In the late 1940s, one of the pet projects of Rabbi Prof. Louis Rabinowitz, Chief Rabbi of the Federation of Synagogues of South Africa and a keen historian, was to research the then-all-but-unknown subject of Jews who served on the Boer side during the Anglo-Boer War.

Rabbi Rabinowitz interviewed and corresponded with veterans, consulted enrolment and prisoner of war (POW) lists, and meticulously trawled through contemporary press reports. He published articles and delivered lectures on the topic, afterwards entrusting the documentation amassed to the archives of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD). Many years later, the latter became the basis for my book Boerejode – Jews in the Boer Armed Forces, 1899-1902, which was published in 2010.

My motivation in writing the book had its roots in a lifelong sense of patriotic pride over how extraordinarily well the Afrikaners had defended their independence against the greatest world empire of the day. They had crossed swords, moreover, not with just any European power but with the British, who can plausibly claim to have the most impressive military record of them all, yet in this conflict constantly found themselves outclassed and ultimately needing an overwhelming advantage in numbers to prevail.

I had thus long hero-worshipped the Boere, and the discovery that Jews, albeit no more than a few hundred or so, played a part in their epic struggle inspired me to bring that story to wider attention. One of the Chief Rabbi’s own motivations in researching the topic had been, at a time when Jewish-Afrikaner relations were at a low ebb, to publicise how Jews too had fought, and sometimes died, in defence of the Boer republics. His writings and lectures indeed succeeded in generating much goodwill towards the Jewish community in Afrikaner circles, and my own experiences have been very similar.

Much additional information had come to light by the time I began writing on the subject. I was hence able to expand significantly on the Chief Rabbi’s pioneering research, adding many names to the original nominal roll and adding or fleshing out new details about those who appeared on it.

Exact numbers will never be known, but available evidence suggests that around 300 Jews served on the Boer side during the war. Unlike such foreign contingents as the Dutch, German, and Irish corps, who constituted distinct military units, these were scattered throughout the Boer forces. One of the advantages of this was that it made possible the writing of a history that was inclusive of the greater Anglo-Boer War narrative rather than being narrowly focused on just a small component of it.

As the project developed, I found that there was a Jewish angle to virtually all the war’s most significant themes and events, from the major battles and sieges to the fall of the Boer capitals, the guerilla phase, the home front, the POWs on both sides, and even the concentration camps, where so many thousands of Boer women and children were interred and with such tragic results. The Jewish role in all of these individual areas may only have been confined to the participation of a few individuals, but because so many of their stories had been recorded, it was possible to interweave those experiences within a broader retelling of how the war unfolded.

Despite being privately published, Boerejode generated a gratifying amount of interest among Jews and Afrikaners alike, as well as with Anglo-Boer War enthusiasts. It was a great honour and deeply moving for me when as a result of the book’s appearance two monuments in memory of those Jews who lost their lives in the service of the Boer republics were erected outside Ladysmith, one at Surprise Hill and the other close to the main Boer memorial on the Platrand.

The first, one of a number of plaques unveiled on the 110th anniversary of the engagement in 2009, was in memory of Harry Spanier, the first Jew on the Boer side to be killed in action. The second, unveiled a year later, listed the names of thirteen Jewish Boers known to have died, whether in action or in the POW camps. The memorials were erected at the joint behest of the Ladysmith Siege Museum Trust and the SAJBD.

It is not possible here to recount any of the fascinating stories that the archives of the SAJBD brought to light nor what descendants of many of those oudstryders have since subsequently shared with me. What I think it is well worth pointing out is how never once in the course of my research did I come across even the mildest instance of Jews in the Boer forces being negatively discriminated against because of their faith or ethnicity. One indeed explicitly finds in the reminiscences of the veterans themselves that they experienced nothing but respect and acceptance from their fellow Boers. It brings to mind the words of the legendary President Paul Kruger himself when speaking at the military funeral of Harry Spanier who, like the other Boers who fell alongside him that day, was buried in Pretoria: “Ag barmhartige G-d, selfs Abraham se kinders het ons in ons nood help veg.” (Oh, merciful God, even Abraham’s children helped us fight in our hour of need.)

David Saks is a former associate director of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies and editor of the journal Jewish Affairs. He now lives in Israel.