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June 29, 2001
Out of Africa - to Canada
South African immigrants bring along their unique vision.
PAT JOHNSON REPORTER
Continuing a Canada Day tradition, the Bulletin looks at an
immigrant group within the British Columbia Jewish community. This
year: South Africans.
To say that Jews have had a complicated relationship with their
non-Jewish neighbors is a massive historical understatement. But
even in that context, one place where that relationship has been
particularly odd and complicated has been in South Africa. The Jewish
values of equality, respect for life - even the Pesach story of
escape from bondage - seem to go against everything inherent in
the apartheid regime. Yet, many Jews lived through that epoch and
found a comfortable existence within that racially discriminatory
society.
From the vantage point of time and distance, many South African
Jews who now live in British Columbia have tried to come to an entente
with their experiences there. Some, who left before the end was
in sight for apartheid fear they will appear holier-than-thou to
those who stayed later. Many newcomers carry a bit of guilt at leaving
the country just as it is evolving into a democracy.
In Canada's centennial year, 1967, Linda Shulman made her way to
Vancouver and never left. The garden designer had moved from South
Africa at the first opportunity.
"I was very anti-apartheid," she said. As a young woman in Cape
Town, Shulman worked in a law office with very liberal attorneys,
in a firm that was only one among a few that would represent black
clients. (One of her employers was later assassinated while in exile
in Zimbabwe.)
She married a Scot and moved to London. Eventually, they came to
Vancouver to visit friends and chose the city as a home. In retrospect,
Shulman said she recognizes that the issues around apartheid are
not as simple as she once thought.
"As you get older, you realize it's complicated," she said. Yes,
the system was wrong, but to blame people who stayed and benefited
from it fails to recognize that that country was the home of generations
of white people too and was perhaps all they knew, she said.
Like many South African families, Shulman finds her relations
spread out around the world. Her brother is in Australia, her sister
in Britain. Whatever price she has paid for choosing this relatively
far-flung patch of coastline as home, she has no regrets.
"This is a great society," she said.
At the other end of the spectrum is a big batch of newcomers, many
of them young professionals, ready for a whole new experience. Rob
Baron lived in London for two years after leaving Johannesburg and
chose Vancouver partly because he already had friends here and partly
for the same reason that thousands of others flock to Vancouver.
"It's the number one city in the world," Baron said. As an avid
mountain-biker and snowboarder, he thinks he has found his place.
That is not to say that he didn't like South Africa. Baron was born
in Zimbabwe and moved to Johannesburg as a young teenager with his
family. Because he is just 26 now, his political sensibilities were
just coming of age a decade ago about the time the racist regime
was dying.
"I wasn't politically active in school," he said. Despite its recent
problems, Zimbabwe, when Baron was young, was a more liberal environment
than its South African neighbor. As a child, he had black friends
but, when they moved to South Africa, his existence was completely
sheltered, to the point where he says apartheid was almost invisible
to him.
Like many people his age, school and sports were his main concern,
not the political developments unfolding around him. However, when
his work took him to the United Kingdom, he was forced to make a
decision. When his time there was up, he was faced with a question:
"Should I go back to South Africa?"
"I think for most South Africans, especially my age, there's a
question: 'What should you do?' " he said, referring to the choice
of staying to try to help the situation or leaving for pastures
that are more immediately green.
By that point, three of his best friends were in Vancouver and
he knew his career options were limited by the weak economy in South
Africa. His decision was made.
One of the friends that drew Baron to Vancouver was Robin Kalmek.
He, too, had been in London for a time before coming to Vancouver.
As a music producer, the West Coast of North America seemed a perfect
destination for Kalmek. Moreover, his girlfriend, Nina, who is a
homeopath, also viewed Vancouver's natural health scene as a draw.
Like Baron, Kalmek had been sheltered.
"I heard the term apartheid, but I didn't know what it meant,"
he said. "I didn't know there was a township 10 miles away where
blacks were living in poverty and we were living well."
