IN SEARCH OF ZIMBABWE’S JEWISH ARCHITECTURE

By Jay A. Waronker

As part of my Fulbright grant under their African Regional Research Program to document Jewish architecture in five southern African nations, I arrived in Zimbabwe in early May 2005. This was my first visit to the country, formerly known as Rhodesia, so troubled in recent years by the autocratic policies of President Robert Mugabe.

Once an African economic powerhouse, hyperinflation, chronic unemployment, a persistent fuel shortage, unjust elections, the questionable seizure of private property, an erosion of staple crops, food shortages, restricted personal freedoms, the departure of the white community, a decline of foreign trade, and a bizarre government initiative to ‘clean up’ residential and business districts by demolishing them overnight and leaving people homeless have now created a truly depressing and destructive environment. As a result, most Zimbabweans of all races and backgrounds have suffered immensely.

Yielding to the advice of the US Embassy in Harare, I postponed my planned date of entry into Zimbabwe until after a national election in February 2005. The previous one had resulted in demonstrations and civil unrest. With all calm, I began my documentation of the country’s synagogues and other Jewish architecture in the spring of that year. Despite Zimbabwe’s hard times, I found aspects of the country pleasing and admirable: a perfect climate, genial people, a respectable educational system, the spectacular Victoria Falls, and remnants of a good infrastructure along with impressive urban planning. What will linger most in my mind, however, was the remarkably hospitable and helpful Jewish community. At one time the country was home to some 9,000 Jews, but in recent years the number has steadily declined. They have emigrated mostly to South Africa, Australia, England, Canada, or the United States. Today there are fewer than 400 remaining, with nearly all in the capital city of Harare (200) and the second largest city, Bulawayo (120). With so few in numbers, they are a close-knit group who are determined to maintain a strong Jewish identity within a beleaguered homeland.

Travel in Zimbabwe has been made difficult by an ongoing fuel crisis. Many oil producing countries are unwilling to sell ‘petrol’ to the government-controlled energy industry due to the dire economic situation. After several weeks in Harare, where I methodically documented the Sephardic synagogue (1 - 2) and community hall of 1958, the Ashkenazi synagogue (3 – 4) and social hall of the early 1970s, an earlier synagogue and hall from the 1920s (5 - 6) sold in the early 1970s when the congregation outgrew it, a cemetery chapel from the 1970s (with monkeys scampering about the grounds), and two earlier houses once used by the now-defunct Progressive Jewish community, I set out to visit the other Jewish buildings throughout the country. Part of this journey was made possible when I was offered a comfortable ride to Bulawayo by Irene and John Fox, a local Jewish woman and her husband. The way back to Harare, however, would be on my own.

Jews have lived in Bulawayo, today a mid-size modern city with the feel of the American mid-west, since the ox and wagon days of 1880s, before the railway line reached it. The Jewish contribution to early Bulawayo came in many forms – from trade and commerce to culture and local politics. In fact, Bulawayo was the first city in the country to have Jews and where the earliest synagogue was founded in 1894. During the first decade of the 20th century, due in part to the boom in gold mines and agriculture, the city’s Jewish population grew rapidly and a religious school was founded. From WWI through the 1930s, the community stagnated, only to grow once again in the late 1930s. Jews remained as shopkeepers but there was a new tendency for the younger generations to enter various professional careers.

The WWII years saw limited anti-Semitism and a lull in the Jewish community, although several Jews served in the colonial army. The 1950s were a very good time for the Jews of Bulawayo during its booming economy, and they become active politically, economically, and socially.

Bulawayo remains a decent city that has kept far more of its architectural heritage intact than Harare. Dozens of colonial era late 19th and early 20th century structures remain in good condition throughout the downtown core, and residential districts featuring appealing bungalows and cottages can be admired. A few Jewish-owned businesses remain in or near the downtown core.

