Calitzdorp

1853: The town of Calitzdorp is established.

1888: Brothers-in-law, Moses Landau and Lazarus Rapeport, feather buyers, settle in the town. Moses Landau opens a shop.

1891: Birth of the first Jewish child, Samuel Rapeport, son of Lazarus and Rose Rapeport.

1892: Louis Rapeport, a widower, moves from Oudtshoorn to Calitzdorp and is a shopkeeper. He marries a widow, Yetta Fleischer.

1894: “Hatched, matched and dispatched”
Birth of Joseph Irwin Rapeport, second son of Lazarus and Rose Rapeport.
Marriage of Morris Joseph, a shopkeeper in Gamka, to Clara Joseph. Their wedding takes place in Oudtshoorn.
Death of Yetta Rapeport, formerly Fleischer, who is buried in Oudtshoorn.

1896: Samuel Miller, a tailor, arrives in the town.

1897: Second Ostrich Feather Boom in South Africa.

1904: Numerous Jews are listed in Calitzdorp and on the farms at Goedverwachting, Langerwacht, Nooitgedacht, Warmwater, and Welbedacht. They include Samuel Olinsky and Herman Wolff (Goedverwachting), Wulf Manaschewitz (Langerwacht), Israel David Manaschewitz (Nooitgedacht), Benjamin Wolff (Warmwater) and Meir Isserman (Welbedacht).

1908: Aron Solomon Israel serves as Reverend and shochet of one of the two Jewish communities of Calitzdorp. In 1910 he leaves to get married.

1908: First Jewish marriages to be officiated in Calitzdorp are the twin sisters, Bertha Isserman and Rebecca Isserman, daughters of Meir and Sarah Isserman. They are married on 28 March 1908. The sisters marry men who are resident in Calitzdorp, Morris David Daneman, a butcher, and Abraham Benjamin Kavonic, a tailor.

1910: Morris and Fanny Katz settle in Calitzdorp. They have 7 children, of whom the younger 3 are born in South Africa. The family reside in the town for over 40 years and are the best-known Jewish shopkeepers in the town.
Herman Manaschewitz works as a land surveyor in Calitzdorp.

1913: Ostrich feathers are the 4th largest export product from the Union of South Africa, after gold, diamonds and wool.

1913: Construction of the Nel's River dam begins. Leopold Levinkind, a civil engineer, is an assistant engineer involved in the building of the dam from 1913 to 1918.

1914: Collapse of the ostrich feather industry with the outbreak of World War One. All trade shipping is stopped and feathers cannot be exported. This is coupled by a devastating drought which lasts from 1914 until 1916. On the Calitzdorp side of the Oudtshoorn district, 1,130 farmers are rendered destitute by 1916. Many Jewish families are left financially destitute and leave Calitzdorp. They include Louis Rapeport and his family.

1918: Spanish Flu epidemic.

1932: Quintin Glesser buys a general dealership on the corner of A. Pretorius and Geyser Street.

1932: Moses Herring and his family move from Oudtshoorn to farm at Warmbad.

1936: There are 37 Jews living in Calitzdorp, based on census records.
Abraham Kamener, son of Nathan and Miriam Kamener, a merchant, gets married. He buys a house on the corner of Calitz and Kerk Street.

1951: There are 20 Jews living in Calitzdorp, based on census records.

1952-3: Death of Fanny Katz in 1952 and Morris Katz in 1953, the well-known shopkeepers, who have resided in the town for over forty years.

1965: Death of Benjamin Katz, son of Morris and Fanny Katz.

1979: Death of Philip Sidney Katz, son of Morris and Fanny Katz. He is buried in Christian New Cemetery, Calitzdorp.

1980: There are 10 Jews living in Calitzdorp, based on census records.
Three children of Morris and Fanny Katz die in Calitzdorp during the 1980's - David Louis Katz in 1980, Ethel Leah Levenberg in 1981 and Asher Joseph Katz in 1985, thus ending the era of the Katz family's presence in the town.

1991: There is one Jew living in Calitzdorp, based on census records.

2018: Death of Elliah (Ellie) Louis Herring, a farmer, the last Jew in Calitzdorp. The Moses Hope Cemetery is consecrated on the family farm and he is interred there. The Jewish presence in Calitzdorp ceases to exist.