Welcome to the website of the
Jewish Community of Witbank
Witbank is located on the Highveld region of the Mpumalanga province (in the former Transvaal) in South Africa, about 120 kilometres east of Johannesburg. The area around Witbank was recognised by 1890 as a potential coal mining area. Jewish connection with the area started early. In 1896 the Witbank Colliery Ltd was established by Sigismund Neumann, a Jewish mining magnate, whose group of companies controlled several of the biggest mines in South Africa. The town of Witbank was and laid out in 1903 by the Witbank Colliery. A thriving Jewish community grew in the area, establishing a formal congregation in 1905.
Since 2002 Barry Mann, who loved growing up in the town, has devoted time and energy to meticulously documenting the Jewish life of Witbank. Barry has assembled so much material – documents, registers, newspaper articles, photographs, and videos – that he has compiled two internet directories for Witbank. Please send any amendments to mannbarry@gmail.com or info@chol.website.
This CHOL website for the Witbank Jewish Community highlights Barry’s work and pays tribute to him as one of the pioneers of documenting South African Jewish communities on the internet. Each page of this CHOL website highlights the specific areas involved and points you to the appropriate pages in Barry’s directories. You can see them in their entirety at:
Barry Mann’s Witbank web directory 1, 2002
Barry Mann’s Witbank web directory 2, 2007
See Barry Mann’s story of creating his web directories in Newsletter 29.
Banner picture of Witbank Old Shul and Communal Hall, taken in 1949 by Harold Blumberg.
Click here for a map (the name Witbank has been superseded by eMalahleni).
Website directories of the Witbank Jewish Community
Assembled in 2002 and 2007 by Barry Mann, ex-Witbank, now Salt Lake City via Texas, USA
Hosted by CHOL – Community History On-Line
Barry acknowledges information from
Jewish Life in the South African Country Communities, Volume I,
researched by the South African Friends of Beth Hatefutsoth,
and from Rabbi Silberhaft and others
Introductory CHOL pages created by Geraldine Auerbach MBE, London
Formatted and uploaded by Bramie Lenhoff, Delaware, USA
August 2026
To join the CHOL email list email info@chol.website.
