Hyman Liberman

Hyman Liberman
Bust of Liberman by Moses Kottler
Mayor of Cape Town
In office
1904–1907
Preceded byWilliam Thorne
Succeeded byWilliam Duncan Baxter
Personal details
Born1853
Suwałki, Poland
Died23 June 1923
Cape Town, South Africa
NationalityPolish
South African
SpouseEsther Liberman
OccupationPolitician, businessman

Hyman Liberman (1853 - June 23, 1923) was a Polish-born South African politician, produce merchant and philanthropist. He served three consecutive terms as the Mayor of Cape Town between 1904 and 1907. He was the city's first elected Jewish mayor.[1][2] David Bloomberg, who served as mayor of the city in the 1970s, said that Liberman's appointment was "extraordinary" at the time as much of the Council was made up of gentry from England, Scotland and Ireland.[3] He became the second Jewish person in South Africa to hold mayoral office, after H.H. Solomon in Port Elizabeth in 1875.[4] According to Milton Shain, Liberman may have been the inspiration behind a Jewish caricature cartoon by D. C. Boonzaier.[5]

He was born in Suwałki in Poland and spent much of his childhood in Birmingham, where he served a business apprenticeship, before emigrating to South Africa in 1873 at age 20.[6][7][2][8][9] He was a senior partner in the produce merchants firm, Liberman & Buirski and became very successful. This allowed him to be an active philanthropist, and he also showed great care and concern for the refugees and unemployed that fled to the Cape during the Second Boer War.

He was congregation president of the Gardens Shul and formally opened the new synagogue in 1905.[10][11] The facade of the synagogue also contains the Liberman Memorial stained glass windows. As mayor he also opened the newly completed Cape Town City Hall.[12] He was a member of Cape Town City Council from 1900 to 1916.[13]

He died on 23 June 1923 and is buried at the 7th Avenue Jewish cemetery in Maitland.[2][14]

  1. ^ Cape Town: Culture and Community Reform Judaism. Retrieved on 26 December 2023
  2. ^ a b c Death of Former Mayor of Cape Town Jewish Telegraphic Agency. 9 August 1923
  3. ^ CT history through the yes of its Jewish mayors South African Jewish Report. 2–9 March 2012
  4. ^ Feldberg, Leon (1965). South African Jewry. Johannesburg: Fieldhill Publishing Company. p. 113.
  5. ^ The Foundations of Antisemitism in South Africa: Images of the Jew c. 1870-1930 University of Cape Town. 1990
  6. ^ Made in Wood - Work from the Western Cape : South African National Gallery. Cape Town: South African National Gallery. 1953. p. 17. ISBN 9781874817079.
  7. ^ Abrahams, Israel (1955). The Birth of a Community: A History of Western Province Jewry from Earliest Times to the End of the South African War, 1902. Cape Town: Cape Town Hebrew Congregation. p. 131.
  8. ^ Feldberg, Leon (1976). South African Jewry. Johannesburg: Fieldhill Publishing Company. p. 37.
  9. ^ Baumberg Alexander, Enid (1953). Morris Alexander: A Biography. Cape Town: Juta. p. 28.
  10. ^ Our history Gardens Shul. Retrieved on 26 December 2023
  11. ^ The mayor of Cape Town, Hyman Lieberman, opens the Great Synagogue in the Gardens, Cape Town South African History Online. Retrieved on 27 December 2023
  12. ^ Sweet sound of music kicks of Jewish presence in SA South African Jewish Report. 16 March 2016
  13. ^ Sibbett, Cecil John (1964). Pictorial Material of Cecil J. Rhodes, His Contemporaries and Later South African Personalities in the C. J. Sibbett Collection of the University of Cape Town Libraries. Cape Town: University of Cape Town. p. 122.
  14. ^ Hyman Liberman Eggsa. Retrieved on 26 December 2023