Global True Lithuania Encyclopedia of Lithuanian heritage worldwide

South Africa

South Africa is unique in that at least 70% or 80% of its Jewish population is descended from Lithuania.

This is in stark contrast with Jewish populations in many of the former European colonies in America, Africa, or Australia, where, typically, Jews of different origins would settle together, blending their cultures.

As such, various Jewish South African museums, buildings, and monuments have a deep connection to Lithuania.

In addition to some 40 000 Jews from Lithuania who immigrated in 1880s-1930s, several thousand ethnic Lithuanians (Roman Catholic and Lutheran) also immigrated in the same era. While there were too few of them to establish Lithuanian churches or clubs, some Lithuanians have left significant visible traces.

Vredehoek synagogue established by Litvaks (Lithuanian Jews) in an avenue named after a Lithuanian rabbi Mirvish with the Cape Town's famous Table Mountain behind it

South African Jewish Museum in Cape Town

South African Jewish Museum in Cape Town has the most Lithuania-related exhibits among South African museums. In fact, few museums in the world that are not dedicated specifically to Lithuanians have so much related to Lithuania in their collection.

The entrance to Cape Town Jewish Museum complex, with the operating synagogue in the background

The highlight there is a Lithuanian shtetl recreated in the basement of a museum. There is a recreated wooden house, a school, and a well from a typical pre-WW1 Lithuanian town, like those where the (great great) grandparents of the current South African Jews emigrated from. Next to this shtetl there is a map of Lithuania’s pre-WW1 shtetls with their Yiddish names, miniature replicas of the Jewish religious hubs of Rietavas (Yiddish: Riteve) and Panevėžys (Yiddish: Ponevez), and exhibits such as letters South Africa’s Jews received from their relatives in Lithuania.

Lithuanian shtetl with a map of such shtetls in the Cape Town Jewish Museum

On the main floor of the museum, many exhibits are related to Lithuania as well, including interwar Lithuanian documents, the story of one of the most famous Lithuania-born South Africans Sammy Marks, the story about Lithuanian Jewish roots of the ostrich farming of Oudtshoorn (see below), and life stories of various South African Jews, some of whom were born in Lithuania (e.g. Nobel prize winner Aaron Klug), while most others were born to parents at least one of which were born in Lithuania.

One of Lithuania-related exhibits in the museum

The museum café is named Café Riteve after the Yiddish name of Rietavas, Lithuania. Rietavas shtetl is featured so prominently in the museum as it is the location where the family of the museum’s founder, Mendel Kaplan, came from. After Lithuania became independent and accessible to foreigners in 1990, Mendel Kaplan researched his family heritage, which culminated in the foundation of the South African Jewish Museum in 2000. The well in the recreated shtetl within the museum is a replica of the one in Rietavas.

Cafe Riteve

As described in the museum, before the 1880s, South Africa had a Jewish population of just 4000. In the upcoming decades, 40000 Jews from Lithuania immigrated, fleeing the economically backwards and undemocratic Russian Empire that ruled Lithuania at the time. The migration of Jews slowed down after Lithuania became independent in 1918 albeit still some 7% of Lithuania’s total (emigrants in 1918-1940 went to South Africa, the majority of them were Jews. In fact, more Jews emigrated from interwar Lithuania to South Africa than to Palestine). In 1930, South Africa curbed the immigration from the countries where Jews would immigrate from, including Lithuania, “sealing” the community. Nevertheless, it continued to grow due to high birth rates, peaking at 120 000 in 1970. Then, the community was drained by emigration to the USA, Australia, and Israel, fuelled by the bad economic conditions of South Africa, firstly due to anti-apartheid sanctions levied against South Africa, and later due to post-apartheid crime and corruption. The total numbers of South African Jews declined to 70000 ~2010 and ~45000 in the 2020s.

A miniature of Panevėžys yeshiva in the Cape Town Jewish Museum

The initial reason why so many Lithuanian Jews ended up in South Africa (a country that was not attractive to Jews from elsewhere) was the promotional activity of Union Castle Mail Steamships, led by Donald Carrie, who organized transportation to South Africa. In later decades, the mere fact that many Litvaks emigrated there before encouraged further migration, as it meant that many Lithuanian Jews had relatives or former neighbors who were now in South Africa. While Lithuanian Jews sought to integrate into the English-speaking South African community, typically losing their Yiddish language within a generation, they kept their Jewish Orthodox religiousness, as well as various food traditions they brought from Lithuania.

Recreated house interior inside the Lithuanian Shtetl of the Cape Town Jewish Museum

The South African Jewish Museum in Cape Town also includes two synagogues, one of which is operational. These were, however, built mostly by the pre-Lithuanian Jewish community of South Africa.

