The Isaac and Jessie Kaplan Centre for Jewish Studies and Research, housed in Rachel Bloch House was established in 1980 under the terms of a gift to the University of Cape Town by the Kaplan Kushlick Foundation and is named in honour of the parents of Mendel and Robert Kaplan. An autonomous centre, with its own governing body, the centre is the only one of its kind in South Africa.
The centre seeks to stimulate and promote the whole field of Jewish studies and research at the University with a special focus on the South African Jewish community. Multi-disciplinary in scope, scholars are encouraged to participate in a range of fields including history, political science, education, sociology, comparative literature and the broad spectrum of Hebrew and Judaic studies. The centre is engaged in research and acts as a co-ordinating unit in the University.
Its resources are used to:
invite distinguished scholars to teach Jewish-content courses within established University departments;
initiate and sponsor research projects;
run seminars and conferences;
strengthen the University's library holding of books, microfilms and archival sources
The Jewish Rootsbank holds data recorded from various Jewish communities and organizations across Southern Africa, and in some cases projects and institutions in the UK.
The only original documents housed at independent researchers and genealogists the University of Cape Town are passenger arrivals lists from 1924 to 1929. Digital copies of shipping manifests from 1890 to 1930 are also available, but please note that we do not hold the original versions (http://www.kaplancentre.uct.ac.za/kaplancentre/migration/rootsbank)
Dates Covered
1850-1950
Language
English
Locations Discussed
Europe
Southern Africa
Sub-Saharan Africa
United Kingdom
Eastern Europe
South Africa
Germany
England
Belarus
Latvia
Note
Founded in 2002 the Centre is building a comprehensive database of South African Jewish immigration and emigration. It will
map the entire history of Jewish migration to South Africa with the aim of providing authoritative and definitive data for the Discovery Centre at the South African Jewish Museum.
integrate the genealogical data in multi-disciplinary research initiatives under the auspices of the Kaplan Centre.
The primary aim of the project is to research the estimated 15,000 core families who migrated to Southern Africa between 1850-1950 from England, Germany, Lithuania, Latvia and Belarus. In broad terms the research will focus on the locations where the families originated, patterns of migration to South Africa, where families first settled, communities they established, growth of families, and subsequent movements and emigration. As such we are looking at aspects such as passenger arrival lists, naturalisation lists, community records, records of marriages, births and deaths, family trees, etc. The Centre is under the umbrella of the Kaplan Centre and will also have a public access section located at the South African Jewish Museum. It plans to map the entire South African Jewish community with the aim of providing authoritative and definitive data for the Discovery Centre at the South African Jewish Museum
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