Brian Marcus
Brian Marcus was born in 1953 and raised in the Cape Town suburb of Rondebosch, in a close-knit and deeply Jewish family. His father was born in Eastern Europe and came to South Africa around 1931 or 1932, following his own father who arrived in 1928, fleeing anti-Semitism and poverty. Brian's mother's family emigrated from Lithuania around 1924 or 1925, and she was born in Cape Town in 1926. Judaism was central to family life, and Brian was active in Zionist youth movements, including a religious movement in his teens, as well as the Jewish student union while studying civil engineering at university.
Married only a year, Brian and his wife Susan left South Africa in 1977 when he was 24, motivated by a longstanding family unease about the future under apartheid and a desire to broaden their horizons. Encouraged by a second cousin who was a civil engineer in Boston, they set out to travel the world with the United States as an early stop. When job prospects in Boston fell through, they drove a camper across the country toward the booming Southwest and arrived in Dallas. Seeking community, they went straight to the JCC, where a young South African receptionist named Karen connected them with her recently arrived family, who welcomed the couple into their home.
In Dallas, Brian found engineering work with a welcoming principal at a local firm, while navigating the long and uncertain immigration process. Susan, whose degree was in psychology, volunteered at the Golden Acres old age home before working with a psychotherapist and later pursuing a PhD at North Texas State. The couple joined local congregations, served on synagogue boards, and helped support the Solomon Schechter day school in its early years. They raised three daughters, all born in Dallas and educated at Solomon Schechter. In 1996 the family moved to San Diego to embrace an ocean-and-mountains lifestyle like the one Brian cherished growing up. He remains grateful for the opportunities and freedoms he found in the United States.
Full Transcript
I'm Brian Marcus and currently residing in san diego california tell us how did your family first emigrate to South Africa why did they come and what do they come for if you recall uh well my on my father's side they my father was actually born in Eastern Europe and he came to South Africa when he was 12 years old essentially fleeing the anti-semitism and the poverty that were reflecting the Jewish communities he is his father my grandfather came to South Africa 1928 my father came three or four years later in 1931 a 1932 my mother's family came from Lithuania also probably for similar reasons that
they had family that had come you know 10 or 15 years before then they emigrated from lithuania in 1924-25 my mother was born in Cape Town in 26 that some of her elder siblings were born in Lithuania and she had younger siblings that were born in Captain and can you tell us just a little bit about your young life growing up in South Africa anything that might be memorable would you like to share um you know I think the I grew up in Cape Town in a suburb called rondebosch was a very I would say a simpler time we had a somewhat carefree childhood growing
up I think it was cycling to school and on bicycles I went to just school and to show and to University all within you know a mile and a half of where I grew up and my father's business was probably two or three miles from where I grew up and I was you know I remember fondly the closest of the Jewish I was just going to ask you what can you tell us about life in the Jewish community when you were growing up so certainly it was an integral part of our identity my family especially with my father being an immigrant himself he'd come as
a young boy the Judaism was very very close to their their roots and i think that the as a result that the being jewish you singled out amongst the other whites is being different and you you know the family influences were such where it was a very central part of your identity remain identity activity in jewish youth movements was important I didn't go to a Jewish day school into a public school but even so the attending synagogue and being active in Jewish youth members was very central to more less or socialization as a as a young person in South Africa so and I was a
member till you know as a pre Bar Mitzvah I probably participated in an appalling Zionist youth movement and then I had a part of times when i tried beta which was also a very strong movement and then in my teens I had a couple of two or three years where I took a leadership position in bnei akiva which is also a Zionist religious youth movement so and being a student going to university was important to associate with the Jewish student union which had their own separate services it was just them important yes what did you study at university I studied civil engineering okay okay and
at what point in time did you and your family or was it just you decide to leave South Africa my wife and I were married only for a year when we left and it was in 1977 when I was 24 years of age that we decided to leave South Africa we'd actually probably even when I was a student and the younger than that wouldn't in my early 20s I had I couldn't say I had definitively decided to leave South Africa but I had decided that travel abroad to widen my horizons and see what's outside of South Africa was important are there any other events that
you can think of that had influenced your decision to leave our perhaps events happening there well I'm not really other than the prevalent discussion from the time that we were very small you know the prevalent dinner table discussion was always fear of the future in South Africa that and there was a mentality amongst Jews that was always fearful you know that South Africa shouldn't be the place would use that South Africa was going to be that the political uncertainty and turmoil of having an apartheid system meant that this wasn't where we wasn't where we should what where we should look for our future to be