Set on the edge of the downtown area, on the corner of Third Avenue and J. Moyo Street, is former Bulawayo Hebrew Congregation, a building dating from 1911. Across the street, and now a part of a local college, are two well-maintained buildings that once served as a Jewish school and social hall. Although religious services were held previously in several other places, including the Charter Hotel in the 1890s, Meikles Store, Stock Exchange Hall, and the Williams’ Building, this was Bulawayo’s (and Zimbabwe’s) first synagogue. A building had been designed in the mid-1890s, although it was never realized. The second attempt proved successful, with MacGillivray and Grant as its architects and Sellick and Company serving as the contractors of the built neoclassical design. While a stately building, it has odd proportions – its width being too great in relation to its height. By 1939, the synagogue was already too small, but deliberation on how to extend the structure went on for years, and it was not until 1962 that a sizeable addition was completed. This expansion seemed to collide with the old in a less than sympathetic fashion – the two parts never coming to terms with one another or establishing a dialogue.

For the next four decades, this building nicely served the community’s needs, only for all to come to a cataclysmic end in early October 2004. A fire, said to be accidentally started by vagrants in the alley behind the building, destroyed much of the synagogue. Members of the congregation, dashing into the fire, were able to savage the Sefer Torahs, but otherwise the contents were lost. While the original façade remained nearly intact, as shown in my watercolor (7) completed from my visit in June 2005, otherwise only a shell was left. The intensity of the blaze literally melted the steel columns and trusses, and afterwards they dangled like listless puppets. Although the cause of the fire was officially listed as a mishap, I had doubts based on my own observation of the site. The synagogue wall running along the alley where the fire was said to have begun was actually in good condition, and it seemed clear that the fire had started in the main body of the building several feet away.

My visit to Bulawayo coincided with the official transfer of the synagogue properly to an evangelical African church. This congregation had purchased the property from the synagogue property committee. The church was planning a massive and costly rebuilding effort. The rabbi of Bulawayo (Zimbabwe’s only one in 2005), in town with his family and three young sons for a three-year appointment, had taken me to the synagogue for an introduction to the new owners. He also wanted to confirm, by pre-arrangement, that he could have continued access to the mikvah (ritual bath), which had not been damaged in the fire. To our surprise, his gate key no longer worked. When we spoke to church officials on site (it seemed that the entire congregation was there touring their new property), all seemed fine and I was invited on the grounds for the next several hours to photograph and document the building. When I returned a few days later, that was not the case. I was not well received and, in fact, was sadly asked to leave. After serving as a Jewish site for 111 years, all had forever changed.

After the fire, services had to be shifted to a Jewish school and community hall built in 1970 by the Bulawayo Progressive Jewish Congregation. It is located on Bailey Road near Landau Drive in a pleasant and upscale residential district of town a few miles from downtown. While the building never contained a proper synagogue, the rabbi and Jewish community converted half the large social hall into a sanctuary. The men sat adjacent to the freestanding Ark and the women on an installed platform nearby. The ordinary space, very 1970s in feel, did feature attractive stained glass windows designed by the artist Leonora Kibel.

The Saturday I attended services, some dozen men and ten women were present. Afterwards, a friendly Oneg Shabbat was held and, once concluded, I was invited to the rabbi’s provided home nearby for a pleasant lunch. After a rest, his three boys and I spent time playing in the extensive outdoor spaces with vegetable garden and menagerie of small farm animals. Following an afternoon service, I was given a ride back to the well-run and pleasant Jewish retirement home, Savyon Lodge, where I stayed in its guest room during my visit to Bulawayo. The facility, the only Jewish one in Zimbabwe, offer its residents good meals, a beautiful central garden, and regular services led by the rabbi.

Before leaving Bulawayo, I also visited the well-kept Jewish cemetery. On the grounds are two chapels; one from the early 1960s and built at the time of the addition to the synagogue, and the other (8) smaller and dating from the early 20th century.

A main road, ‘tarred’ and two-laned, connects Bulawayo in the south with northern Harare. Along the way, located in the Zimbabwe’s Midlands and once prime farmland, are three small cities that once had Jewish communities: Gweru, Kweke, and Kadoma. Not too many years ago, with the decline in Jewish population, all three modest and architecturally insignificant synagogues were sold by the Jews.

