Jock Izacowitz his life and time and the early days of Apartheid. 30/11/20
This memoir was important to me as my father was a friend of Jocks and we had relative related to his family.
Roys father Jock died when Roy was 10 years old, in 1962 of leukemia at the age of 47.
Roy's mother was Eileen. His wife Dodik and daughters Lior, Noar and Zoe. He has a sister Tessa and brother Steven
Jocks brother Issy as well as Roy live in Israel. In 2017 Roy took early retirement and had a large pile of letters from his father and grandmother some from when Jock was in jail during the emergency. Jock's father also died when he was young 7 and his mother Sara Lior ne Bear born in Krok(Krakes Lithuania today) 1893 ran a grocery store in Benoni. His maternal grandmother Racher Lurie was born in Whitechapel. Jock's parents were married in 1912
Kelmowitz, Isacowitz , Goldberg and Sher families were related. Max Potash a close friend of Jock's, married his cousin Ruth Bear. Sarah's father Jankel arrived in SA 9 years before his wife and children arrived leaving a chasm in the family. Jack Kelmowitz was Sarah's sister Fanny's son.
1795 Russia took full control of Lithuania, the majority of the Hebrew intellectuals and writers were litvaks.
1880 ORT Jewish vocational training network was established in St. Petersburg
1882 May Laws - till 1920 2 million Jews a third of the population emigrated.
1896 The South African School of Mines started in Kimberley, then became the Transvaal Technical College and became Wits University in 1922.
1902 The Immigration Restriction Act approved of Yiddish as a European Language.1907 Benoni gets a city municipality. Jock was the 3rd of 5 children he matriculated in 1931 at the age of 16.
1907 1913 were years of mining strikes and 1922 the Rand Rebellion. In 1918 there were 200,000 workers on the mines, mostly black 20,000 were white.
1912 When the Union Defense Force was formed senior posts were allocated equally between English and Afrikaans speakers, black were excluded from the army.
1912 Mines Work Act and 1913 Land Act entrenched the colour bar on all walks of life.
WW1 230,0000 had enlisted 12,452 had been killed. 83,000 blacks and 2.500 Coloured had served mainly in labour contingents After the war a memorial was erected in Delville Wood battlefield rather than having a controversy of erecting it in SA. The Cape Corps which eventually had 18000 men were given a place of honor marching behind Allenby into Jerusalem.
1928Jewish workers Club in Doornfontein was established by the Yiddish Lithuanian born Bundists. Taffy Adler must have heard about the cultural life this provided from his father?
Nation Union of SA Students founded in 1924 by Leo Marquard and was at all white universities but the Afrikaanse Nasionale Studentbond ANS broke away in 1933.
1929 SA Institute of Race Relations established
1931 Jock matriculated . All 3 Izacowitz brothers studied pharmacy as it was an apprenticeship with an immediate salary. 1937 Jock got his Pharmacy certificate. 1940 volunteered for the army.
Vanguard books run by Phillip Glass supplied socialist books and people met there. Baruch Hirson described this. There was also Salmon Book store in Eloff Street similar., In the mid 1937 Jock's mother moved to Joel Street, Berea with the youngest son Shollie.
1937 Immigrations of Jews to SA was halted.
In 1939 40% of the medical students at Wits University were Jewish.
The fall of Leon Blum in France . The revolt against President Cardenas who proposed distributing land to the peasants and the Spanish civil war all showed that capital and aristocracy opposed progressive's reform.
At Wits. University Raikes the Chancellor was a supporter of the Smuts government and the war and exams were brought forward so that students could volunteer for the military.
WW2 all SA troops were volunteers to avoid a controversy, only one son of a widowed mother could volunteer. To avoid danger of Uboats in sea travel during war they took a train to Broken Bridge in N. Rhodesia and trucks over land.
The East African campaign was the first Allied victory in the war, It is the most overlooked campaign as it is overshadowed by Stalingrad but it was important to protect the Suez Canal from the Italians. There were 91,000 Italians and 200,000 colonial troops, they were defeated and the biggest battle was on the Juba River. They then travelled on the Strada Imperiale a thousand miles from Mogadishu to Addis Ababa. Relatively few SA troops or allies were lost in this campaign.
