The television series launched on July 11, 2021 as an online charity premiere for the Union of Jewish Women, which my late mother, Roseve (Saacks) Linde, once headed.
According to the documentary, a Jewish presence in Southern Africa can be traced as far back as Fernão Martins, a converso – a Portuguese Jew forced to convert to Christianity – who was selected by Vasco da Gama to be his translator on his first voyage in 1497, via southern Africa to India, to explore the trade route to the East.
Since then, Jewish immigrants and their descendants have left their mark in many ways. There have been doctors and lawyers, rabbis and parliamentarians, hawkers and diamond-diggers, industrialists and Randlords, renegade Boer War commandos and Nobel Prize winners, artists and activists. All are part of the rich complexity of Jewish life on the southern tip of Africa.
“Legends and Legacies: A Story of a Community is the most comprehensive account of the South African Jewish community ever attempted on screen,” according to a press release. Conceived and produced by Wade, written and presented by Alan Swerdlow, the series is, in its words, “a careful consideration of how the community came to be, found a home, and integrated into a very alien society.”
South Africa was primarily rural, a dusty and an untamed place, initially a Dutch East India Company outpost in the 17th and 18th centuries, then under the control of the British Empire during the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Most Jews arrived as refugees from pogroms in Eastern Europe, while others were adventurers and explorers. The first group were Anglo-Germans at the beginning of the 19th century, later Litvaks from the Pale of Settlement, “Yekkes” from Germany in the 20th century, and Sephardim from Greece and Rhodes.
Most of the immigrants spoke Yiddish, and had to learn both English and Afrikaans (and African languages such as Xhosa and Zulu), as well as adjust to a scorching climate. Arriving destitute, they soon developed numerous crafts and skills. Some became smouse, an Afrikaans word for traders, traveling by horse cart between villages and selling household goods. There is even a monument to honor “Jewish pedlars” in the town of Graaff-Reinet in the Eastern Cape.
From those early beginnings, Jews rose to become top industrialists, mining magnates, wholesalers and retailers, making an indelible imprint on their adopted homeland.
The TV series took nearly seven years to complete, with many frustrating years spent knocking on doors to raise funds. Wade and Swerdlow, with a tiny production crew, crossed the country, uncovering little-known stories of the community, and “found joy and sadness, and remarkable achievement, both in the major cities and the small villages, in which the Jewish immigrants sought a new life.”
Legends and Legacies is the proud story of the achievements, aspirations, setbacks and recovery of a small Jewish community that defied the odds and flourished.
Registered participants may view the live webcast and have access to a private YouTube channel to view the series at their leisure. Episodes 1 to 8 are being broadcast weekly, every Sunday, at 6 p.m. Central African Time (CAT), from 11 July to 29 August. Late registrants will be given access on a private YouTube channel.Register at: bit.ly/LegendsAndLegacies.