Cape Town - Chic, Colonial, and Californian
Trip Start
Jul 23, 2008
1
7
8
Trip End
Aug 11, 2008
Where I stayed
Cape Town, South Africa
Sunday, August 10, 2008
We arrive in Cape Town and are met by our guide, Tony Shuman, a landsmann, and the self-described Danny DeVito of Africa.
Although this is our last stop in Africa, Cape Town is the beginning of the story of the development of South Africa into a bustling, modern multiracial society.
It is also provides us with the backdrop for exploring South African Jewish history which starts here as well.
Our first day we explore the length of the Peninsula and head to the Southwesternmost point of Africa.
Here the warm water currents that emanate from the north and the Indian Ocean meet the cold water currents arising from the South Atlantic near Antarctica to create a unique climate.
Although we are here in the midst of winter the area has a feeling of Big Sur or San Francisco. We intersperse dramatic cliff drives overlooking the ocean with stops in beach towns full of art galleries, antique shops and surfer dudes.
This area was probably first discovered by Vasco da Gama, the Portuguese explorer who was the first to find the sea route to the Spice Coast of India.
In the Renaissance years in Europe, spices were the most valuable commodities (with no refrigeration available to store meat) and the overland route to India was expensive and treacherous.
With the help of hidden Jews who were victims of the Spanish & Portuguese Inquisitions of the late 15th century, de Gama found the sea route to Asia that would make the kingdoms of Portugal, Holland and England rich.
At this spot the sailors could feel the dramatic difference in the temperature of the two water currents marking the beginning of their journey back northward into the Indian Ocean.
Having completed the treacherous Atlantic leg of their journey, the sailors named this spot The Cape of Good Hope.
On our way down we stop in the towns of Muizenebrg, Kalk, Fishhoek, Simonstown and Boulders, where a colony of African Penguins make their home.
African Penguins used to number 1.5 million and their habitat extended all the way up into the Namibian coast. Warming climates and overfishing for herring and smelt has destroyed most of their habitat and now their numbers are down by 90%.
The decline in the penguin population has also led to a decline in the seal and shark population as well.
The protected reserve around the Cape of Good Hope is home to the Cape Floristic Kingdom, the smallest but richest of the world's six floral kingdoms.
The 1100 indigenous species of plants (including the King Protea, the national flower of South Africa) support wildlife as diverse as bontebok, hyrax, ostrich, baboons and eland.
From the shore we watch the migration of the Southern Right Whale.
We hike up to the lighthouse and Marcia, Becca, Veronica and Jess take the hour-long hike down to the Point.
At the bottom we meet up and talk to two Scotsmen, wearing kilts, who just today completed their 4-½ month drive from Edinburgh to Cape Point that they documented at www.kiltstocapetown.com.
We end the day at the Waterfront Mall where we catch a Yellowtail dinner and take a taxi home.
The next day we head out for Robben Island, the Alcatraz of Africa, where Nelson Mandela spent most of his 27 years in captivity along with hundreds of other anti-apartheid political prisoners.
We are led around the prison by Eugene, who spent 7 years imprisoned here for his role in leading demonstrations against the requirement for black high schools to stop teaching in English and begin teaching all subjects in Afrikaans.
Eugene described his torture during the 90-day period that he was allowed to be held without charges, his confession and his sentencing.
On Robben Island apartheid continued unabated. Prisoners were stripped of their identity and given numbers, they still had to carry passes, and the black prisoners got less rations and worse prison garb than the "coloureds."
White prisoners were not even held here - they had their own jail.
Despite the deprivations and the life sentences that many received, the political prisoners from all over South Africa worked on defining the society they would lead when they were freed and, miraculously, they left as free men without bitterness in 1990.
By 1994, Mandela had won a Nobel Peace Prize, had become President and helped lead a process of truth telling and reconciliation. Anyone who admitted guilt in partaking in state sponsored crimes (including murder) and sincerely asked for forgiveness was granted amnesty.
