Editor: Dr Saul Issroff
Copyright © 2000 Saul Issroff, Mike Getz, SAfrica SIG
and Jewishgen Inc.
URL: http://www.jewishgen.org/SAfrica/synagogues/10/index.htm
Revised: 24 November 2000

In SAFRICA Digest for Thursday, November 23, 2000, Robyn Lichter [ robyn_lichter@hotmail.com ] wrote: My mother's family, the Morris family, were in Oudtshoorn. Mark Morris was my great grandfather. He was involved in the Queen Street Shule and also the establishment of the Jewish Day School which was the first Jewish Day School in SA, I think, and moreover a government school! He owned a few hotels in the area, including the Criterion, and was considered one of the Ostrich Barons. This hotel still exists and is now called "The Baron!"

In SAFRICA Digest for Wednesday, November 22, 2000, E. Goldstein [ eligold@virtual-ventures.co.za ] wrote: Among old timers, the town of Oudtshoorn in the semi-arid Little Karoo was known as the "Jerusalem of Africa". Lithuanian Jews were pioneers in the ostrich feather trade and developed it into an important export business. Two synagogues were built in Oudtshoorn. The older shul was the one in Queen Street and this was regarded as too "Anglicised" by some of the newcomers. This led to the building of the St John's Street Synagogue in 1892 which was nicknamed the "Greene Shul", while the Queen Street Congregation was called the "Englische Shul" Most of the congregants from Queen Street came from Siauliai (Shavli or Shavel) in Lithuania, whereas most of those at St John's Street Shul were from Kelme. Jews from Kelme were among the most active in the feather trade and they strove valiantly to re-create the atmosphere of their beloved home town synagogue and graft it on to the veld. Many years later, when the synagogue, which was originally in St Johns Street(1896), fell into disuse, the magnificent onion-domed ark was preserved in Outdtshoorn's C.P. Nel Museum, which has a special Jewish section. The Ostrich feather industry collapsed just before the onset of the first world war. It was at its height in about 1907.