South African Jews escaped racial classification by urban settlement and language lobbying

Evidence

The urban environment gave the Jews both more visibility and more protection. Falling on the “wrong side” of the color bar during the period leading up to the institution of apartheid could have been fatal for Jewish cultural and political aspirations. There would have been no hiding in the protective environs of the city. Thus Jews lobbied against the categorization of the Cape immigration bill and had Yiddish reclassified as a “European” language. And yet the Cape censuses continued to differentiate between “Europeans” and “Hebrews.” — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 749

Categorization

• SHARE: For someone interested in South African Jewish history or apartheid racial classification mechanics — the detail that Yiddish was reclassified as a ‘European’ language to dodge immigration restrictions is a striking specific.
• XREF: Connects to anti-noise/silence readings about urban space as both protective enclosure and exposure, and to racial-passing literature generally.