because it was almost like you know if and when there's democracy Jews are going to be blamed before the whites for suppressing the blacks so you know we should avoid persecution and be thinking about moving and that was just a common theme in in family discussions the other precipitating event was that Suzanne my wife's elder brother emigrated to Australia just the year before we got married so it was two years before we left so we already saw you know the start of our nuclear thermal our extended family starting to make moves and I personally didn't want to go to Australia so I thought we need
to start looking at alternatives so along that line how did you happen upon or decide upon the United States would be your first choice your choice I was always attracted to coming to the United States initially I was attracted to coming to the United States with them for the potential of studying further or advancing my degree when I saw that wasn't going to happen we Suzanne and I decided to pack up and take a trip around the world with the second stop being the United States what we had it we had started communicating with the second cousin of mine on my father's side that extended
family had sort of dispersed around the world and there was we had found some family in Boston who was also civil engineer and I started communicating with him the year that we were planning this extended trip and I you know the part of the communication was along the lines that I I wouldn't mind getting a job to come and work to try you know experience life in the United States and he was very encouraging he was saying you know the response was I have a senior position with the state i miss you know qualified soil engineer i have a lot of contacts and the business
and i can get you a job in Boston just come on over so that's was part of the the ration off into the United States was anybody else in your family considering moving and or some of your friends a lot of our friends were moving they were we were all very young we were in our early 20s no one spoke about it but it you know it wasn't like the discussion so where are you living and where you know what is your plan it was almost like you know when people choose degrees you never told what someone's you know it's like oh he's studying that
you know you not a discussion guys have any way but it wasn't a discussion that we had amongst friends but it it was almost like a surprise that within two years of of the time that we left we found almost all of our close friends had left to different destinations around the world some to Israel some to England many to Australia very few to America what about immediate family were there any plans for anybody your close relatives or any one time about two years after we settled down in the United States Suzanne's parents my wife's parents started to look seriously about where they might want
to relocate you and they had one son in Australia who left the year or two before us in my head we've been settled in Dallas for two or three years and they came to consider whether America might be a destination so but that wasn't you know the thing that motivated us it's happened subsequently and subsequently my my sister and her husband who were who assist as a couple years younger than me we're also planning to move and we help them you know make contacts in Dallas and they ended up moving today sweden and more recently 12 years ago my older sister who finding from South
Africa to San Diego so you said you had a cousin in Boston and yet you chose to come to Dallas I'm okay fill in the gap there how did that happen that's a very fun sport it's okay oh you have a few minutes that is a long story so my cousin is that he worked at the State Department in in Massachusetts and the big concern was how to immigrate you know hard do we manage to to make this immigration thing happen there there there are a lot of hurdles but for most people the biggest hurdle is having someone offer you a job who's willing to
go through the immigration process on your behalf and essentially make room for you in the labor pool the mathematic second cousin in Boston had he was you know born in Britain Americans his grandmother was my grandfather's his grandmother was my grandmother's sister and they hadn't seen each other since liking him no survey so that the American family was now a fairly extended family in Boston and Massachusetts area they all thought it was great that they were getting this justin hasn't you know and were really willing to extend themselves in many ways you through contacts and doing research and they you know the encouragement was come
over we'll work when you hear that's what the immigration attorneys are telling them when i got there i interviewed with one or two companies in a that he'd introduced me to he was working for the state and it was it was very easy it was like oh yes we'd love to have you on board you know we'll do the paperwork for you just you know leave it up to us yeah so we went with the immigration attorney we had the job and we took off traveling around the United States in a in a camper which was part of our worldwide travel mission you notice we're
not going to get a job and just settle down and you know part of a part of our ambition was to travel the world so we bought a camper in Boston and set out on the road thinking that everything was fine after three or four weeks part of the processes having to advertise the position this company was doing all of that work behind the scenes but the assumption is that you know they're going to design a job in a way in which it will be easy to prequalify myself as the only qualified candidate and in 1977 the unemployment in that area was such where they
were getting PhD candidates with 10 years experience applying for my job so it was hard to say you know and and I basically got this call saying it seems like it's going to be a very very difficult road to her veil is this alternative or this alternative it my the bottom line is I don't think Boston is going to be the place where we will be able to succeed in getting your labor certification in this particular climate but go look at the Southwest it's booming the Sun Belt it's booming you know sir so we we actually didn't start looking for a job at all until
