‘Cleansed by the Torah’: why these Afrikaners converted to Judaism and moved to Israel

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Theo Kriel and Gabriela Schoeman were married a few weeks ago, in a classic Orthodox Jewish ceremony held in the backyard of friends from the central Israeli city of Ra’anana. A distinguished lineup of rabbis was in attendance to recite the traditional blessings and, as is customary at such weddings, the bride circled the groom seven times under the chuppah, and men and women danced separately.

There was little to suggest that both the bride and groom had been born and raised as devout Christians.

Because they are not yet fluent in Hebrew, Kriel and Schoeman preferred communicating with their Israeli guests in English. But when they had their first few minutes alone, right after the glass was broken under the chuppah, they shifted naturally into their native tongue of Afrikaans.

Descendants of some of the original Dutch families that settled South Africa in the 17th century, Kriel and Schoeman have swapped not only their religion, but also their nationality.

The 35-year-old groom, who converted to Judaism in 2017, immigrated to Israel two years ago. His 24-year-old bride, who finalized her conversion in early September, just in time for the chuppah, moved to Israel less than two months ago. They are part of a small but growing number of Afrikaners discovering Judaism and making aliyah in recent years.

If in the past the main reason for a South African to convert to Judaism would be to marry a Jew, no such ulterior motive exists among this new crop of “Jews of choice,” says Dorron Kline, chief executive officer of Telfed (the Israeli branch of the South African Zionist Federation). “Their motivation is purely spiritual – which is why in many cases we are seeing entire families converting,” he adds.

Kline estimates that the number of Afrikaner converts living in Israel has already surpassed several hundred. “In absolute numbers, that might not be a lot. But when I compare that to just a handful about 20 years ago, it’s a big jump. And as aliyah from South Africa grows, so does the number of converts among the immigrants.”

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These spiritually motivated converts tend to embrace Orthodox Judaism, which they view as a more authentic stream. And once they have converted, they follow the most rigid standards of religious observance.

“They’re much more dati [religious] than many South Africans who identify as Orthodox,” says Rabbi Moshe Silberhaft, spiritual leader of South Africa’s Small Jewish Communities Association.

Like many Orthodox Jews, they also tend to be quite right-wing in their politics. It is no coincidence, then, that many have ended up living in West Bank settlements. Indeed, one of their main strongholds – aside from Ra’anana, which is popular among South African immigrants in general, and more recently the rural community of Yavne’el in northern Israel – is the settlement of Susya in the South Hebron Hills.

Torah cleansing

On average, about five Afrikaner families convert to Judaism every year, according to Silberhaft, and the country’s rabbinical courts actively encourage them to make aliyah once they have completed the process. “I would say that about 70 percent of them have already left, and those who haven’t are on their way,” he says.

That would include Gidon and Ruth La Grange, who hope to move to their new home in Israel in November. The couple, originally from Cape Town, currently live in the southern coastal city of Gqeberha (formerly known as Port Elizabeth), once home to a flourishing Jewish community that has been dying out. Together with two of their three children, a daughter and a son, they converted about five years ago. Those two children have already moved to Israel with their families, both within the past two years. Their son lives in Ra’anana and their daughter in Beit Shemesh, near Jerusalem.

Ruth and Gidon La Grange.Gidon La Grange

“In the first years of my adult life, I worked for a company owned by a Jewish family, and I’ve always had this special thing in my heart for the Jewish people,” says Gidon, who served for 20 years served as pastor of a large Pentecostal church with more than 500 congregants. Originally known as Andre, the 69-year-old says that at some point, he and his wife began questioning their Christian faith.

“As we began searching for the truth, we understood that we needed to be cleansed, and that that cleansing could only come from Torah,” he says.

Rachel and Moshe Lorse, also from Gqeberha, already have tickets for an aliyah flight this month. “B’ezrat Hashem [with the help of God], we will start our new life in Israel very soon,” says Rachel, 57. “To ensure ourselves a soft landing, we will head first to Beit Shemesh, where we already have close friends.”

Formerly known as Zeltia, Rachel says she and her husband found their way to Judaism after a long soul-searching process. “I always say that I never really believed what I believe,” she explains, referring to her Christian upbringing.

This is a second marriage for both of them, and between them Rachel and Moshe (formerly Martin) have four children, none of whom have converted to Judaism. “That’s the hardest part of making aliyah: leaving them behind, along with our grandson,” Rachel says.

But neither she nor her husband felt they could live a full Jewish life in Gqeberha, which in recent years has become a center of sorts for Afrikaners undergoing conversion to Judaism. “The original Jewish community here is very small and not very observant,” she notes. “There are no kosher restaurants and no kosher bakeries. It’s not even possible to celebrate the holiday of Sukkot as we would have liked.”

The couple had considered moving either to Johannesburg or Cape Town, where there are still sizable Jewish communities, but opted instead for Israel. “We figured that if we’re already uprooting ourselves, why not just move to Israel?” Rachel says.

