My Sandler and Silberman Family Inheritance

Between 1881 and 1914 close on 3 000 000 Jews migrated from Eastern Europe to overseas countries. The vast majority went to North America, while smaller numbers sought refuge elsewhere. The Argentine, South Africa, and Palestine each attracted an almost equal number of Eastern European Jews during the last two decades of the nineteenth century. For Litvak Jews, however, South Africa was second only to North America as a land of destination. This great movement has had a radical effect on the entire course of subsequent Jewish history. It led to a complete redistribution of the world's Jewish population. From a predominantly European community the Jewish people became scattered over all the five continents, with the majority concentrated in America. The effect of this movement on the rise of South African Jewry was no less significant. During three decades [1881-1910] some 40 000 eastern European Jews immigrated to South Africa. They changed South African Jewry from a few weak congregations, whose members were often attached to Judaism by flimsy bonds, into a firmly established community. While many of the newcomers hailed from different parts of Russia, Poland, and even Rumania, the overwhelming majority came from Lithuania and were known as Lithuanian Jews or 'Litvaks'. Here as elsewhere in Jewish lore and historiography, the term Litvak was not necessarily restricted to people hailing from the area independent Lithuanian Republic but also if he belonged to neighbouring territories such as Byelo-Russia or eastern Poland. In point of fact, however, the majority of eastern European immigrants who came to South Africa belonged to the Government of Kovno - Kovno Goubernia - so that in the course of time the South African community was often described as 'a colony of Lithuania' Even after the immigrants became assimilated to their general South African surroundings, they retained certain characteristics of Lithuanian Jewry, such as a love of learning, generosity towards charitable causes, and a deep attachment to Jewish traditions. In the course of time the Lithuanians absorbed by intermarriage those of their predecessors among the English, Dutch, and German elements who had not drifted away from the fold. After a while, too, Litvak Jews assumed the leadership even of those congregations which were founded and maintained by the immigrants of the earlier decades of their descendants. The Jews in South Africa by Gustav Saron and Louis Hotz. Like most South African Jews, my Sandler and Silberman ancestors emigrated from Lithuania and Latvia to South Africa between 1880 and 1920. They were the lucky ones, escaping the horrors of the Holocaust, and like most Jewish Families, had relatives in Lithuania and Latvia who perished in the Holocaust.For about 100 years, we generally prospered and multiplied in South Africa until, in the early 1960s, the evils of Apartheid started to appear. We then began seeking more secure futures for our families by immigrating to Israel, the UK, the USA, Canada and Australia and by the year 2000 about half of South African Jews (about 70,000) had left.The purpose of this book is to gather details of my family's Litvak and South African history for our children and grandchildren.As with my other books, this is a compilation and not a single narrative. It is a gathering of photographs, documents and memories of my grandparents and their ancestors and descendants.