From Lithuania to Rhodesia
On September 13, 1890, a force raised by Cecil John Rhodes, named the British South African Company's Pioneer Column, hoisted the Union Jack flag at Fort Salisbury. This marked the beginning of British colonial rule in a region that would become known as Rhodesia (present-day Zimbabwe).1 Twenty years later, in 1910, my grandfather, Louis Elias Chimowitz, and his younger brother, Solomon, arrived in the small mining town of Gatooma in Southern Rhodesia from Cape Town, South Africa. Louis was 29 years old, and Solomon was 25.
Louis was born in Courland, Russia (in present-day Latvia) in 1881, but the family later moved to Kovno in neighboring Lithuania, where Solomon was born in 1885. Louis left Lithuania in 1900 and likely traveled from Libau (in present-day Latvia) to England on a cargo ship — a common route for Jewish Lithuanians fleeing the Russian pogroms. From there he secured a passage on a ship bound for Cape Town. Solomon likely followed a few years later.
After 10 years in Cape Town, Louis and Solomon decided topursue new opportunities in the recently established colony of Southern Rhodesia and settled in Gatooma (present-day Kadoma). Gatooma is, between the two largest cities of Rhodesia, Salisbury (present-day Harare) and Bulawayo. Gatooma began as a railway siding in 1906 to serve miners in the district. Earlyphotos of the township indicate how basic the buildings and dwellings were at the time.2
In 1915, Louis and Solomon established the Gatooma Trading Company, consisting of a butchery, liquor store and a general department store. They also became the owners of adjoining farms five miles outside of town, where they raised cattle for the butchery.
A few years after moving to Gatooma, Louis returned to Cape Town to marry my grandmother, Flora Berkowitz, who was born in Lithuania in 1893. Flora gave birth to six children, of whom four survived — Sadie, born in 1918; Harold (Harry) in 1919; Ethel (Ettie) in 1921; and Benjamin (Bennie), my father, in 1924. Two others, May and Samuel, died in early childhood from blackwater fever, a complication of malaria.
My father, Bennie and his sister Sadie remained in Gatooma for most of their lives and ran the family businesses after Solomon died in 1948. Ettie lived in Salisbury with her family, and Harry, who joined the African National Congress while an engineering student in Cape Town, was exiled and lived in Zambia his whole life. My father married my mother, Gertrude (Gertie) Wolfsohn, who was from Cape Town. She ran a successful dance school in Gatooma and, together with my father, raised me and my two older siblings, Eldred and Sharon.
Jewish Life and Family Celebrations in Gatooma
My grandfather Louis and his brother Solomon were among the first Jews to settle in Gatooma, Rhodesia in the early 1900s. Even at its peak, Gatooma and the surrounding district had no more than 20 to 30 Jewish families. Although Southern Rhodesia had no official quota on Jewish immigration, the British-born elite, who held political and economic power, resisted admitting white settlers of non-British origin, including Jews.3 This contrasted with Cecil John Rhodes, the founder of Rhodesia, who, despite his belief in British superiority, reportedly remarked on seeing a Salisbury synagogue: "My country is all right if the Jews come."3 Gatooma didn't have a rabbi or a synagogue while Louis and Flora's children were growing up, but they still made sure their four children had a Jewish upbringing.
Jewish celebrations included britmilahs for the two boys, Harry and Bennie. Harry's britmilah was even reported in the local newspaper. The subheading of the article, "An Interesting Function," shows how rare these occasions were in Gatooma. The ceremony and reception were attended by the mayor, Mr. Golding (not Jewish), who gave a speech. Harry also had a barmitzvah in Gatooma in 1932 when he turned 13. He read his Haftorah at the Royalty Theater since there was no synagogue.
Two years later, in 1934, my grandfather Louis passed away at age 52 when my father, Bennie, was just 10. Bennie did not have a bar mitzvah when he turned 13. His mother, Flora, and Uncle Solomon (who was like a second father to my dad) would have wanted him to have one, but there was no one available to teach him the required Hebrew texts.
About 78 years later, when my father, then living in Cape Town, was being driven home from a hospital by a rabbi, he mentioned that he had never had a barmitzvah. The rabbi told him it wasn't too late. A few weeks later, while I was visiting from the USA, my dad had a brief barmitzvah in his bed at a nursing home in Sea Point, Cape Town.
Since there was no synagogue in Gatooma in the 1930s and 1940s, Jewish festivals and high holidays were held in private homes. In 1939, Mr. Robert Sternberg, a refugee from Nazi Germany, led the services for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Mr. Sternberg was among only 480 Germans admitted to Rhodesia between 1933 and 1939, at a time when thousands of Jews were desperately trying to flee Nazi Germany.3 He would later become the first Jewish Mayor of Gatooma.
In 1944, a provisional committee was created to establish a Gatooma Jewish Congregation, and Solomon Chimowitz, my father's uncle, was one of the committee members. The Gatooma Jewish Congregation was formally established in 1945, but services had to be held at the Women's Institute Hall or the old Dutch Reformed Church because there was still no synagogue in town.