In Gweru, the synagogue (a 42’ x 25’ space) dating from the 1940s and a later social hall, both still stand (9). Today they are used by the Pentecostal Assembly of Zimbabwe. The buildings can be found in the center of town on 7th Street, and I was warmly received by its minister and allowed to record the property. After completing my documentation and walking back to my hotel to check out before leaving the bleak town, I was approached by the police. A crowd suddenly gathered as they watched the Draconian scene unfold. My passport was apprehended, and I was escorted to the police station. There I was threatened with arrest and incarceration. Apparently plain-clothed police officers or paid informants, quite common in Zimbabwe, had spotted me arriving in town by bus from Bulawayo the previous night. They alleged that I had photographed sensitive government buildings and was likely an illegal foreign reporter. Dealt with in a rude and racially toned manner for two hours, I calmly did my best to repudiate the changes. Regrettably, I was not believed. Fortunately, I was able to leave the station, without my camera and passport, after a lengthy report was filed. I returned to my hotel and immediately contacted the US Embassy in Harare on a Saturday. Hours later, gravely concerned, I returned to the station to speak with the chief of police. After viewing my digital camera, and based on his conversations with the US government, he acknowledged that the charges were false and let me go. No apology was made, although he and colleague did seem to like my camera that he was returning. To this day, I hold the Zimbabwean police in the lowest of esteem and caution visitors to Zimbabwe about their commonly dangerous and unpredictable behavior.

The former synagogue in Kweke, built on Burma Road in a quiet district just southeast of town, was originally purchased by the local Hindu community and used some years for their religious purposes. Eventually they outgrew it and built a larger and more proper temple on adjacent property. The Hindus now rent the former synagogue (a 52’ x 34’ room with small accessory spaces) to an African church. I arrived in Kweke from Gweru by bus (hours behind scheduled and uncomfortably packed due to the fuel crisis) on a Sunday, meeting my contact at a Hindu wedding at a local country club. He graciously drove me to the church, and when we pulled up it was clear that services were in progress. At first I sat under a shade tree to wait, but soon I was approached by a congregational leader who insisted that I come inside and join in. That I did, and for the next two hours I sang, clapped, and became spellbound by the charismatic and spirited reverend of the all-black congregation. While the building was the same, the effervescence of the service seemed an amusing departure from the staid and formal Jewish one surely once held there. After the service, and while a few African women were cleaning the sanctuary, I was allowed to document and photograph the building. After some outdoor socializing, I was courteously driven by a member of the church with his family to the bus stand for my next stop.

The synagogue in Kadoma, once located along the highway to Bulawayo, was recently demolished and replaced with a newer Jehovah Witnesses church. Dating from the 1940s, photographs of the former house of prayer show that it was a small structure of no true architectural distinction. Nevertheless, this building and the others found within Zimbabwe recall a proud tradition of some 125 years of Jewish life in the country. With the fate of the Jewish community and the architecture that served it irreversibly decided, threatened, or precarious, I set out to record them. As evidence of the way Jews spread about the world and established prosperous and meaningful communities, may this architecture never be lost or forgotten.

Jay A. Waronker lives in Atlanta, GA USA, where he is a practicing architect and professor of architecture at Southern Polytechnic State University. He recently returned on a Fulbright from southern Africa, where he documented the Jewish architecture of Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Zambia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. His earlier project, funded by the NEA, Graham Foundation, Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture, another Fulbright, the Asian Cultural Council, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and the Bokser Memorial Foundation, involved the documentation of India’s 34 synagogues. A longer version of this work, which included a portfolio of careful watercolors, was published in India’s Jewish Heritage: Ritual, Art, and Life-Cycle and is regularly exhibited. He is also the co-founder and co-curator of India’s first Jewish museum in the restored synagogue in Chennamangalam, Kerala. It opened in February 2006. He can be contacted at jayawaronker@aol.com.