Lithuanian Jewish sites in Cape Town

After arriving in South Africa, Lithuanian Jews would often establish separate synagogues and institutions from the already-existing English and German-speaking Jewish communities of Cape Town. The reasons for this were cultural and economic differences: the “early South African Jews” were often rich businessmen who used English in the synagogues, while the newcomers from Lithuania were relatively poor and saw the original synagogues as too anglicized. The differences blended in just one or two generations, as the children and grandchildren of Lithuanian Jews would become English-speaking professionals and successful businessmen. Thus, there are no longer separate Lithuanian Jewish synagogues, although the mere fact that such a large percentage of South African Jews have their roots in Lithuania means that, unlike in other Jewish communities worldwide, certain Lithuanian traditions and memories became the “mainstream” ones.

Remaining Lithuanian-established synagogues of Cape Town include:
*Ponevez Shul, named after Panevėžys, Lithuania. While it serves as a Jewish school now, the name “Ponevez” is still visible on the building. The Shul was established by Jews from Panevėžys in 1902. It was relocated to the current building (a repurposed home) in 1940.

Ponevez Shul

*Vredehoek Synagogue, purpose-built in art deco style in 1939 and described as having been a “small piece of Lithuania” now has no Lithuania-related signs on the exterior and it serves as a furniture shop.

Vredehoek Synagogue is located next to Rabbi Mirvish Avenue named after its founder Moses Chaim Mirvish (1872-1947) who was born in Baisiogala, Lithuania and migrated to Cape Town in 1908, becoming the first fully qualified rabbo (with Smicha) in the entire Cape Colony.

Rabbi Mirvish Avenue

Numerous other Litvak-established synagogues were closed and torn down.

University of Cape Town has a Kaplan Centre, which serves as a Jewish Studies Research Institute and archive. It was also established by Mendel Kaplan who founded the Cape Town Jewish Museum.

Inside the Kaplan Centre

Heritage of Žemaičių Naumiestis heroes in Gauteng

Gauteng area, which includes South Africa‘s capital city Pretoria, as well as its largest city Johannesburg, is also the heartland of South Africa‘s Lithuanian heritage.

While the ethnic Lithuanian community was never large enough to build its own churches and clubs in South Africa, Lithuanian activities once centred on the Kuisis family and their house in Pretoria. Kuisis family ensured that St. Pius X Catholic Church which they attended would get a Lithuanian stained-glass window in 1984, the year of the 500th anniversary of the birth of Lithuania‘s patron saint Casimir. The window depicts, from bottom to top, Vytis (the Lithuanian coat of arms), St, Casimir, Cathedral of Vilnius (where St. Casimir is buried), and the castle of Gediminas. A plaque under the window says: "St. Casimir, Patron Saint of Lithuania. Born in 1484. Lithuania is a Baltic state. This window was commissioned by the Kuisis family in memory of Vincent and Marianna Kuisis who came to Pretoria from Lithuania in 1904, August 1984".

Lithuanian stained-glass window in Pretoria's St. Pius X Church

Plaque under the stained glass window

Vincent Kuisis and Marianna (Marijona) Kuisis themselves are buried in Rebecca Street Cemetery under a large cross. He was born in 1870 at Žemaičių Naumiestis and died in 1927, thus he was part of the First Wave of Lithuanian emigration which – except for Jews – mostly skipped South Africa, yet, as evidenced in the Pretoria stained-glass window, the family still kept the Lithuanian spirit on even a century later, when Lithuania was occupied by the Soviets (1940-1941, 1944-1990).

Kuisis family graves in the Rebecca Street cemetery of Pretoria

While Kuisis' family is mostly famous for their work celebrating Lithuania, two other famous persons from the same small town of Žemaičių Naumiestis became influential beyond their own community:

Sammy Marks (1844-1920) was a Žemaičių-Naumiestis-born Jewish businessman who had strong political ties in what was then a Boer-led South African Republic, including ties to its president, Paul Kruger, who even had his room in Marks’s home. Sammy Marks House is now a museum (Ditsong Sammy Marks Museum) where one could learn about the life of his family. The last of Marks’s children died in 1981, and the house became a museum in 1986. Many of the family items are on display.

Sammy Marks House near Pretoria

Hermann Kallenbach (1871-1945) was a Žemaičių-Naumiestis-born Jewish architect, who was also a friend of modern India's founding father Mahatma Gandhi. Kallenbach designed the Satyagraha House for him and Gandhi to live together, and then donated land for Gandhi’s Tolstoy Farm in 1910, both of which are now museums celebrating Kallenbach and Gandhi. A street in Johannesburg is also named after him (Kallenbach Drive).