However, Kalmek had cousins a few years older who were involved
in the African National Congress when it was still a banned terrorist
organization. When he was 16, Kalmek's cousins took him to Soweto.
The experience opened his eyes to a whole world outside of his own.
He looks back on that awakening with some ambivalence. Apartheid
ended before Kalmek reached adulthood, but he wonders what he would
have done if he had been a few years older and understood the horror
of apartheid.
"If I did know, would I have risked my life to do something about
it?" he asks himself. "Maybe. Maybe not."
To the relative comfort of Vancouver, Kalmek brings an interesting
perspective. The carefully circumscribed apartheid-era divisions
of race and class do not exist here, which leads to something that
can be equally jarring, he said. For example, the glitzy tourist
destination of Gastown is just steps away from the grisly street
scenes of the Downtown Eastside, a juxtaposition that would not
have been seen in the ghettoized South Africa.
Also of note to newcomers is the apparent Canadian uptightness,
which seems sometimes to be applied incongruously. For instance,
there is a vigilance about some illegal activity that strikes Kalmek
as odd. If one leaves a car too long, it will be ticketed or towed,
but people shoot heroin on the street in certain neighborhoods.
He also echoes complaints of other Vancouverites that this may
become "no-fun city" if some of the major festivals disappear as
seems likely. Moreover, official warnings against fun, such as that
issued by the Vancouver police on the eve of the new millennium,
discourage any passionate expression, he said, "lest it lead to
a riot."
That sense of Canadian reserve is obvious to Hilton Toube, who
came here three years ago with his wife, Anne, and their children
Tami (now 24) and Larry (now 23). Unlike most South Africans who
have come here, the Toubes maintain a close connection to the homeland
and return frequently. They have a metal fabrication plant and a
ceramics factory that they still operate there. The ceramics factory
provides unique African housewares and art for the family's newest
venture, Abodemode Interiors on Broadway in Vancouver.
"I think Canadians tend to say what they think you want to hear,"
said Toube. People may have the best intentions and prove tremendously
friendly, but they seem to pull back at a certain point." Nevertheless,
the entire family is thrilled to be here and has only a few months
left before they are eligible to apply for citizenship.
"On the day that we can do it, we'll be there [to apply]," he said.
There are no numbers on how many of the South African immigrants
to Canada are Jewish, but the stunning numbers of South Africans
at large give a hint at how significant this migration has been.
The South African Canadian Society of B.C. estimates that there
are about 50,000 South Africans in British Columbia and that 40,000
of them - fully 80 per cent - have arrived in the last decade alone.
Almost all of the South African immigrants to the province are
white. For a community to grow four-fold in a decade is a remarkable
change. While it has obviously had a positive effect on the South
African community, it has also had a dramatic effect on the Jewish
community, with a large number of new members getting involved.
Moreover, while some immigrants spend many years getting their
lives together and therefore have limited involvement in Jewish
volunteerism or philanthropy, this does not appear to be the case
with South Africans who have come here. A large number settle in
quickly, turning their attentions to community activism.
Many South Africans have already taken leadership positions in
the Jewish community at many levels. This is particularly noticeable
in Toronto, where the heads of many of the major Jewish groups are
South African immigrants. In fact, the new national president of
Canadian Jewish Congress is Keith Landy, who is originally from
South Africa. After the Second World War, South Africa seemed like
a land of opportunity, said Landy, the son of a rabbi. As racism
became institutionalized under National party rule, he said, Jews
were often at the front of the battle for human rights and equality.
However, to suggest that the community was unified against apartheid
would be to whitewash the reality.
"Many in the Jewish community did little to fight against it,"
said Landy. "In fact, many profited from it."
Yet, the impact of racism on the larger fabric of society is something
that South Africans have learned. This, Landy said, is one of the
reasons that South Africans are coming to the fore in Jewish groups
and other agencies that lobby for equality and fairness for all.
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