100 Years of ARC Memories: Celebrating the Centenary of Arcadia (South African Jewish Orphanage)

The purpose of this book, like the Arc Memory Booklets it brings together, is to record the memories of the children of Arcadia (Arcs) and the history of Arcadia (the Arc). The Arc children of many different ages now live in many countries around the world and have followed many different walks of life. The common thread that binds the Arc children is that they spent some, or even all of their childhood in Arcadia.The book also marks and celebrates the Arc’s centenary. Finally, 100 years after its official beginning, old Arcs of at least five of the ten generations who passed through its gates have expressed a little of what the Arc meant to them. I feel privileged to be the recorder of their memories. Arcadia, known as the Arc to all its children, started off as the South African Jewish Orphanage (SAJO). ‘Arcadia’ was the name of the 26-acre estate bought from Sir Lionel Phillips in 1923 by the South African Jewish community. The name remained when the palatial villa and extensive grounds were transformed into a home to house Jewish children in need of care. Thus Arcadia, 22 Oxford Road, Parktown, Johannesburg was to become the address and home of generations of children. Arcadia SAJO has cared for over three thousand Jewish children over the past 100 years. In 1975 its name was changed to Arcadia Jewish Children’s Home. In 2002 the children then in residence, were relocated to Sandringham and the property was sold in 2004.The story actually begins more than 100 years ago. In 1902, the Jewish Ladies’ Communal League founded the original Orphanage, which it continued to run in Johannesburg until 1921. In that year the South African Jewish Orphanage (SAJO) was established as a separate and independent Institution and took over all the Orphanage work, property and assets from the League. Two years later, ‘Arcadia’ was bought and that was where the story of the first ‘Old Arcs’ really began. Arcadia’s centenary is being celebrated in 2006 as May 1906 was the date on which the first home owned and erected by the SAJO was established. Arcadia owes its existence to the tremendous generosity and caring of the South African Jewish community to look after their ‘own’; to the captains of industry, to the donors large and small, to those giving gifts in kind or free services, to the Medical Board, Dental Board and Para-Medical Board, who gave their services free, to the Members and Subscribers and Honorary Collectors, and to the many Committee and sub-Committee Members from all over South Africa, who over the years gave so generously of their time and assistance. Every one of these people played an essential part in helping to support the running of the Arc, and mere words cannot properly express the thanks that is due to these legions of honourable people.This book is dedicated to all the supporters of Arcadia mentioned above, to all the carers and to fellow Arc brothers and sisters especially those who bravely opened their inner hearts and shared their more sensitive and private stories.One Old Arc Celia Kramer (Aizakowitz), a granny blessed with ten grandchildren wrote: