Deborah Posel

Darker Shade of Pale (eBook, ePUB)

Shtetl to Colony

• Format: ePub

Produktbeschreibung

A personal journey through forgotten history, Darker Shade of Pale uncovers the hidden story of global migration at the turn of the twentieth century from the Jewish territories of the Russian Empire, called The Pale of Settlement, to the far-flung British colony of South Africa. Following the life of the author's grandfather - an ordinary man whose struggles and disappointments mirror those of countless others - this book challenges the common narrative of Jewish immigrant success in South Africa. This intimate account reveals a more complex reality and opens unfamiliar vistas. It reveals how Jewish preoccupations with status and success travelled from shtetl to colony, and the psychological costs incurred; the ironies of this journeying for literate, working women from the shtetl; the version of whiteness that South Africa assigned to Jews from Eastern Europe and the various ways in which Jews interacted with Black people; some of the unexpected economic routes they chose, as well as the prejudicial punches that Jewish immigrants had to take - from both the British and the already-assimilated English-speaking Jewish community in South Africa. Darker Shade of Pale brings the psychodramas of immigration into focus, in the traumas of dislocation along with the pressures to succeed and the shame of failure. Through one man's unfulfilled hopes, we discover what was given and what was taken as immigrants sought to build new lives in a strange land.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Wits University Press
• Seitenzahl: 368
• Erscheinungstermin: 1. November 2025
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9781776149742
• Artikelnr.: 74323182

Autorenporträt

Deborah Posel is a sociologist and Professor Emeritus at the University of Cape Town. She is the founding director of UCT's Institute for Humanities in Africa and the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research.