History of the Jews in South Africa
| Regions with significant populations | |
|---|---|
 South Africa
|
estimated 67,000 |
| Johannesburg | 50,000 |
| Cape Town | 17,000 |
| Pretoria | 3,000 |
 Israel
|
20,000 |
 Australia
|
15,000 |
 United Kingdom
|
10,000 |
| Languages | |
|
First language South African English (vast majority) and Afrikaans, of religious : Yiddish, Hebrew |
|
| Religion | |
|
Orthodox Judaism (80%) Reform Judaism (20%) |
|
| Related ethnic groups | |
|
Afrikaner-Jews Lithuanian Jews Dutch Jews British Jews Portuguese Jews |
|
The history of the Jews in South Africa mainly began under the British Empire, following a general pattern of increased European settlement in the 19th century. The early patterns of Jewish South African history are almost identical to the history of the Jews in the United States but on a much smaller scale, including the period of early discovery and settlement from the late 17th century to the early 19th century. The community grew tenfold between 1880 and 1914, from 4,000 to over 40,000. Jews were instrumental in promoting the extension of diplomatic military ties between Israel and South Africa. South Africa's Jewish community differs from its counterparts in other African countries in that the majority have remained on the continent rather than emigrating to Israel (62% of the maximum 120,000 still remain). Among potential Jewish emigrants, many were likelier to select a destination popular among other South Africans, such as Australia.
The modern Jewish history of South Africa began, indirectly, some time before the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope, by the participation of certain astronomers and cartographers in the Portuguese discovery of the sea-route to India. Jewish cartographers in Portugal, members of the wealthy and influential classes, assisted Bartolomeu Dias and Vasco da Gama who first sailed around the Cape of Good Hope in 1488 and 1497. Portugal's baptised Jews were still free until the Portuguese Inquisition was promulgated in 1536.
In 1652, the Dutch East India Company began the first permanent European settlement of South Africa under Jan van Riebeeck. It has been theorised that "a number of non-professing Jews" were among the first settlers of Cape Town. Non-Christian migration to the Dutch Cape Colony was generally discouraged until 1803. There were Jews among the directors of the Dutch East India Company, which for 150 years administered the colony at the Cape of Good Hope. During the seventeenth and the greater part of the 18th century the state religion alone was allowed to be publicly observed; but on 25 July 1804, the Dutch commissioner-general Jacob Abraham de Mist, by a proclamation whose provisions were annulled at the English occupation of 1806 and were not reestablished till 1820, instituted in the colony religious equality for all persons, irrespective of creed.
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Wikipedia