Temple Israel, also known as the Cape Town Progressive Jewish Congregation (CTPJC), is a Progressive Jewish congregation in Cape Town, with three centres in Green Point, Wynberg and Milnerton. As three centres combined, they are the largest Progressive congregation in South Africa, and the second largest Jewish congregation in Cape Town after Marais Road Shul in Sea Point. The congregation first started in Green Point in 1944, eight years after South Africa's first progressive synagogue, also Temple Israel, opened in Hillbrow in Johannesburg. The Cape Town congregation caters to over 3000 Progressive Jews in the city. The congregation is an affiliate of the South African Union for Progressive Judaism, which is part of the World Union for Progressive Judaism (WUPJ). The congregation represents around 18% of Cape Town Jewry.
History
The congregation was founded in Green Point in 1944 by founding rabbinic couple, Rabbi Dr David Sherman (z”l) and Bertha Sherman (z”l). Rabbi Moses Cyrus Weiler (z”l) founded the Reform movement and led the movement's mother synagogue, Temple Israel in Hillbrow, Johannesburg. Although Weiler had been tasked with establishing a national Reform movement, he resisted establishing other congregations outside Hillbrow during his first ten years. He felt that it was more important to build a significant membership in Johannesburg before expanding nationwide. In 1943, he relented and agreed to help set up the first progressive congregation in Cape Town, and was able to call upon Sherman, his friend and Hebrew Union classmate. Sherman led Temple Israel in Green Point for the ensuing decades, seeing exponential growth with 25% of Cape Town Jewry affiliating themselves with the Reform movement. In comparison, the percentage of Johannesburg Jews affiliated to the Reform branch has always been under 10%. The profile of the local Atlantic Seaboard Jewry differed from the Yiddish-speaking Jewish migrants that settled in District Six and Woodstock, Cape Town generations before. They were usually South African-born and spoke English in the family home. They mostly attended local government schools rather than Jewish schools (cheders or yeshivot). They were usually more affluent than their migrant parents and they abandoned many religious practices, favouring modern dress and haircuts and sometimes anglicizing their names.
In Johannesburg, Weiler had faced backlash for introducing Confirmation at age 16, requiring students to study for an exam and then lead a service. Parents also voiced their disagreement with the Christian-sounding name for the rite. However, Confirmation, which had become common in American Reform Judaism, persisted in Cape Town under Rabbi Sherman's leadership. By 1977, the Green Point congregation had been holding Confirmation services for 31 years.
In the 1940s and 1950s there was a Johannesburg-Cape Town cultural split when Temple Israel in Green Point rejected a proposal for the creation of the position of Chief Minister under which all Progressive congregations would fall. The appointee would have been Rabbi Weiler, who was based in Johannesburg. Weiler had sent Victor Brasch as his emissary to Cape Town to assure the community of the need for central control, based in Johannesburg, and enuring that each congregation follow the same formula. However, Cape Town wanted a looser federation where each city made its own decisions and pushed back against the notion of a Chief Minister, arguing that it was against the democratic principles of Reform Judaism. In 1951, Cape Town quit the South African Union for Progressive Judaism and refused to return until 1963.