The most valuable cargo on the unsinkable Titanic when it sank in 1912 was ostrich feathers insured in today’s terms for R40million. Caledon, Riversdale and Uniondale all had Jews who had been dealers in ostrich feathers or had moved into something else once the feather boom collapsed because  of the coming of the open topped motor car which blew  the  large feathered hats off the heads of the fashionably coiffed passengers. Merely two years  after the loss of the Titanic all the new Jewish ostrich millionaires were saddled with bales of  unsaleable ostrich feathers. By 1917 23 ostrich farmers and related industries were insolvent – many became general dealers. It has been said that one should never underestimate the effect of women on capitalism.

Uniondale was 116km from Oudtshoorn, the epicentre of the ostrich industry, so it is unsurprising that many of the early Jewish settlers had settled in Uniondale attracted by the ostrich feather boom. One early settler was the smous Joseph Ryan, who bought farms in the area and brought out his father, his wife and his daughters, his sister and brother-in-law Rabbi Zelig Shear,  a mohel and shochet, who had been head of a Lithuanian yeshiva, and who became a general dealer and ostrich farmer and in turn brought out his brother Woolf, his wife and eleven children.  Rabbi Shear  had arrived with his own Sefer Torah and was Uniondale’s first minister. When members of the Uniondale Dutch Reformed Church had disputes, it was to Rabbi Shear they turned for a fair judgement. The Rabbi listened patiently, took up a Chumash, closed his eyes, opened a page, pointed to a passuk and issued a ruling. The parties to the dispute left feeling that true justice  had been served.

Other early residents were feather buyers Bern Lazarowitz, Theodore Bloch and Isaac Tobkin, as well as  Jacob Blaiberg and Jacob Noll who  had shops near the railway station. During the South African war,  British troops raided Noll’s stores and he applied for compensation. By the early 1900s there were 37 Jewish families in Uniondale, all of whom kept kosher and a section of the abattoir was reserved for kosher slaughtering.

In 1902 the brothers-in-law Joseph Ryan and Rabbi Shear founded the Uniondale Hebrew Congregation with Abraham Cooper a trustee. The next year its representative Mr Levenberg joined the delegation to petition against the 1903 Immigration Bill and in 1904 Mr L Jacobs was its representative   when Morris Alexander established the Jewish Board of Deputies  and in 1905 he brought to Alexander’s attention that the Cape Parliament intended to pass a Half Holiday bill that would prevent Jewish shop owners from closing on Shabbat which Alexander, on behalf of the  new Board was able to have amended. When SAJBD was formed in 1914m Uniondale affiliated and they attended its conferences

Cooper, as a  trustee, obtained some land by deed of transfer and partners Ryan and Rabbi Shear helped finance its purchase in 1902 and the beautiful building with Italian tiles and walls decorated with stars and animals was completed in 1906. Ostrich farmers had money.

Their children’s religious education was important ant by 1914 they had built Talmud Torah with afternoon cheder classes for its 50 pupils and later a library , a rabbi’s house and a mikveh were built next to it.

Uniondale had a Ladies Benevolent Society, a Women’s Zionist League Society, a Young Zionist Society and a Zionist Society and in 1933 made a generous donation to the German Jewry Fund.

Like the other country communities, their numbers started to drop with the last synagogue service at Pesach in 1963 when three families and some visitors attended. In 1965 when there were no longer any ministers in the town, Rabbi Duschinsky, the Board’s Country communities’ rabbi tried  unsuccessfully to arrange for a shochet/ teacher to visit.

The Board of Deputies became trustees of the Uniondale Hebrew Congregation and its assets in 1971.  The Lindes, the last remaining family, left in 1972 and asked that the money  go to charity with a small amount left to maintain the synagogue property and the cemetery. The shul was donated to the Uniondale Municipality on condition that it was not used for religious purposes and it was taken over by the Lions Club. The synagogue is now one of the tourist attractions in the town. As for the cemetery, the Board attended to subsequent complaints about its condition of the cemetery and in 2003 it was restored with the tombstones laid flat to prevent vandalism.

The Country Communities Sub-Committee of the Cape SA Jewish Board of Deputies looks after the cemeteries of the defunct country communities.