Editor: Dr Saul Issroff
Copyright © 2003 Saul Issroff, Mike Getz, SAfrica SIG
and Jewishgen Inc.
URL: http://www.jewishgen.org/SAfrica/bibliography/bibliog-2.htm
Revised: 28 July 2002

In SAFRICA Digest for Saturday 25 November, 2000,
Jules Feldman [ jfeldman@yizrael.org.il ] wrote:

Originally published in Yiddish (Johannesburg 1940) this book appeared in an English translation in 1989.

It captures the atmosphere of Oudtshoorn in its Jewish heyday and is a must for anyone interested in this shtetl. I can not resist quoting Leibl Feldman take a dig at the Yidden of Oudtshoorn when he complains (page 63) that the only person who could speak decent Yiddish to the visiting Yiddish writer Peretz Hirshbein was the Afrikaans Mayor Jannie De Jager.

For Leibl, my father's cousin, Yiddish was very important; his Zulu driver, George, spoke a fluent Yiddish and was critical of this "yunge shaigetz" who did not. Leibl was born in Skopeshik (Skapiskis) in 1896 and arrived in Johannesburg in 1910.

Jules Feldman
Kibbutz Yizreel

On 25 June 2002, Dr Saul Issroff wrote:

"Oydtshoorn: Yerushalayim d'Afrike" by Leybl Feldman is one of the more than 10000 reproductions of Yiddish books available from the National Yiddish Book Center as part of the Steven Spielberg Digital Yiddish Library.

This book was translated into English : Feldman, Leibl. Oudtshoorn, Jerusalem of Africa. trans. by Lilian Dubb and Sheila Barkunsky in 1989, edited with a introduction by Joseph Sherman and historical notes and commentary by John Simon. Friends of the Library, University of Witwatersrand: Johannesburg. Limited edition of 250 copies.
ISBN 1-868-14129-2.