In 1950, Gatooma was honored to host the Chief Rabbi of the British Empire, Sir Israel Brodie, at a luncheon at the Specks Hotel, where he appealed for the building of a synagogue in Gatooma. Funds were raised, and construction began within a few years. The most important day in the history of the Gatooma Jewish Congregation came on August 16, 1953, when the synagogue was inaugurated.
Religion played a large role in the lives of our family in Gatooma. Although my father was not observant — I am not sure he even believed in God — he was a proud Jew and a strong supporter of Israel. He had heard about the horrors of the pogroms against Jews in Lithuania. He had also served in World War II when the atrocity of the Holocaust occurred. He spent some time in Palestine during the war between his duties in North Africa and Italy. So, the idea of a homeland for Jews in Israel was deeply meaningful to him.
While watching the cine films of the Jewish community in Gatooma,1 I saw the name Chimowitz there. So, I rewound the film, and lo and behold, it turned out that my father was the Chairman of the Gatooma Zionist Society.
My mom was more religious than my dad, but she had limited formal teaching in Judaism. She was also a strong supporter of Israel and belonged to the Gatooma WIZO (Women's International Zionist Organization). My parents were both fortunate and proud to visit Israel a few times in the 1970s and early 1980s.
As young children, we had weekly Hebrew lessons at the synagogue with Reverend Erman, who lived in Que Que, 40 miles away. When I was 10, Reverend Erman left for Israel, and the lessons stopped. My ability to read Hebrew was still quite limited, which had implications for my barmitzvah a few years later. Sharon excelled at Hebrew and developed a close bond with Reverend Erman, whom she later met up with when she lived in Israel.
We attended shul every Friday night for Shabbat services and for all the Jewish festivals and high holidays. I recall that on one Yom Kippur, when I was 10, my mom's brother Wally was visiting from Cape Town. Since children are gradually encouraged to extend their fasting as they get older, my goal at age 10 was to fast until 1 p.m. Since Uncle Wally was our dentist, I wanted to impress him by showing him how good I was at brushing my teeth the morning of Yom Kippur, but when I rinsed my mouth with water, I suddenly realized that this might be considered "breaking your fast". I felt terribly guilty the entire day because I was supposed to fast for much longer.
After the reading of the Torah on high holidays, one of the young male children was called up to sit on a bench on the bimah to hold the Torah scroll until it was placed back in the Ark. At that time in Gatooma, the young Jewish boys consisted of my friend, Allan Gavronsky and myself.Torahs are heavy and dropping one is a major transgression requiring 40 days of fasting as penance. I was terrified of being called up. Thankfully, Allan was braver and usually volunteered. Plus, he was chubbier than me, so he could afford to fast longer!
I spent a lot of time in shul in Gatooma. Since the Jewish population there was decreasing over time, and some men were not observant, it was often challenging to get a minyan for a service. So, at 12 going on 13, I sometimes served as the tenth man, which meant I had to attend most services that year.
The one service I always enjoyed was Shabbat on Friday nights. It marked the end of the school week. I knew the Hebrew words to the songs, and it was always followed by a delicious family Shabbat dinner at one of three houses on a rotating basis: ours, Aunt Sadie's, or my cousin Alwyn Hyman's. I also enjoyed seders on Pesach when, even as a young teenager, I was allowed to drink the four small cups of Kosher wine traditionally drunk at the seder. During and after the seder, the extended family would sing melodic Pesach songs, mostly making up the Hebrew words, except for Sharon and Eldred, who knew the correct ones.
Eldred and I had our barmitzvahs, and Sharon had her batmitzvah in Gatooma. Not surprisingly, I have a clearer memory of my own barmitzvah in 1968. Preparing for it was a huge challenge because I read Hebrew poorly, and there was no rabbi or reverend to teach me. So, we came up with a novel solution — my sister Sharon (16 at the time) would have to be my teacher. We received a tape of the Torah section I had to read, which had to be sung with all the correct inflections, and I began practicing under Sharon's guidance. Sharon came up with an ingenious way of marking the prayer book with symbols to indicate the inflections I needed for the chanting. I studied so hard that I still remember parts of that Torah section (Bereshit) today. The ceremony went well, and I got through it without any major flaws.
A somewhat amusing memory about my barmitzvah is related to my captaining of our school's under-13 cricket team. The team always played matches against other schools on Saturdays, and our cricket teacher, who was clueless about Jewish tradition, was not happy that I would be missing a match. He tried to insist that I should come and join the team after I had completed my barmitzvah prayers that morning. Of course, that was not possible.