A quarter of the 40,000 volunteers who fought fascism in Spain from 53 countries were Jewish.
Ruth Hayman and Marion Friedman were some of his close friends in the Liberal Party
Over 400,000 South African men white and black volunteered to fight fascism in WW2
1942 Springbok legion was formed to help SA troops especially when they returned home and Jock was elected chairman, Black and Coloured troops were in this also. Job retraining and payment on being demobilized. The AES Army Education Senter was to create less dissent in the army; it was a great success as back home the sentiments were very against the war amongst Afrikaners. Germany's Seesen radio targeted SA in Afrikaans broadcasts. Jock was sent home in 1942 with a bad knee. In the army back home he worked in the aptitude test section to choose who was suitable to become pilots.
At war's end there were no ships to bring SA troops back and many suffered at Helwan Camp, Egypt, and there were riots, it took 10 month to get the troops home.
Jock was the national chairman of the Springbok Legion, the brains behind the Torch Commando, founding member of the Liberal Party and had been in the Communist party while the Soviets were fighting Nazism till he became disenchanted with them. In 1951 Jock started withdrawing from activities in Springbok Legion as it began to take a communist bias. Leo Lovell was a Jewish lawyer from Benoni who worked with Jock in the Springbok Legion.
Torch Commando run by John Lang, also "Sailor" Malan, this was short lived but brought thousands of ex-servicemen out onto the streets. The issue was the disenfranchisement of the Cape Coloureds
1944 Hilda Watts later Bernstein was the only communist ever elected to the Jo'burg City Council for Hillbrow.
1945 Jock married Eileen Lurie of Luipaardsvlei West Rand in Wolmarans street Shul. Her father Tevya came from Kursenai , Lituania . Jock visited the DP camps in Germany and Israel in 1948 and saw the war on.
The Holocaust had a profound effect on Jock and most Jews who had seen themselves as Atheists. Many realized that they would always be Jews and supported the establishment of Israel in this period.
As a kid Roy watched soccer at Balfour Park where Martin Cohen his parents nephew played. He also mentioned Jock being friendly with Hilda and Dave Sakalowsky, my mothers sister. Roy's grandmother Sarah died in Netanya in 1984.
Dennis Goldberg spent 23 years in jail. 62 of the 132 whites named under the suppression of communism were Jewish. All white defendants at the Rivonia Trial were Jewish.
Jock studied philosophy under Reunhold Hoernle who later was a founding member of the SA Institute of Race Relations.
When Britain declared war PM JB Hertzog declared South African neutrality. There had been German volunteers fighting with the Boers against the British, 80 to a 67 majority supported Smuts and voted to cooperate with Britain and sever ties with Germany. Smuts's son, a 2nd Lieutenant of the engineers was posted to Wajir, Kenya where Jock was.
Harry Best had taught many kids boxing including the Toweel brothers in Benoni.
1948 After the Nationalists were elected the Broederbond had a hold over the railways, post office and police. They had started in 1918. Between 1948 and 1994 every SA PM or President was a member. In the 30s and 40 the NP used the Jewish Question as a rallying cry but once they were elected and real issues presented themselves the Jewish bogeyman disappeared. There were also Jew-hater amongst the English speakers.
1948 Elected to the Executive Council of SAJB -Jewish board of deputies. The holocaust had a profound affect on most Jewish attitudes at this time. In SA the Jewish policy was non involvement in the political situation. Thus the Board made a Faustian bargain with apartheid regime. Jock was involved in organizing and training SA men, mostly war veterans to fight in Israel.
Jock often went to Smuts house in Irene for consultations , today that house is a museum. The Liberal Party had spoken about the "winds of change in Africa" long before Macmillan
1946 Kibbutz Shovel, established by SA Hashomer Hatzair.In Israel Neve Ilan was established by French Resistance fighter of WW2 Leon Pincus became chairman of El Al and later the Jewish Agency.
1947 Mayan Baruch founded by SA WW2 veterans..
Jock bought 79 Fife Ave , Berea. Next to the fire station. They used to swim at Bram Fischers Pool.
1948 South Africa s Foreign Minister was the first foreign diplomat to visit Israel - irony he was Eric Louw one of the leading anti-semites in the NP.
1959 Progressive Party established
1968 Liberal Party disbanded
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