Oudtshoorn
A community that turned ostrich feathers into gold
- Location: 470 km east of Cape Town, 55 km inland. In the Western Cape Province.
- Population: 84,000 Jewsh Population: 74
- Oudtshoorn Fact: The first Jewish day school in South Africa was not in Johannesburg or even Cape Town. It opened in 1904, in Oudtshoorn.
Jewish history in Oudtshoorn
In 1880, a few Jewish men from Lithuania settled in Oudtshoorn, each schlepping 80 lb. sacks of groceries and necessities on his back. Their destination? The ostrich farms scattered around the area. Before long, the ingenious Litvaks dropped everything and focused their attention upon collecting the birds' plumes from the farmers. These feathers were a popular fashion accessory in Europe and the U.S.
Early days in the Ostrich business
By the late 1880's, building on this growing business, we had already built our first synagogue, along with the first Jewish day school in all of South Africa. Within two decades, 1500 Jews had come from Lithuania to capitalize on the ostrich feather boom.
In those days, Jews comprised 90% of the ostrich merchants. The Yiddish-speaking traders would return from the veldt every Friday afternoon for Shabbat. Since the community's inception, most of the ostrich Jews have remained faithful to their forebears' Orthodox religious traditions, despite Oudtshoorn's complete, geographic isolation.
Ostrich palaces
Many of the ostrich Jews of Oudtshoorn amassed great wealth through the ostrich trade, building huge sandstone houses known as 'Ostrich Palaces.' The Lipschitz family continues to live as ostrich barons in an ostrich palace, farming ostriches for feathers, meat, eggs and leather and running ostrich rides and races for tourists.
After the Ostrich boom
The prosperity of Oudtshoorn was, of course, due to the high prices the fashion industry paid for ostrich feathers. In 1913 it reached $500 for a pound of the finest feathers. That was the year that fashion started changing, due in part to the open motor cars, whose speed was not conducive to feathers attached to clothes or hats.
Though the Jewish population dropped sharply when the market for ostrich feather fashion crashed after World War I, the Lipschitz family still clings to Jewish traditions with the other remaining Oudtshoorn Jewish families. In the 1950s a new market in ostrich meat emerged.
More than Ostrich Barons
The Oudtshoorn Synagogue was inaugurated in 1888 and is still in use.
Jews also played an important part in the development of Oudtshoorn and the district. As the Jewish population increased, so did the scope of their activities, with many of us becoming traders or smouses, traveling to the farms with a horse and cart, selling all kinds of household wares to the farmers. We also became shopkeepers and hoteliers in the town.
Anti-semitism in Oudtshoorn
Many Afrikaners, anti-British as a result of their treatment in the Boer War, supported Germany from the 1930s, while the Jews naturally supported Britain. The anti-Semitic National Party, aided by pro-Nazi groups, tried to discredit the Jews, and between 1940 and 1947 many Jewish businesses and factories in Oudtshoorn were burned down, with no one ever being arrested for these crimes.
Oudtshoorn today
Though Oudtshoorn has not had its own rabbi since 1985, a minyan still gathers Monday and Friday evenings. We have not missed celebrating a chag (holiday) together in 116 years. This suggests that religious tradition will survive in Oudtshoorn -- even after the last Jewish ostrich baron has gone.