Kallenbach Drive

Furthermore, Kallenbach is now commemorated with two Lithuanian-embassy-funded commemorative plaques that are marked by a Lithuanian coat of arms. Both are located close to Kallenbach Drive. Herman Kallenbach plaque describing the Tolstoy Farm is located near the intersection of Steepways Lane and the Ridge Road. „The Tents“ plaque on the site purchased by Kallenbach in 1909, where he and Gandhi stayed, is located at 8 Grove Road. The house at this address was designed by Kallenbach himself in 1923.

Kallenbach Plaque at Steepways Lane and Ridge Road

The fact that so many people from a single Lithuanian town achieved fame in South Africa is related to the common migration patterns of that era, when people of Lithuania would catch the idea to migrate from their friends and neighbours who already did, with a large share of emigrants from any single Lithuanian town moving to one particular city or town in another continent.

Close-up of the Lithuanian embassy donation marker under the Tents plaque

Lithuanian Jewish sites in Gauteng

Gauteng (Johannesburg and Pretoria) had the largest Lithuanian Jewish communities and they have built numerous sites. Some of the synagogues were, however, established before the immigration of Litvaks, and many of these sites have since fell out of Jewish use, as the original Jewish districts near Johannesburg CBD became unsafe. Here we list the locations where Lithuanian heritage is most visible in the names or decor:

Poswohl Synagogue, named after the Lithuanian town of Pasvalys. It was built in 1921-1922 by a society of Jews from Pasvalys that had been established in 1904. The synagogue is of Neobyzanthine style, with a dome above the main hall, designed by Samuel Victor Mann and built by K. Achber. In 1981 it was recognised as a city heritage, and a plaque was unveiled which claimed that "It also serves as a memorial to the Jews who had remained in Poswohl, all of whom perished in the Holocaust during World War II". However, by the 1980s, the synagogue already lacked a congregation, and currently the building serves as a bar.

Posowohl Synagoge in Johannesburg

Jeppestown Synagogue. Built in 1926 and is claimed by some sources to have a Lithuanian-styled roof. Currently it is serving as the Assembly of God Pentecostal Church, used by more recent immigrants from Angola and Mozambique. No Lithuanian signs remain here.

Jeppestown Synagogue

Brixton Jewish Cemetery. The cemetery has a small circular monument with its history near the entrance. There, it is described that the cemetery, established in 1912 and having had its first Jewish zone burial in 1921, is the final resting place for Rav Mordechai Slom „who resettled his community from Kelme in Lithuania to Oudshorn“ (see below), and various other famous Litvaks.

Entrance monument of the Brixton Jewish Cemetery

A grave in the Jewish section of Brixton cemetery with Lithuania inscribed as the person's birthplace

Vorna Valley, a suburb of Johannesburg en-route to Pretoria. It was named after Varniai, Lithuania, as Varniai used to be the hometown of Galaun family that established the town of Vorna Valley in the 1970s. The main road of Vorna Valley is named after Harry Galaun. Unlike many other places mentioned in this article, Vorna Valley remains in a safe area, next to the huge Mall of Africa mall.

Vorna Valley sign

Lithuanian (Litvak) heritage of Oudtshoorn

Oudtshoorn town is known as the world capital of ostriches, as 70% of ostriches are said to be grown here. This industry was largely developed by Jews from Lithuania in the 1880s-1910s, when there were so many of them here that Oudtshoorn was nicknamed “Jerusalem of South Africa”.

C P Nel Museum of Oudtshoorn

Regional C P Nel Museum includes a Jewish hall. The key element there is the Torah Ark which is said to be a replica of the one of synagogue in Kelmė, Lithuania. With the original in Lithuania destroyed, this is the only such Ark remaining, as well as the only Ark in South Africa to be a replica of one in Europe.

The Torah Ark in Oudtshoorn museum

As described in the museum’s plaques, most of Oudtshoorn’s Jews immigrated in the 1880s-1890s from merely two Lithuanian cities: Šiauliai and Kelmė, and the communities were deeply divided. In 1888-1889, the Queen Street synagogue was opened. While the “Anglicanized” practices of rabbi Woolfson, who had previously served in England, were accepted by the Šiauliai Jews, more conservative and orthodox Kelmė Jews disagreed with them, establishing their own John Street Synagogue in 1892. This was the original place of the Ark of Law, now in C P Nel Museum; however, over time, the two communities united, and, while, after this, they worshipped together in John Street Synagogue, they eventually moved to Queen Street Synagogue, and the John Street Synagogue was closed and demolished. C P Nel Museum saved the Ark and more interior details from that synagogue, and the Jewish hall of the museum itself now doubles as a small synagogue.