IN SEARCH OF ZIMBABWE’S JEWISH ARCHITECTURE By Jay A. Waronker As part of my Fulbright grant under their African Regional Research Program to document Jewish architecture in five southern African nations, I arrived in Zimbabwe in early May 2005. This was my first visit to the country, formerly known as Rhodesia, so troubled in recent years by the autocratic policies of President Robert Mugabe. Once an African economic powerhouse, hyperinflation, chronic unemployment, a persistent fuel shortage, unjust elections, the questionable seizure of private property, an erosion of staple crops, food shortages, restricted personal freedoms, the departure of the white community, a decline of foreign trade, and a bizarre government initiative to ‘clean up’ residential and business districts by demolishing them overnight and leaving people homeless have now created a truly depressing and destructive environment. As a result, most Zimbabweans of all races and backgrounds have suffered immensely. Yielding to the advice of the US Embassy in Harare, I postponed my planned date of entry into Zimbabwe until after a national election in February 2005. The previous one had resulted in demonstrations and civil unrest. With all calm, I began my documentation of the country’s synagogues and other Jewish architecture in the spring of that year. Despite Zimbabwe’s hard times, I found aspects of the country pleasing and admirable: a perfect climate, genial people, a respectable educational system, the spectacular Victoria Falls, and remnants of a good infrastructure along with impressive urban planning. What will linger most in my mind, however, was the remarkably hospitable and helpful Jewish community. At one time the country was home to some 9,000 Jews, but in recent years the number has steadily declined. They have emigrated mostly to South Africa, Australia, England, Canada, or the United States. Today there are fewer than 400 remaining, with nearly all in the capital city of Harare (200) and the second largest city, Bulawayo (120). With so few in numbers, they are a close-knit group who are determined to maintain a strong Jewish identity within a beleaguered homeland. Travel in Zimbabwe has been made difficult by an ongoing fuel crisis. Many oil producing countries are unwilling to sell ‘petrol’ to the government-controlled energy industry due to the dire economic situation. After several weeks in Harare, where I methodically documented the Sephardic synagogue (1 - 2) and community hall of 1958, the Ashkenazi synagogue (3 – 4) and social hall of the early 1970s, an earlier synagogue and hall from the 1920s (5 - 6) sold in the early 1970s when the congregation outgrew it, a cemetery chapel from the 1970s (with monkeys scampering about the grounds), and two earlier houses once used by the now-defunct Progressive Jewish community, I set out to visit the other Jewish buildings throughout the country. Part of this journey was made possible when I was offered a comfortable ride to Bulawayo by Irene and John Fox, a local Jewish woman and her husband. The way back to Harare, however, would be on my own. Jews have lived in Bulawayo, today a mid-size modern city with the feel of the American mid-west, since the ox and wagon days of 1880s, before the railway line reached it. The Jewish contribution to early Bulawayo came in many forms – from trade and commerce to culture and local politics. In fact, Bulawayo was the first city in the country to have Jews and where the earliest synagogue was founded in 1894. During the first decade of the 20th century, due in part to the boom in gold mines and agriculture, the city’s Jewish population grew rapidly and a religious school was founded. From WWI through the 1930s, the community stagnated, only to grow once again in the late 1930s. Jews remained as shopkeepers but there was a new tendency for the younger generations to enter various professional careers. The WWII years saw limited anti-Semitism and a lull in the Jewish community, although several Jews served in the colonial army. The 1950s were a very good time for the Jews of Bulawayo during its booming economy, and they become active politically, economically, and socially. Bulawayo remains a decent city that has kept far more of its architectural heritage intact than Harare. Dozens of colonial era late 19th and early 20th century structures remain in good condition throughout the downtown core, and residential districts featuring appealing bungalows and cottages can be admired. A few Jewish-owned businesses remain in or near the downtown core. Set on the edge of the downtown area, on the corner of Third Avenue and J. Moyo Street, is former Bulawayo Hebrew Congregation, a building dating from 1911. Across the street, and now a part of a local college, are two well-maintained buildings that once served as a Jewish school and social hall. Although religious services were held previously