​Wendy Kahn's column in the latest edition of Jewish Life: Hidden Treasures - Our Living history

Wendy Kahn's column in the latest edition of Jewish Life:

Hidden Treasures - Our Living history

There is a little-known treasure trove in the Beyachad building that few have experienced. I have worked at the SAJBD for nearly 20 years, and I have used the archive periodically in my day to day work life, getting information for articles, legal cases or correspondence.

Over the past month we have been in the process of moving our archive into the heart of Beyachad, making it more accessible and exciting for our community and the many people who use it.

The SAJBD archives are world renowned and used by researchers locally and internationally. But it is so much more. The 5000 boxes, bound newspapers and minute books contain information of our heritage from the past 180 years.

I have found photos of people I know in their SAUJS days, friends of mine’s great granny’s listing in a prominent Joburg shul’s membership book (yes, she was paid up) and one of our leaders as a model in the King David fashion show.

We found a grade one brown suitcase containing documents from the Warmbaths shul, Boer War leather military pants and a Nazi armband.

But one of the most moving finds was in a minute book from the SAJBD in the mid 1940’s. It was entitled “Meetings re the Disaster against Jews in Eastern Europe”. It features the SA leadership discussions around the Shoa and how our community should respond. Some of the decisions involved austerity measures in the community (curtailing expenditure around weddings and barmitzvas), how to petition our government regarding the horrors facing Jews in Europe, fundraising to assist those who would be coming to our shores and media. The minutes slowly started to reflect information coming through regarding the horrors of the Shoah. As a communal leader who has sat around decision making tables for nearly a quarter of a century, this felt especially haunting. In the past two years we have had very tough conversations and dealt with heart wrenching issues – but I can’t imagine the magnitude of the conversations at the time. We have boxes looking at emigration issues at the time, survivors, soldiers who fought in WW2 and the chaplaincy records. Especially heartbreaking are the boxes on `missing persons’ following the Holocaust which include handwritten letters from South African Jews seeking information about their lost loved relatives.

We have immigration records of families coming to South Africa that are an incredible assistance to families researching their lineage for genealogical studies or foreign citizenship purposes.

Our records contain large numbers of remarkable South Africans that built up our community and our country.

You will find the early information on the origins of the communal organisations that make our community function so well – welfare, schools, associations, youth movements, women’s organisations, Zionist bodies, shuls.

We have extraordinary photos from so many organisations, initially with few women featured in mainstream bodies, gradually including one or two female faces (and large hats), and over the years expanding to what we see today where so many of our bodies (the SAJBD being one) led by women.

It is extraordinary to learn about shuls in areas where today sadly they are no longer, all with minute books, membership books, case books and one with magnificently bound `gentleman’s seating lists’ and `ladies’ seating lists’.

The more minutes I read, and our community is incredibly prolific with the plethora of minute books I have lugged around, the clearer it becomes that the more things change, the more they stay the same. The issues might change, but the people around the table have the same idiosyncrasies’, the same personality types and have similar conversations and arguments.

The one thing that we have in common with our predecessors is the love for SA Jewry and the commitment and attempt to come to solutions that will be to everyone’s benefit and for the good of this gem in the Jewish diaspora.