THE BUBONIC PLAGUE AND THE JEWS IN CAPE TOWN, 1901

Gwynne Schrire, a veteran contributor to Jewish Affairs and a long-serving member of its editorial board, is Deputy Director of the SA Jewish Board of Deputies – Cape Council. She has authored, co-written and edited over twenty books on aspects of South African Jewish and Western Cape history. This is an edited version of her article, originally entitled ‘Immigration Restriction, Bubonic Plague and the Jews in Cape Town, 1901’ that appeared in the Chanukah 2008 issue of Jewish Affairs.

The advent of HIV/AIDS, the most extensive and fearful pandemic the world had known, made all previous pandemics pale in significance. Previously the most feared was the plague, from the Latin plaga meaning a blow, usually administered by a god.[1] The blow or blame has often fallen on the Jewish community. The Jews were made the scapegoat of the 1348 plague, or Black Death, resulting in extensive massacres throughout Europe. This article will examine what happened in Cape Town, when the 1901 plague reached it from the East.

People living in Cape Town, Muslims believed, would be safe from the plague because of a prophesy by Imam Abdullah bin Kadi Abdus-Salaam (Tuan Guru, 1712-1807), founder of the first madrassah in the city. He had foretold that all Muslims who lived within the circle of kramats (shrines) that encircled the peninsula would be safe from fire, famine, plague, earthquake and tidal wave[2]

But it was not to be so, because another great plague pandemic to befall the world reached Cape Town in 1901.