in several other places, including the Charter Hotel in the 1890s, Meikles Store, Stock Exchange Hall, and the Williams’ Building, this was Bulawayo’s (and Zimbabwe’s) first synagogue. A building had been designed in the mid-1890s, although it was never realized. The second attempt proved successful, with MacGillivray and Grant as its architects and Sellick and Company serving as the contractors of the built neoclassical design. While a stately building, it has odd proportions – its width being too great in relation to its height. By 1939, the synagogue was already too small, but deliberation on how to extend the structure went on for years, and it was not until 1962 that a sizeable addition was completed. This expansion seemed to collide with the old in a less than sympathetic fashion – the two parts never coming to terms with one another or establishing a dialogue. For the next four decades, this building nicely served the community’s needs, only for all to come to a cataclysmic end in early October 2004. A fire, said to be accidentally started by vagrants in the alley behind the building, destroyed much of the synagogue. Members of the congregation, dashing into the fire, were able to savage the Sefer Torahs, but otherwise the contents were lost. While the original façade remained nearly intact, as shown in my watercolor (7) completed from my visit in June 2005, otherwise only a shell was left. The intensity of the blaze literally melted the steel columns and trusses, and afterwards they dangled like listless puppets. Although the cause of the fire was officially listed as a mishap, I had doubts based on my own observation of the site. The synagogue wall running along the alley where the fire was said to have begun was actually in good condition, and it seemed clear that the fire had started in the main body of the building several feet away. My visit to Bulawayo coincided with the official transfer of the synagogue properly to an evangelical African church. This congregation had purchased the property from the synagogue property committee. The church was planning a massive and costly rebuilding effort. The rabbi of Bulawayo (Zimbabwe’s only one in 2005), in town with his family and three young sons for a three-year appointment, had taken me to the synagogue for an introduction to the new owners. He also wanted to confirm, by pre-arrangement, that he could have continued access to the mikvah (ritual bath), which had not been damaged in the fire. To our surprise, his gate key no longer worked. When we spoke to church officials on site (it seemed that the entire congregation was there touring their new property), all seemed fine and I was invited on the grounds for the next several hours to photograph and document the building. When I returned a few days later, that was not the case. I was not well received and, in fact, was sadly asked to leave. After serving as a Jewish site for 111 years, all had forever changed. After the fire, services had to be shifted to a Jewish school and community hall built in 1970 by the Bulawayo Progressive Jewish Congregation. It is located on Bailey Road near Landau Drive in a pleasant and upscale residential district of town a few miles from downtown. While the building never contained a proper synagogue, the rabbi and Jewish community converted half the large social hall into a sanctuary. The men sat adjacent to the freestanding Ark and the women on an installed platform nearby. The ordinary space, very 1970s in feel, did feature attractive stained glass windows designed by the artist Leonora Kibel. The Saturday I attended services, some dozen men and ten women were present. Afterwards, a friendly Oneg Shabbat was held and, once concluded, I was invited to the rabbi’s provided home nearby for a pleasant lunch. After a rest, his three boys and I spent time playing in the extensive outdoor spaces with vegetable garden and menagerie of small farm animals. Following an afternoon service, I was given a ride back to the well-run and pleasant Jewish retirement home, Savyon Lodge, where I stayed in its guest room during my visit to Bulawayo. The facility, the only Jewish one in Zimbabwe, offer its residents good meals, a beautiful central garden, and regular services led by the rabbi. Before leaving Bulawayo, I also visited the well-kept Jewish cemetery. On the grounds are two chapels; one from the early 1960s and built at the time of the addition to the synagogue, and the other (8) smaller and dating from the early 20th century. A main road, ‘tarred’ and two-laned, connects Bulawayo in the south with northern Harare. Along the way, located in the Zimbabwe’s Midlands and once prime farmland, are three small cities that once had Jewish communities: Gweru, Kweke, and Kadoma. Not too many years ago, with the decline in Jewish population, all three modest and architecturally insignificant synagogues were sold by the Jews. In