on archival research conducted in three archives in Cape Town carried out between February and May 2019, and extensive reading of previous historical studies to write a new narrative from previously known sources. 3 Key Words Settler Colonialism Racial Capitalism Political subjectivity Race Union of South Africa Dirt Yiddish Immigration Citizenship Whiteness 4 4) Immigration Restrictions and the Politics of 1) Introduction ------------------------------------------ 6 Language --------------------------------------------------- 96 The Subject: Colonisers and Colonialists ---------- 8 Introduction -------------------------------------------- 96 The Scope: Between War and Union------------- 12 The development of literacy tests as a Historical Methodology ----------------------------- 14 technology of racial exclusion --------------------- 98 Positionality and Purpose --------------------------- 21 Restricting access to Yidn -------------------------- 103 Overview of Settler Colonialism ------------------- 24 Yiddish as a dirty language------------------------ 107 Racial Categories -------------------------------------- 27 Making Yidn European before arrival ---------- 109 Overview of Jewish History ------------------------- 29 A mamzer shprakh- anti-Yiddish sentiment Chapter Outline---------------------------------------- 35 amongst Jews ----------------------------------------- 119 Conclusion --------------------------------------------- 122 2) Dirty Subjects: bodies, sex and money in the construction of racial categories -------------------- 37 5) Becoming Citizens ------------------------------- 124 Introduction -------------------------------------------- 37 Introduction ------------------------------------------- 124 Peruvians and assimilation ------------------------- 41 The Franchise and citizenship -------------------- 126 Bodies ---------------------------------------------------- 46 In the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek ------------- 127 Sex -------------------------------------------------------- 51 Repatriation, Naturalisation ---------------------- 130 Trading -------------------------------------------------- 57 The 1910 Franchise ---------------------------------- 138 Conclusion ---------------------------------------------- 61 Conclusion --------------------------------------------- 150 3) The Pedagogy of Racial Capitalism: Land, 6) Remembering from Past to Present ------- 152 Labour, and Zionism in the shaping of colonialists Becoming Colonialists Then ----------------------- 152 64 Where this research could be extended ------- 156 Introduction -------------------------------------------- 64 Remembering ----------------------------------------- 157 Racial Capitalism in South Africa ----------------- 66 Being Colonialists Today --------------------------- 160 Land ownership---------------------------------------- 68 Racial Labour Hierarchy ----------------------------- 82 Archive Sources ----------------------------------------- 163 Community Labour ----------------------------------- 91 Bibliography ---------------------------------------------- 165 Conclusion ---------------------------------------------- 94 5 1) Introduction Thus spoke the prophet Roque Dalton: All together they have more death than we, but all together, we have more life than they. There is more bloody death in their hands than we could ever wield, unless we lay down our souls to become them, and then we will lose everything Aurora Levins Morales, 2016 Cry with full throat, without restraint; Raise your voice like a ram’s horn! Declare to My people their transgression, To the House of Jacob their sin. Isaiah 58:1 In 2016, following student and workers protests, FeesMustFall (FMF) and Biko’s call for ‘White liberals’ to work in our communities, I was presenting a session with a good friend of mine at a Jewish conference in Johannesburg about White privilege and Jews – making the argument that White Jews in South Africa are equally complicit in and benefiting from White privilege as other White people. One comment from the floor stuck with me. This person accused us of forgetting that we, Ashkenazi Jews, had arrived in South Africa as refugees from the Russian pogroms and Nazi Holocaust and that there had been extensive antisemitism in South Africa. They argued that because White Jews in SA had arrived as refugees and faced racism, we thus were never complicit in colonialism and apartheid in South Africa. I’ve heard versions of this argument many times, sometimes focusing on the conditions of our arrival, sometimes on the antisemitism. Other times people have tried to lead with a diversion, ‘Jews were over-represented in the struggle against Apartheid or in the union movement’. We argued relentlessly against these positions which we saw as abdicating responsibility and being infused with an implicit acceptance of ongoing White supremacy in South Africa, but I felt a distinct inability to challenge these claims. I just didn’t know the specifics of our history enough to counter their claims of a weak Jewish community that was never comfortable enough to be considered complicit in the development of White supremacy in South Africa. 6 Another incident occurred a few months later that clarified this inability. In late 2016, during the second major FeeMustFall protests against increasing neoliberalism and continuing colonialism in higher education, there was a counter-protest by a group of students called Take Back Wits. It was mostly supported by White students and opposed to the shutdown. A group of White FMF students organized to disrupt their march. In the course of the confrontation, someone I had known from school shouted at me (I was doing lots of shouting myself), “Mitchel, you know me, I’m Portuguese, we didn’t colonise here”. I was stunned speechless. Flabbergasted. How could anyone be so clueless as to assume, one that the Portuguese weren’t colonial powers right here in Southern Africa, and second that his family was still complicit in racism in South African history? Of course, I am writing from memory here, and its possible I have misquoted these arguments. But I include these recollections here to show that for many White people in South Africa relying on historical narratives is one of the key defence mechanisms that we use to avoid taking responsibility for ongoing White supremacy in ourselves, families, and institutions. Historical narratives, however, have two meanings.

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