46 June 20 • 2019
jn
Looking Back
From the DJN Foundation Davidson Digital Archive of Jewish Detroit History
COURTESY OF THE RABBI LEO M. FRANKLIN ARCHIVES OF TEMPLE BETH EL, BLOOMFIELD HILLS, MI.
Temple Beth El Sisterhood members (1964): Maxine Spiegel, Catherine Rodecker, Dorothy Willis and Eleanor Ettlinger.
I
work with Tessa Goldberg at the Detroit
Jewish News Foundation and she has an
interesting accent. When I first met her, I
asked: “Are you Australian?” “No, no,” Tessa
said, “I’
m from South Africa.” Well, she is only
the second South African I have ever met, the
first being a woman who sat next to me for
a few hours on a flight from Amsterdam to
Warsaw.
Because Tessa and I have now worked
together for several years, I’
ve kept my eye on
news from South Africa and discussed current
events there with her. To say the least, that
nation has had a complicated history. From
British colonialism and the Boer War (1899-
1902) to modernization and an apartheid
state that imprisoned Nelson Mandela for 27
years to his release and the rise of the African
National Congress to lead that nation, South
Africa today has some enormous economic
and political problems. But it still has a Jewish
community of an estimated 75,000, many of
whom can trace their roots to Lithuania, often
via Israel.
When using the search term — “South
Africa” — one finds more than 4,000 citations
in the William Davidson Digital Archive of
Jewish Detroit History. To say the least, South
Africa, especially before apartheid collapsed,
was a topic for many discussions. Were Jews
threatened there? Should Israel have had, or
continue to have, diplomatic relations with
South Africa? Are there South African Jews in
Metro Detroit?
While I am not in any way an expert on
South African Jewish history, I know there are
Jews from South Africa who settled in Metro
Detroit. There is a very interesting article
about these folks in the April 25, 1997, issue
of the JN. You may know some of them. If not,
stop by the Jewish News Foundation offices
and Tessa will tell you all about migrating to
Detroit from South Africa. You’
ll like her —
and her accent. ■
Want to learn more? Go to the DJN Foundation
archives, available for free at www.djnfoundation.org.
Mike Smith
Alene and Graham
Landau Archivist
Chair
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