Early Experiences of a First Generation Jewish South African

By Max Israel Shaff

Recollections of growing up in South Africa during and following the second world war, with the election of a nationalist postwar government, responsible for the passage of Apartheid into the law of the land. The son of Eastern European Jewish immigrants. Formative years spent in a divided country separated by race, religion, language and ethnicity still bearing residual scars of both the Xhosa and Boer wars. It is however first and foremost a family saga.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: Feb 8, 2018
• ISBN: 9781483479248

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SHAFF

Copyright © 2018 Max Israel Shaff.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means—whether auditory, graphic, mechanical, or electronic—without written permission of the author, except in the case of brief excerpts used in critical articles and reviews. Unauthorized reproduction of any part of this work is illegal and is punishable by law.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

ISBN: 978-1-4834-7925-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4834-7926-2 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4834-7924-8 (e)

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Lulu Publishing Services rev. date: 01/24/2018

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EARLY EXPERIENCES OF A

FIRST GENERATION JEWISH SOUTH AFRICAN

IMGjpg1962.jpg

Gulf of Riga; Riga Liepaja (Libau)

Preface

The commercial world has become flooded with entities seeking to exploit the inquisitiveness of people regarding their origins and provenance. Geneological and genetic web sites, provide searches of governmental and state records as well as human genomes. The former supplies a series of names of persons who may or may not be related without any information concerning the bearer of these names. Genetic data is based on the statistical evidence that certain genes are more common in one group of humans than another. We all possess genetic material that goes back to our early origins and to the first strands of duplicating nucleotides. As a thought experiment we all have two parents and four Grandparents and then eight Great Grandparents, and so on. Now 2 to the power of 30 is 1,073,741,824 and that amount is in excess of a billion people. Because our origins are from a smaller population inhabiting the earth geneticists propose that as we go back in history the family tree is better regarded as a family bush. Going forward the math is equally alarming because your Great, Great, Great, Grandchildren may not carry any of your genetic material at all.

The only history that is of value to us, is recent history of close relatives, that is unless you are titillated to know that you carry a non-human yeast gene. This statement does nothing to disregard the immense present and future value of genetics in the study, prediction and treatment of disease.

This is where an old codger like me comes in handy. Over my 80 years I have known and talked with Falk Shaff born in 1896 and Chaim Falk Shaff born in 2000, a span of 104 years. I can give you historical information of the lives, times, trials and tribulations of family living in a particular period and the related circumstances under which they toiled. I have attempted to give life to your ancestors.

When an elderly person departs this world their stored memories and the concomitant information is lost forever.

This is the reason behind this book.

Dedication

To my beloved Family with everlasting love, but above all to my darling wife, Michelle, the prime source of all that we cherish and for me especially, my life time partner, inspiration, seer, sage and guide who showed me how to navigate the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune and to savor the cornucopia of the gifts of life.

There is a tide in the affairs of men.

Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;

Omitted, all the voyage of their life

Is bound in shallows and in miseries.

On such a full sea are we now afloat,

And we must take the current when it serves,

Or lose our ventures.

Julius Caesar Act 4, scene 3, 218–224

William Shakespeare.

List of Illustrations

Gulf of Riga; Riga Liepaja (Libau)

Fig.1 Falk Shaff aged approximately 22yrs old

Fig.2 Chaia my paternal Grandmother

Fig3a. Falk Reva Lena Baruch Ben Zion Libau post 1912

Fig3b. Israel and Leo Johannesburg post 1912

Fig.4 Falk aged approximately 50

Fig.5 Falk and Reva in their teens

Fig.6 My mother Nusha aged approximately 50

Fig 7. Max in army uniform aged 4 1942

Fig.8 My cousin Bert (Pondy) as a young man.

Fig. 9 Matriculation class 1954

Fig.10 Brother Barry digging while teaching Latin.

Fig.11 Gabby and Darryn London Xmas 1972.

Hebrew – Yiddish names

My Mother and Father Insert

Max and Michelle

Hilda aged 6 Max aged 4

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Fig.1 Falk Shaff aged approximately 22yrs old

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Fig.2 Chaia my paternal Grandmother

Chapter 1

FALK

My father Falk Shaff (Fig 1) was born on the 21st of December 1896 in the coastal city of Libau, now known as Liepaja, a city situated 100 miles to the west of Riga, Latvia. Three coastal countries Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, hug the Baltic Sea and comprise the Baltic States. The family had migrated from the neighboring shtetl (small village) of Skoudas some years prior to my father’s birth. Falk was the youngest of five siblings