Browsing by Author "Mendelsohn, Adam"

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    Perception and Politics: Chinese South Africans in 1980 and 2008
    (2022) Suitt, William; Mendelsohn, Adam
    In 2008, Chinese South Africans achieved inclusion in the efforts of the government's Black Economic Empowerment policy, following their inclusion was criticism accusing the Chinese of being adjacent to whiteness and therefore undeserving of their victory. This work examines past perceptions of Chinese South Africans to track the shape of the discourse and the later perceptions of Chinese South Africans by their critics in the late 2000s. In engaging with newspapers of 1980 and 1981, non-Chinese can be seen to place Chinese South Africans in an invidious space between apartheid era categorizations of “white” and “non-white.” The conversation on Chinese South African classification intersects in 1980 with an increase in economic ties between the Republic of South Africa and the Republic of China. Association with Japanese through visual similitude in the eyes of non-Chinese, and several special privileges held by the Chinese during apartheid are seen to influence the perceptions held of Chinese South Africans, the boundaries to their perceived status, and the alterations in their status by the 21st century. The Chinese South African community has been featured numerous times over the last half century in articles debating their place in South African society. In the years during and after apartheid, the Chinese South African community was subject to much discussion by nonChinese as to the nature of their identity and that identity's place in a post-apartheid nation. This minor dissertation engages with the language of the discourse on Chinese South African status as it appeared in popular print media in the early 1980s and the late 2000s. Examined in detail was the relationship between perceptions towards Chinese South Africans in 1980 to those in 2008. Language used in 1980 and 2008 tracks the shifting Chinese status in relation to “white” and “non-white” categorizations and displays the role of past perceptions in defining later ones as Chinese space transformed over time. Chinese in South Africa occupied a space neither clearly white or non-white during apartheid and continued to occupy this space in the post-apartheid years. Their amorphous space and visual similarity to other peoples of East Asian descent allowed for Chinese South Africans to be depicted as having been oppressed and having benefitted from apartheid. Chinese South African space, regardless of questions on the nature of their legal classifications over the decades, has been utilized as a tool to depict them in different and opposite ways, all depending on the perspective of the wielder. This minor dissertation displays important elements of the print discourse around Chinese South Africans and their existence between two racial categorizations at points during and after apartheid and details the way that perceived status had been utilized by those featured in print.
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    Tradition, accommodation, revolution and counterrevolution: a history of a century of struggle for the soul of orthodoxy in Johannesburgs Jewish community, 1915-2015
    (2022) Fachler, David; Mendelsohn, Adam
    Over the past century, South African Jewry has undergone significant changes in its religious makeup. This dissertation provides the first comprehensive study of Orthodox Judaism within Johannesburg, the dominant religious movement within the single largest Jewish population centre in South Africa. From a splintered and largely immigrant community in 1915 with weak religious and educational institutions, and a pattern of religious laxity, Orthodox Jewry has transformed into a highly organized and structured community with high levels of religious observance. These processes of change accelerated from 1970 with the arrival of imported religious revival movements. Notwithstanding considerable emigration and political instability, Johannesburg Jewry today boasts high levels of religiosity with almost half its members labelling themselves Orthodox. Contrary to the conventional wisdom that Johannesburg was a united and largely homogenous community prior to the arrival of the revival movements, this study finds that already by the 1930s the Orthodox community was ideologically divided. While the Federation of Synagogues and Board of Jewish Education were led by academically trained rabbis with an inclusive interpretation of Orthodoxy, the religious Zionist Mizrachi movement and its affiliates sought to reintroduce East European traditions and advocated strict levels of observance that were unpopular with the majority of the community. Over the decades, and in alliance with the sometimes rival revival movements, the latter camp has come to dominate the Johannesburg religious landscape. The receding influence of the rabbis with a more inclusive orientation – partly because of retirements and emigration – is visible in the decreasing numbers of Jews in Johannesburg who describe themselves as “traditional.” This dissertation traces these developments through the decades and explains how and why the character of Johannesburg Jewry has changed.