In the afternoon we took the cable car to the top of Table Mountain and met Shoshana Botnik, a lawyer from Los Angeles who was traveling the world on her own.
The ANC (African National Congress) led government is the seventh regime to rule this area since the Dutch East India Company sent up shop in 1652. Unlike their brethren in the Dutch West India Company that settled New Amsterdam (New York), these Dutch wouldn't allow religious freedom, so Jewish settlement didn't really get started until after the early 1800's.
After Britain defeated Napoleon Bonaparte it reclaimed this area in 1806 and a process of industrialization and nation building began. While a few Anglo Jews came to South Africa during that period, the community didn't start in earnest (with synagogues, schools and cemeteries) until mid century, especially after diamonds are discovered in the 1860's and gold is discovered in the 1880's.
This period coincided with the restrictions and pogroms of Tsarist Russia and South Africa allowed relatively unrestricted Jewish emigration and Jewish civil rights until 1930. As a result almost 40,000 Lithuanian Jews left the shtetl and, in most cases, arrived nearly penniless to search for freedom and fortune.
Within two generations the community numbered 120,000 and was the most Zionist and wealthy Jewish community in the world.
Highlights of the community's accomplishments include domination of the Ostrich feather business in the early 1900's, the opening of South Africa's coal fields, the leadership of DeBeers Diamond Mines, and even the mayor's office of both Cape Town and Johannesburg between 1905 and 1910 (there wasn't even a Jewish mayor of New York until 1973!).
Apartheid, compulsory army service, and the unattractiveness of small communities led many to emigrate over the past 30 years. Today the community numbers below 90,000 with Cape Town's Jewish population having dwindled to about 15,000. Despite that there continues to be Jewish Day schools and a Jewish high schools and vibrant synagogues.
We visit with Stan and Brenda Troupe who we were told were part of the extended Shifrin family, a branch of which settled in South Africa. It seems that every Jewish family in South Africa has close relatives in Israel, Canada, the U.S. and Australia.
We took a day in the Winelands, the Napa Valley of Africa. Only 35 miles outside of town, this area is rural and Afrikaans and was also home to a small Jewish community.
We meet Dennis Zetler whose Jewish grandfather peddled in the area and then opened a store in 1904. Today, Dennis and his brother run a store and an extensive strawberry farming operation and between their families are 5 out of the 10 families who keep up the shul in the wine and university town of Stellenbosch.
We visit the KWV winery seeing the biggest wine vats in the world and sample one of the world's "Top 100" wines at the Rust and Vrede winery.
We enjoy beautiful weather throughout our stay, despite this normally being the rainy season. Cape Town is a great contrast to Johannesburg. Here we roam the streets freely, feeling safe and enjoy our location in Sea Point.
Since we have six days in Cape Town we have enough time for our kids to pursue their interests as well. The kids want to hike Table Mountain, visit the Great White Sharks by diving in shark cages, and try their hand at sand boarding - which is akin to surfing down sand dunes.
We are wary about the weather and the safety of the endeavors so we make some compromises. In the end, we take the cable car up the mountain, Jessica jogs on the sea shore (where there are 20 foot waves when the wind gets going), Becca and Ben learn to scuba dive and visit the well fed Great White Sharks in the aquarium and Ben spends the day outside Cape Town surfing and ATVing through the sand dunes.
We end up our visit by learning the history of the forced evacuation and demolition of District Six, a coloured neighborhood, during the 1960's and we drive by the shantytowns that, to this day, house 600,000 blacks on the outskirts of town.
Despite 14 years of black rule, this country still has many challenges ahead of it.
All in all, this is the best family vacation the Leifers ever took. We saw more and learned more than we ever expected, growing closer through our shared experiences.
We are aware that we are on the cusp of a new stage in the family. In a few days Jessica is off to study in Israel, Becca moves to New York City to attend Columbia/JTS and Ben starts to learn to drive.
We feel blessed that we were able to take this extended time in the summer of 2008 for this type of family bonding experience.
