Dr J L Landau Lodge

Consecrated October 1928

A Lodge was consecrated in October 1928 and was highly successful during the next three years. During the Second World war the Lodge went into recess. The Lodge began with 22 members and the first few years were spent endeavouring to consolidate its position and keeping the young Lodge alive.

Kroonstad

Kroonstad (Afrikaans directly translated "Crown City") is the third largest town in the Free State (after Bloemfontein and Welkom) and lies two hours drive on the N1 from Gauteng. Maokeng is an area within Kroonstad, and is occasionally used as a synonym of the town itself. It is the second-largest commercial and urban centre in the Northern Free State (after Welkom), and an important railway junction on the main line from Cape Town to Johannesburg. Maokeng is Sesotho and means "place of the thorn trees (mimosa trees)".

Naming of the Lodge

Judah Leo Landau (23 April 1866 – 26 August 1942) was a Galician-born South African rabbi and writer. A noted scholar, poet, and playwright, he served as the inaugural Chief Rabbi of South Africa from 1915 until his death in 1942. Read more....

Jews in Kroonstad

On Friday 17 June, an era came to an end when the last two Jewish males living in Kroonstad, Wally Goldsmith and Solly Witten, passed away on the same day. All that now reminds of this once thriving Jewish centre, at its height the third largest in the Free State after Bloemfontein and Welkom, is a handful of single, widowed women. The final chapter has now also been written for the Kroonstad synagogue. To the end of his life, Goldsmith would go there to daven every Friday night, even when he was the only one present. The present building dates back to 1994, when a semi-detached house was converted into a small shul after the sale of the previous synagogue (opened in 1936). Read more....