The South African Jewish community is famously largely Litvak (Jews from Lithuania), but there is a Sephardic component. Sephardim were the first Jews in South Africa
Historic Timeline of Sephardic Jews in South Africa
- 1652: Dutch East India Company establishes a settlement at the Cape of Good Hope
- 1669: First recorded Jewish settler in South Africa, Johan van Illan, arrives from Holland
- 1712: Heironima Pavia, a Portuguese Jewish lady who was living in Madras, India, came to the Cape of Good Hope and was buried next to her son, Charles Yale.
- 1820: Brothers Aaron and Daniel de Pass, Sephardic Jews from London, arrive in Cape Town
- 1841: Benjamin Norden from London establishes the first synagogue in South Africa in his home in Cape Town
- 1849: Cape Town Hebrew Congregation founded
- 1857: First purpose-built synagogue in South Africa, St. John’s Street Synagogue, opens in Cape Town
- 1880s: Small wave of Sephardic immigrants from Rhodes and Turkey begins arriving
- 1903: Sephardic Hebrew Congregation established in Johannesburg
- 1917: Sephardic Synagogue in Mayfair, Johannesburg, founded
- 1930s: Increased Sephardic immigration from Rhodes due to Italian racial laws
- 1956: Sephardic Congregation of Johannesburg moves to new premises in Orchards
- 1960s-1970s: Wave of Sephardic immigrants from Northern Africa (particularly Egypt and Morocco) arrives
Jews from elsewhere in Africa, including Zimbabwe and the Democratic Republic of the Congo found their way to South Africa. Due to crime and political uncertainty, the South African Sephardic community is now in decline.
Genealogical Resources for Sephardic Jews in South Africa