Shtetl to Colony
By Deborah Posel
Darker Shade of Pale traces early twentieth-century Jewish migration from the Russian Empire to colonial South Africa. The book tells this complex story through the life of one man.
The narrative of Jewish immigrant success in South Africa
Blending personal memoir with historical inquiry, Deborah Posel reveals the hidden costs of uprooting. These costs include dislocation, ambition, shame and the sting of failure in a settler colony.
This book offers a personal journey through forgotten history. Darker Shade of Pale uncovers the hidden story of global migration at the turn of the twentieth century. It follows Jewish families from the Pale of Settlement as they leave the Russian Empire and travel to the distant British colony of South Africa.
To deepen this story, Posel focuses on the life of her grandfather. He was an ordinary man whose struggles and disappointments mirrored the experiences of many others. Through his story, the book challenges the common narrative of Jewish immigrant success in South Africa. It reveals a more complex reality and opens unfamiliar vistas.
Moving further, Darker Shade of Pale shows how Jewish concerns with status and success travelled from the shtetl to the colony. These ambitions brought psychological costs. The book also explores the ironies that literate, working women from the shtetl faced. In addition, it examines the specific version of whiteness that South Africa assigned to Jews from Eastern Europe and the varied ways Jews interacted with Black people.
Bringing the psychodramas of immigration into focus
Readers encounter unexpected economic paths that immigrants chose as they tried to survive. They also witness the prejudicial blows Jewish newcomers endured from both British authorities and the already-assimilated, English-speaking Jewish community in South Africa.
As the narrative unfolds, Darker Shade of Pale sharpens our view of the psychodramas of immigration. It highlights the traumas of dislocation, the pressure to succeed, and the deep shame of failure. Through one man’s unfulfilled hopes, readers discover what immigrants gained and what they lost as they attempted to build new lives in an unfamiliar land.
A family saga that weaves the old Jewish world into the new. Deborah Posel leaves no stone unturned. Trauma and silences are exposed, context and contingency revealed. A deeply researched and moving account unveiling the world awaiting Jewish immigrants to South Africa during the great migrations from Europe. An innovative and valuable contribution to South African historiography.
– Milton Shain, Emeritus Professor of Historical Studies, University of Cape Town
About the author
Deborah Posel is a sociologist and Professor Emeritus at the University of Cape Town. She founded the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research (WiSER) and later established UCT’s Institute for Humanities in Africa (HUMA). She has written extensively on South Africa’s past and present and examines how the country’s racial order took shape.
- Publisher | Wits University Press |
- ISBN | 9781776149711 |
- Recommended Price | R380.00 |
- Subject | History |
For more information | Corina van der Spoel | +27 (0)11 717 8705/8700 | mail me |