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The reb and the rebel - Jewish narratives in South Africa 1892-1913 (Paperback)
Loot Price: R257
Discovery Miles 2 570
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The reb and the rebel - Jewish narratives in South Africa 1892-1913 (Paperback)
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List price R329
Loot Price R257
Discovery Miles 2 570
You Save R72 (22%)
Expected to ship within 5 - 10 working days
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The origin and development of the South African Jewish community is
one small part of a vast and varied literature on the formation of
19th-century diasporic communities, worldwide. Records include
ships' passenger lists, transit placements, immigration papers,
memoirs, reminiscences and letters home and abroad. However,
unedited, unbowdlerised memoirs that purport to tell how it
actually was are few and far between. Such are the manuscripts of
two members of the Schrire family. The reb and the rebel contains
three previously unpublished autobiographical works mainly covering
the period 1892-1913: A diary, a poem and a memoir. The first two
were written by Yehuda Leib Schrire (1851-1912), and are set in a
number of countries including Lithuania, Holland, England and South
Africa. The third is by his son, Harry Nathan (1895-1980). Few of
the early immigrants to South Africa were writers, let alone poets,
and the social history provided in these documents embellishes and
enlivens the picture of South African Jewish communities at the
turn of the 20th century. Neither was ever intended for wide
distribution nor for the discipline of an editor's pencil. Two
manuscripts literally penned by Yehuda Leib Schrire, in pre-Ben
Yehuda Hebrew, were intended as memoirs, reminders of his struggles
to help his children understand his picaresque life. The account by
his son Harry was written as a family memoir. Both writers chose
their words carefully and neither script could be called hasty or
even informal. Yehuda Leib transcribed his original diary into a
neat, readable record and he embellished his epic poem with lavish
scholarly allusions; Harry, on the other hand, deliberately wrote
as he spoke, and with such intentionality that he forbade the
transcriber to change the original in any way whatsoever. The
voices of these two men differ. One is a foreign immigrant and the
other, a Cape-born native of South Africa. Threads of his European
Talmudic learning are braided tightly into the travels of Yehuda
Leib, while Harry's words are studded with turn-of-the-century Cape
Yiddish such as once echoed through the alleys and parlours of
District Six. You might catch an indignant yowl as Yehuda Leib
recalls his former colleagues, and sense his wife patting his arm
as he stamps his stick. You might hear the rattle of tea cups as
his wife Lily interrupts Harry's recollections of the old gang
commandeering the corner of Harrington and Commercial streets
almost a century ago. These manuscripts are the stuff of which
history is made. Their publication represents a labour of love by
their editors, translators and donors.
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