The back wall of the Jewish hall of C P Nel Museum

In the 1880s-1910s, the popularity of ostrich feathers in global high fashion made Oudtshoorn a boomtown. Kelmė and Šiauliai Jews arrived to participate in that business, initially just buying and selling the feathers, and eventually earning enough money to establish their own farms and build their own palatial homes, for which Oudtshoorn is famous. However, World War I and shifting fashion trends (the inconvenience of wearing the feathers in automobiles) decimated the Oudtshoorn's ostrich industry, transforming it from a luxury business to a commodity industry (ostrich meat at first, and now tourism). Most Jews then left for larger cities, ending the “Jerusalem of South Africa”.

Part of the descriptions in the C P Nel museum, relating to the Lithuanian history of the local Jewish community

Lithuanian Minor luminary graves in South Africa

Numerous famous Lithuanians died in South Africa. Many of them came from Lithuania Minor, a Lithuanian-Lutheran-majority area that was ruled by Germany prior to the world wars, and the migration patterns of the local Lithuanians thus coincided with those of Germans.

*Pranas Domšaitis (1880-1965) was a Lithuanian expressionist painter who also used many African motifs in his paintings. A gallery in Klaipėda, Lithuania is named after him. As the area where he had been born in was Germanizing in his childhood, initially, he used the Germanized version of his name, Franz Domscheit. However, he became a citizen of Lithuania in 1920 (after the country became independent), despite his home village of Kropynos (Cropiens) not being included in the independent Lithuania, and him continuing to live in Germany. When the Nazis came to power there, they disliked Domšaitis’s art so much that they included it in an exhibition of degenerate art in 1937. Thus, since 1938, Domšaitis doubled down on his Lithuanian identity and used only the Lithuanian version of his name. Lithuanian version of his name is the only one inscribed on his grave in the Plumstead Cemetery of Cape Town (where he emigrated to in 1949). The grave was damaged by 2010s but restored under the initiative of the Lithuanian embassy in Pretoria. Now it also includes a QR code which give access to Domšaitis’s life story in English.

The grave of Pranas Domšaitis

*Erdmann Swchwellnus (Lith. Erdmonas Švelnius) (1841-1910) was a Lithuanian missionary. As he also hailed from the then-German-ruled Lithuania Minor, he joined the Berlin Mission Society and his name is usually written in a Germanized orthography. He helped establish Lutheran missions in Vendaland. His son, also named Erdmann, translated the Bible in Venda language. He is buried in Maungani cemetery near Thohoyandou town, under a metal cross, one side of which quotes Bible in Venda.

Erdmann Schwellnus grave

Memel town named after Klaipėda, Lithuania

The town of Memel, Free State is said to be named after the city of Klaipėda, Lithuania.

Memel is the German name for Klaipėda. It was the official-language name of the city until World War I, when Klaipėda was ruled by Germany as a part of Lithuania Minor. It was also the era when Memel, South Africa was established: as a settlement (farm) in 1880, becoming a village in 1912 and a town in 1914.

A monument in Memel, celebrating the town

As Klaipėda became part of Lithuania in 1923 and no longer has German as an official language since 1945, Memel of South Africa became the sole city in the world named Memel.

The sources associating South Africa’s Memel’s name with Klaipėda describe the town as named by a surveyor Starszacker who came from East Prussia, Germany, likely from Kaipėda area.

While Straszacker may have been German or Germanized Lithuanian, most of the inhabitants of Memel were either of Boer (Afrikaner) or, to a lesser extent, British descent, as visible in the names on cemetery graves.

Entrance to Memel

During the apartheid era (until early 1990s), only whites were permitted to settle in the town of Memel itself, which has a population of 700. However, a black-only “sister-town” Zamani developed nearby. It has since outgrown Memel tenfold with a population of 7000, swallowing the golf course that once separated the two towns. The joint town is now sometimes called Memel-Zamani, although the name Memel still prevails and is a part of names of many businesses, e.g. the 1914-established Memel Hotel.

Memel Hotel

Local tourism promoters claim that the name Memel itself originated from an Old Prussian phrase “Surrounded by waters”, which is fitting for Memel, South Africa as well, as it is surrounded by wetlands. What's certain is that the Memel name originated from the river name Memel, which is a German name for the Lithuanian river of Nemunas (as the German founders of Klaipėda falsely believed it to be located on the mouth of Nemunas), however, the origin of the river name is not completely known, other theories attributing it to Lithuanian “mėmė” (“dumb”).