Anti Semitism in Gatooma
We have wonderful memories of growing up Jewish in Gatooma, but it was certainly not all rosy. Jews made up a tiny fraction of the town's population. In the 1969 census (when I was 14), the town's population totaled about 21,000, of whom about 1,900 (9%) were White, and about 19,000 (90%) were Black.4 Of the 1,900 Whites, 60 (3%) were Jews. So, as part of a tiny minority in a dominantly Christian environment that was not exactly known for progressive racial or ethnic viewpoints, one was always conscious of one's differences. Additionally, several Jewish families in town ran prominent businesses, so their success was visible to everyone. Predictably, overt anti-Semitism reared its ugly head fairly often, usually in the form of bullies at school calling Eldred or me "Jew boy" or "stingy Jew" or saying we "had killed Jesus". Sharon was largely immune, presumably because she was a girl.
My parents, especially my mom, would not tolerate anti-Semitism. I remember one time when she picked me up from junior school by car, and she could see I was upset. She pressed me for a reason why, and I told her an older boy had called me a "Jew boy". She turned the car around, drove back to the school, found the boy, and gave him a mouthful.
Another anecdote is somewhat humorous but also sad. At junior school, I was elected to play for the school's cricket team with older boys. One of them was a bully and had made disparaging comments about me being Jewish, so I didn't want to play in the match against another school on the upcoming Saturday. I didn't tell my parents. Instead, I wrote a letter in my own handwriting to the headmaster, pretending it was from my parents, stating, "Marc can't play cricket on Saturday because he has to attend his Uncle Max's wedding in Salisbury." I and my parents were called into the headmaster's office to explain, but I can't recall the outcome
Eldred had an even harder time with anti-Semitism because he grew up with a rougher group of boys. These incidents sometimes led to fist fights, one of which Sharon witnessed and tried to intervene in to help Eldred, who had a bloody nose. The boys Eldred's age were seniors in high school when I was a freshman, and I felt intimidated by them. I was especially uneasy when the under-13 cricket team had to travel by bus with the senior team to towns 40 to 180 miles away for matches against other schools. On those trips, we would have to "skivvy" for the seniors, that is, carry their bags and do other menial chores for them. Worst of all, on the bus ride home, the seniors — who always sat in the back — would call up members of the under-13 team one-by-one to tease them and make them perform a song or tell a joke. I was always terrified they would bring up my religion, but I don't recall any specific anti-Semitic incidents directed at me. Luckily, my friends at high school were not at all anti-Semitic. In fact, they were the opposite — they enjoyed spending time with my family and occasionally joined us for Shabbat meals (they liked the kosher wine!).
There were times when my parents were excluded from social events, more than likely because they were Jewish, though they could never be sure. One time when my parents were upset about not being invited to an event, their spirits lifted that same day when Israeli commandos flew from Israel to Entebbe, Uganda, to rescue Israeli and Jewish hostages who were being held there. That mission was led by Yonatan Netanyahu, the brother of current prime minister of Israel, Binyamin Netanyahu. Yonatan was the only commando killed in the rescue. I remember my parents' pride in that operation, with the unsaid feeling being that at least you can always rely on Jews to take care of other Jews.
The End of Jews in Gatooma
Not only have all the descendants of my family disappeared from Gatooma but so has the entire Jewish population. Sadly, the synagogue that took so much time, effort, and fundraising to build was sold to the Jehovah's Witness Church in the 1990s and was demolished and replaced by a new building — its lifespan was a mere 40-odd years. My family's lifespan in Gatooma was longer. My Baltic-born grandfather arrived in this bushveld town in 1910. Ninety-one years later, in 2001, my family's last permanent presence there ended when my aunt, Sadie Hyman (née Chimowitz), passed away in Gatooma.
One could choose to look back on the fate of my family and the Jews of Gatooma with sadness. But I see it differently: our family had a uniquely rich experience, growing up and living in fascinating times in the heart of Africa. And Jewish life was a cornerstone of that experience.
* This article is extracted from a chapter in my recently published book, "From the Baltic to the Bushveld: My Family's Journey in Southern Africa" (available on Amazon.com). The book traces the lives of three generations of a Jewish family in the rural town of Gatooma, Rhodesia, where the family pioneers settled after fleeing Lithuania in the early 1900s.
** At that time, Rhodesia (named in honor of Cecil John Rhodes was divided into Northern Rhodesia (present-day Zambia) and Southern Rhodesia (present-day Zimbabwe) by the Zambezi River.
Bibliography
- Bradley K, Sanger CW. The British South Africa Company. https://www.britannica.com/place/Zimbabwe/The-British-South-Africa-Company
- Our Rhodesian Heritage. Men Who Started Gatooma. Introduction by Nick Baalbergen. https://rhodesianheritage.blogspot.com/2012/06/men-who-started-town-of-gatooma.html.
- Mlambo AS. "Some Are More White Than Others": Racial Chauvinism as a Factor in Rhodesian Immigration Policy, 1890 To 1963. Zambezia (2000), XXVII (II): 139-160.
- Kadoma, Zimbabwe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kadoma,_Zimbabwe.