DARKER SHADE OF PALE, shtetl to colony

350pp., illus., map, paperback, Wits University Press, Johannesburg, 2025

ISBN: 9781776149711

In her sympathetic account of the life of her paternal grandfather, Maurice Posel, Deborah Posel blends family memoir with historical analysis, uncovering the little-known story of global migration from the Jewish territories of the Russian Empire, called The Pale of Settlement, to the British colony of South Africa at the turn of the twentieth century.

Through her telling, she explores how Jewish migrants navigated social orders and sheds new light on the complicated role of Jews in South Africa, challenging the common narrative of Jewish immigrant success.

"Part memoir, part global history, part historical sociology, part meditation on the ways in which inherited trauma shapes individual lives, Darker Side of Pale is a poignant story about the life of Deborah Posel's paternal grandfather. Like the majority of the Jewish immigrants who came to South Africa from the Eastern European lands ... His life was not exceptional. But, as Posel shows so brilliantly and with so much empathy, he and the thousands like him also belong to the historical record. By giving a sympathetic account of her grandfather's otherwise unremarkable life, Posel not only challenges the myth of Jewish exceptionalism that is so key to the historiography of Jewish Studies in South Africa, she also debunks one of the basic pillars of anti-Semitism." Jacob Dlamini, Associate Professor, Department of History Princeton University

"A family saga that weaves the old Jewish world into the new. Deborah Posel leaves no stone unturned. Trauma and silences are exposed, context and contingency revealed. A deeply researched and moving account unveiling the world awaiting Jewish immigrants to South Africa during the great migration from Europe. An innovative and valuable contribution to South African historiography." Milton Shain, Emeritus Professor of Historical Studies, University of Cape Town

Sociologist Deborah Posel is 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.