The South African Jewish Museum tells the story of Jewish migration to South Africa from the late nineteenth century onwards — predominantly Lithuanian Jews escaping the Russian pogroms and finding their way to the Cape and then to Johannesburg's mines. The exhibition uses photographs, oral histories and reconstructed Lithuanian shtetl scenes to trace the community's growth.
The museum is built around the original 1863 Old Synagogue, the oldest synagogue in South Africa, which still stands on the same Hatfield Street site. The combined complex includes the Great Synagogue next door and the Holocaust Centre opposite. Closed on Saturdays for the Jewish Sabbath.