Rachel and Moshe Lorse, who are making aliyah this month.Rachel Lorse

‘Definitely a trend’

Originally from South Africa’s Western Cape, Kriel says he had always been fascinated with religion and about 15 years ago began studying Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism while traveling through Malaysia. He decided to convert to Judaism after watching a video on the meaning of life by Yosef Mizrachi, an ultra-Orthodox rabbi known for his popular outreach lectures. “It pretty much summed up what I believed,” he recounts.

A cancer survivor and amputee, Kriel was a partner in a successful prosthetic and orthotic company. He was living in the Jewish neighborhood of Sea Point, Cape Town, before he picked up and left for Israel.

Life was good in South Africa, he says, and he had no reason to leave except that he was having problems finding a wife. “I had basically dated all the frum [religious] girls in Cape Town, and my friends were telling me it was time for me to go to Israel if I wanted to meet someone and set up a family.”

A few years ago, he created a YouTube channel called The Jewish Convert, where he shares information about Judaism, the conversion process and immigration to Israel. The channel has more than 5,500 subscribers and had more than half a million views. “I get inquiries from all over the world through this channel, but an especially large number from South Africa – which convinced me this is definitely a trend,” says Kriel, referring to the growing number of Afrikaners converting and moving to Israel.

Among those reaching out to him was a Christian family from the Western Cape interested in converting. Kriel would eventually marry their youngest daughter, Gabriela, a trained bookkeeper who plans to enroll soon in a Jewish studies program at a well-known Orthodox seminary for women in Jerusalem.

Gabriela Schoeman and Theo Kriel during their wedding ceremony last month. Theo Kriel

Like Orthodox Jews, says Kriel, Afrikaners tend to be very religious and conservative, which may explain why they are drawn to this particular denomination of Judaism, even though it is much easier and quicker for them to convert through the Reform movement.

And it is much easier, he maintains, for converts like himself to move to Israel than it is for South Africans who were born Jewish. “What holds back born Jews are their family and community ties,” Kriel says. “But many of us converts have already broken our ties with our families and communities, so that’s no longer an obstacle.”

In addition to running his YouTube channel and devoting four hours a day to studying Jewish texts, Kriel was able to find fulltime work in Israel in the prosthetic and orthotic business. He describes himself religiously as “chardali” (hard-line religious Zionist or yeshivish) and politically as “far right.” Were it not for work-related constraints, he says, he would have happily built his new home in the West Bank, which he insists on calling “Judea and Samaria.”

‘More open space’

Among the first Afrikaner converts to make aliyah were the Taljaards from Randfontein, a gold-mining city near Johannesburg. They came in the mid-1990s and began raising sheep in the settlement of Susya, where they were often involved in violent clashes with Palestinians from nearby villages in the South Hebron Hills. Jacob, the eldest of 14 children in the family, was killed in a tractor accident several years ago. He once famously told an Israeli television reporter that he “loved” the apartheid system and thought it was “the best thing in the world.”

His younger sister Sarie moved to Israel four years ago, after her eldest of two boys decided to volunteer for the Israeli army. “I raised my boys by myself, and I wasn’t going to stay behind if they were here,” says the 56-year-old, who has worked as a cook and nanny since arriving in the country. After initially renting a place near her younger sister in the West Bank settlement of Ma’aleh Michmash, she moved to Ra’anana, where she found steady work.

She has one older brother who still lives in Susya, another in the nearby settlement of Beit Yatir, an older sister in the settlement of Einav, in the northern West Bank, and a younger brother on a sheep farm in the Golan Heights. “They prefer to live in Judea and Samaria because they grew up on a farm, and there’s more open space there,” she says. “It’s also less expensive. If I could find decent work there, I’d prefer being there, too.”

Yochanan La Grange and his wife Rifka landed in Israel on March 3, 2020, just before the country announced its first coronavirus lockdown. A qualified tool and die maker, this son of soon-to-be-immigrants Gidon and Ruth has not yet been able to find work in his profession. To pay the rent and feed his family, he has been working as custodian at a boarding school outside Tel Aviv.

When he and his wife were converting, he says, they promised the rabbinical court in South Africa that they would give their children a proper Jewish upbringing. “That would not have been possible in Port Elizabeth,” says Yochanan, 27, formerly known as Christian. “Baruch Hashem [thank God], we know that our child can be raised here as a Jew.” In addition to the three synagogues he attends in Ra’anana on a regular basis, Yochanan has also become active in the Orthodox outreach movement Chabad since moving to Israel.

His dad can hardly wait to be reunited with his children and grandchildren, several of whom he has yet to meet after their births in Israel. But he says this wasn’t his primary motivation for making aliyah. “Today, for the first time in thousands of years, half of the Jewish people are in Israel and half are outside Israel,” he says. “I’m asking myself in what half do I want to be?”