Gweru, the synagogue (a 42’ x 25’ space) dating from the 1940s and a later social hall, both still stand (9). Today they are used by the Pentecostal Assembly of Zimbabwe. The buildings can be found in the center of town on 7th Street, and I was warmly received by its minister and allowed to record the property. After completing my documentation and walking back to my hotel to check out before leaving the bleak town, I was approached by the police. A crowd suddenly gathered as they watched the Draconian scene unfold. My passport was apprehended, and I was escorted to the police station. There I was threatened with arrest and incarceration. Apparently plain-clothed police officers or paid informants, quite common in Zimbabwe, had spotted me arriving in town by bus from Bulawayo the previous night. They alleged that I had photographed sensitive government buildings and was likely an illegal foreign reporter. Dealt with in a rude and racially toned manner for two hours, I calmly did my best to repudiate the changes. Regrettably, I was not believed. Fortunately, I was able to leave the station, without my camera and passport, after a lengthy report was filed. I returned to my hotel and immediately contacted the US Embassy in Harare on a Saturday. Hours later, gravely concerned, I returned to the station to speak with the chief of police. After viewing my digital camera, and based on his conversations with the US government, he acknowledged that the charges were false and let me go. No apology was made, although he and colleague did seem to like my camera that he was returning. To this day, I hold the Zimbabwean police in the lowest of esteem and caution visitors to Zimbabwe about their commonly dangerous and unpredictable behavior. The former synagogue in Kweke, built on Burma Road in a quiet district just southeast of town, was originally purchased by the local Hindu community and used some years for their religious purposes. Eventually they outgrew it and built a larger and more proper temple on adjacent property. The Hindus now rent the former synagogue (a 52’ x 34’ room with small accessory spaces) to an African church. I arrived in Kweke from Gweru by bus (hours behind scheduled and uncomfortably packed due to the fuel crisis) on a Sunday, meeting my contact at a Hindu wedding at a local country club. He graciously drove me to the church, and when we pulled up it was clear that services were in progress. At first I sat under a shade tree to wait, but soon I was approached by a congregational leader who insisted that I come inside and join in. That I did, and for the next two hours I sang, clapped, and became spellbound by the charismatic and spirited reverend of the all-black congregation. While the building was the same, the effervescence of the service seemed an amusing departure from the staid and formal Jewish one surely once held there. After the service, and while a few African women were cleaning the sanctuary, I was allowed to document and photograph the building. After some outdoor socializing, I was courteously driven by a member of the church with his family to the bus stand for my next stop. The synagogue in Kadoma, once located along the highway to Bulawayo, was recently demolished and replaced with a newer Jehovah Witnesses church. Dating from the 1940s, photographs of the former house of prayer show that it was a small structure of no true architectural distinction. Nevertheless, this building and the others found within Zimbabwe recall a proud tradition of some 125 years of Jewish life in the country. With the fate of the Jewish community and the architecture that served it irreversibly decided, threatened, or precarious, I set out to record them. As evidence of the way Jews spread about the world and established prosperous and meaningful communities, may this architecture never be lost or forgotten. Jay A. Waronker lives in Atlanta, GA USA, where he is a practicing architect and professor of architecture at Southern Polytechnic State University. He recently returned on a Fulbright from southern Africa, where he documented the Jewish architecture of Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Zambia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. His earlier project, funded by the NEA, Graham Foundation, Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture, another Fulbright, the Asian Cultural Council, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and the Bokser Memorial Foundation, involved the documentation of India’s 34 synagogues. A longer version of this work, which included a portfolio of careful watercolors, was published in India’s Jewish Heritage: Ritual, Art, and Life-Cycle and is regularly exhibited. He is also the co-founder and co-curator of India’s first Jewish museum in the restored synagogue in Chennamangalam, Kerala. It opened in February 2006. He can be contacted at jayawaronker@aol.com.