Ochberg orphans and the horrors from whence they came: the rescue in 1921 of 181 Jewish orphans by Isaac Ochberg, the representative of the South African Jewish community, from the horrors of the 'pale of settlement'

Story of Isaac Ochberg(1879–1938), a South African philanthropist and Zionist. Ochberg was born in the Ukraine and went to South Africa in 1894. A successful Cape Town businessman, he was best known for his humanitarian project in bringing some 200 Jewish pogrom orphans from the Ukraine and Poland to South Africa after World War I. In 1921 he traveled to Russia on his own initiative, personally selected the children and organized their transportation to South Africa, where they were cared for by the Jewish orphanages in Cape Town and Johannesburg and the South African Jewish War Victims Fund.The Ochberg orphans were placed in the care of the South African Jewish Orphanage (now Arcadia Jewish Children's Home) and the Cape Jewish Orphanage (now Oranjia Jewish Child and Youth Centre).