By
– September 1, 2011
The title of this book says it all. Threaded throughout My Race is a detailed account of the lives of white, “colored” (multi-race and Asian), and black Africans, as seen through the eyes of Lorraine Lotzof Abramson and her middle class Ashkenazi Jewish family. Abramson was only two years old in 1948, when Apartheid was imposed on the country by the newly elected Nationalist Party. Like many other Jews in South Africa, her family spoke English at home and sided with the thinking and actions of the more liberal English South Africans. They stood in sharp contrast to the Afrikaners or Boers, the descendants of the Dutch settlers who were the mainstay of the pro-Apartheid ruling Nationalist party.
All whites reaped many of the “benefits” of being white in a white supremacist society. As Abramson astutely describes it, the Jews of South Africa were in a “unique situation.” They fled Eastern Europe to escape oppression and arrived in a country where “by virtue of their white skin…[they] found themselves on the same side as the oppressors.” South Africa under Apartheid was a “police state” ruled with “an iron fist.” The Afrikaners were Nazi sympathizers before World War II and their anti-Semitism was just under the surface. The fact that whites were far outnumbered by blacks and coloreds enabled many Jewish South Africans to live “relatively peaceful lives” even though they were collectively referred to as “Die Jode” or “The Jews.” This memoir provides the reader with a vivid example of the diversity, complexity, and vulnerability of the lives of Jews all over the world. Index.
All whites reaped many of the “benefits” of being white in a white supremacist society. As Abramson astutely describes it, the Jews of South Africa were in a “unique situation.” They fled Eastern Europe to escape oppression and arrived in a country where “by virtue of their white skin…[they] found themselves on the same side as the oppressors.” South Africa under Apartheid was a “police state” ruled with “an iron fist.” The Afrikaners were Nazi sympathizers before World War II and their anti-Semitism was just under the surface. The fact that whites were far outnumbered by blacks and coloreds enabled many Jewish South Africans to live “relatively peaceful lives” even though they were collectively referred to as “Die Jode” or “The Jews.” This memoir provides the reader with a vivid example of the diversity, complexity, and vulnerability of the lives of Jews all over the world. Index.
Carol Poll, Ph.D., is the retired Chair of the Social Sciences Department and Professor of Sociology at the Fashion Institute of Technology of the State University of New York. Her areas of interest include the sociology of race and ethnic relations, the sociology of marriage, family and gender roles and the sociology of Jews.
