THE OSTRICH CAPITAL OF THE WORLD AND THE EMERGENCE OF A JEWISH SOUTH AFRICAN COMMUNITY
Having had a few free days in my schedule, I decided to go to “The Little Karoo”, a dry area in the Eastern Cape in between two mountain ranges - one being the Swartberg Mountain Chain (Black Mountains). The dry and warm area conditions are ideal for the breeding of ostriches. As such, the area around Oudtshoorn - the unofficial small town capital of this region – is dotted with game reserves, Victorian stone masonry cottages, curio shops with anything/everything ostrich, and touristy/non-touristy ostrich farms. The feel is most assuredly “Afrikaner” and English is a mere secondary language of means with tourists.
As the day started, I went to Chandelier Game Reserve to take a tour of their ostrich operation and nearly killed myself on a three-wheeler riding around the reserve with a guide. I was truly impressed with the myriad of ways that farmers take advantage of this bird. While, at the turn of the Twentieth Century, ostrich feathers were worth more than gold as the demand for such feathers in the fashion industry was of paramount importance and many grew rich on this awkward looking avian creature, the outbreak of World War One in Europe put an end to the feather boom. Yet, in modern times, the industry is again lucrative but in the most diverse of ways. Ostrich farms raise funds entertaining tourists and selling ostrich related curios, including the stuffing of unborn chicks for interested tourists. Ostrich meat is sold throughout the world and its leathery skin fetches a high price. Non-fertile and abnormal eggs are either ground-down to provide calcium to females within breeding pairs or sold to craftsmen who hollow out the eggs and apply decoupage to create lamps, tea kettles, and an as sundry of egg curios. The manure is used to create paper. Eggs are collected from breeding pairs and given to breeders to incubate thus inspiring females in pairs to lay even more eggs. Some of these chicks will be selected for breeding, if large, while the majority will be sold to slaughter houses for the production and curing of meat. It is far from unusual to find ostrich, Kudu (deer) or Springbok (deer) on local menus.
In the early years of the Twentieth Century, many farmers of ostrich were Afrikaners. Yet, at the same time, many Jewish South Africans were also involved in the trade of ostrich-related products on the world market. Having originally fled Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia and other areas of Central/Eastern Europe because of anti-Semitic pogroms, the Jewish community around Oudtshoorn soon numbered in the thousands and led to the creation of two major synagogues. At one point, this was the largest concentrations of Jewish South Africans even larger than those people who congregated in the Johannesburg and Kimberley areas because of the trade in gold and diamonds. One of these synagogues, originally built in the 1890s, can now be seen intact within the town’s C.P. Nel Museum as the building itself was torn down after the Jewish community began to dissipate following the bust of the feather market after World War One. Much of this community relocated to Johannesburg, Cape Town, and/or overseas. Today, there are only five or six Jewish families living in the area and rabbis must come from the populated cities of South Africa to service the religious needs of these families. In Cape Town, I also plan on visiting the Jewish Museum and the Holocaust Centre.
Having had a few free days in my schedule, I decided to go to “The Little Karoo”, a dry area in the Eastern Cape in between two mountain ranges - one being the Swartberg Mountain Chain (Black Mountains). The dry and warm area conditions are ideal for the breeding of ostriches. As such, the area around Oudtshoorn - the unofficial small town capital of this region – is dotted with game reserves, Victorian stone masonry cottages, curio shops with anything/everything ostrich, and touristy/non-touristy ostrich farms. The feel is most assuredly “Afrikaner” and English is a mere secondary language of means with tourists.
As the day started, I went to Chandelier Game Reserve to take a tour of their ostrich operation and nearly killed myself on a three-wheeler riding around the reserve with a guide. I was truly impressed with the myriad of ways that farmers take advantage of this bird. While, at the turn of the Twentieth Century, ostrich feathers were worth more than gold as the demand for such feathers in the fashion industry was of paramount importance and many grew rich on this awkward looking avian creature, the outbreak of World War One in Europe put an end to the feather boom. Yet, in modern times, the industry is again lucrative but in the most diverse of ways. Ostrich farms raise funds entertaining tourists and selling ostrich related curios, including the stuffing of unborn chicks for interested tourists. Ostrich meat is sold throughout the world and its leathery skin fetches a high price. Non-fertile and abnormal eggs are either ground-down to provide calcium to females within breeding pairs or sold to craftsmen who hollow out the eggs and apply decoupage to create lamps, tea kettles, and an as sundry of egg curios. The manure is used to create paper. Eggs are collected from breeding pairs and given to breeders to incubate thus inspiring females in pairs to lay even more eggs. Some of these chicks will be selected for breeding, if large, while the majority will be sold to slaughter houses for the production and curing of meat. It is far from unusual to find ostrich, Kudu (deer) or Springbok (deer) on local menus.
In the early years of the Twentieth Century, many farmers of ostrich were Afrikaners. Yet, at the same time, many Jewish South Africans were also involved in the trade of ostrich-related products on the world market. Having originally fled Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia and other areas of Central/Eastern Europe because of anti-Semitic pogroms, the Jewish community around Oudtshoorn soon numbered in the thousands and led to the creation of two major synagogues. At one point, this was the largest concentrations of Jewish South Africans even larger than those people who congregated in the Johannesburg and Kimberley areas because of the trade in gold and diamonds. One of these synagogues, originally built in the 1890s, can now be seen intact within the town’s C.P. Nel Museum as the building itself was torn down after the Jewish community began to dissipate following the bust of the feather market after World War One. Much of this community relocated to Johannesburg, Cape Town, and/or overseas. Today, there are only five or six Jewish families living in the area and rabbis must come from the populated cities of South Africa to service the religious needs of these families. In Cape Town, I also plan on visiting the Jewish Museum and the Holocaust Centre.
2 comments:
How wonderful it must be to see and experience the diversity of the cultures and yet note the subtle commonalities. After viewing some of the wildlife pictures, it's easy to forget that these are not the creatures we find in a zoo. A visitor can easily receive a "reminder" from the animal itself I'm sure. This is a fascinating blog. Look forward to reading more.
Thanks Michael.
Look forward to reading more on the Colored/Malay Culture of the Cape (i.e. Cape Town area). This seems to be the dominant group here and includes both Muslim/non-muslim communities. The school where I am shadowing the principal is a mostly colored school.
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