we reached and I think it was texel candles and I don't remember was the first we were traveling around and it we'd then four months on the road and camping and staying with friends and meeting people along the way and was going to the national parks and enjoying United States and thinking about our future and thinking well once we hit Texas will start looking for work because everywhere we went that was the you know the photo Texas is moving so that's what we did we stopped in the first little town that we did and interviewed for jobs it was as I think was text I
can and everyone I spoke to his life that's great but you know we don't you know we're a two-man firm we don't have room for a third person and that's all we found they said you know you read really better get to Dallas so we we came to Dallas and the first place we came to we were in a in a VW popped up camper and you know we were generally on a very tight budget we had only our meter savings to last us you know had who knows how long and we were looking for her we couldn't find a campsite in the city because
we needed to camp in our camp and spend a few days looking for work so he came to the JCC the very first day we said well they're Jews you know we got to find the Jews here they'll they'll have a solution so we we came to the JCC and we spoke to the receptionist who happened to be the young South African rural couple years younger than us and she was the receptionist and we told her the story and we had a meeting with the director at the time and we said we told him our story if we couldn't just park our van in the
parking lot and use the facilities here with what we wanted hold us permission to be able to use the facilities so we and we promised not to be any bother but when we when we went out and he said that's fine you know got permission but when we left we met up with her again the receptionist Karen and she said well my parents have just moved here with my family I pulled my mom and dad and they said you should come and stay with us so they have just been here six months it was sullen ruth-marie and their daughter Karen and so we said great
they're just moved here themselves and extended us hospitality and you know helped us kind of encouraged us to keep looking i mean in in a week i got three or four interviews and after 10 days i didn't hear from any after you know 12 days i've heard from two or three but actually by about ten days i was saying you know that's it i'm tired of looking i'm going to drive on the basic no stay a little bit longer you anyway after two weeks i had three job interviews and then I you know basically had to pick the one that seemed to fit the profile
was willing to work even though it was slightly surreptitiously too I didn't you know reveal I'm here to look for immigrating purposes that was after the offer came in then it you know as it looked by the way can you work with my situation and the employer that chose to hire me you know that it explained to him by the immigration attorney and he said sure you know this one and then we went through the whole lineage sounds like it was a pretty positive experience for you but I just I'm just curious what was your first impression of Dallas Texas well as said my first
impression was very positive because we had this warm welcome and family hmm you know that wanted us welcomed us into their family and you know encouraged us to stay and felt very positively about the city and felt positively and and there's likewise with the firm that I ended up interviewing and getting a job with the individual who is the principal in the firm seemed to be very welcoming even though you know culturally we were some act out like we were so different at the same time he seemed to have a genuine interest in not I wouldn't I don't know whether it was necessarily helping me
but he had a genuine interest in sort of like this is the guy you know I can see some I can see something here he was twenty years my senior I was 24 years old you know he owned and run this company for 15 or 20 years and and then I felt I felt very so besides my image of the city I felt very sort of surprisingly well welcome you know I felt very positive about the potential for a future what challenges did you and your wife have besides finding work when you were set getting ready to settle in here can you think back on
any of those that might have happened you know the immigration was a big challenge i mean the the legal hurdles of immigration were a big challenge because even though you know we-we-we-we literally came in through the back door you know we didn't leave South Africa with an immigration visa in so for the first year and a half until we literally went back to South Africa to get our immigration visa it was it was very much touch-and-go you know so it was relative to whether we would be successful and the bureaucracy was very unresponsive you know you it wasn't as if submitted your papers and they'd
send you thank you very much mr. Marcus we received your papers you'll be hearing from us shortly would go into a black hole and you never know you know if and when you hear anything and if and when we may have to leave and not be able to return whether we would have invested our time here for no purpose you know we did a lot of creative things to extend our visa you know said we ended up that that that is actually a long story you know the first year while we were illegal and sort of under the radar and illegal sounds so harsh was Suzanne also looking for work how did
she feel about all this and fit in you know the first few days it was very distressing because we the first few days of work we were we had a week we had a few unique circumstances you know the my employer was willing to employ me in exchange for partially for offsetting rent in an apartment that he earned which was off Gaston Avenue in what was there not a very nice part of town and we thought it was great because you know got around a lot of issues and we got accommodation without thinking twice in it but she was you know in it was such
a unique and different environment to anything that you were used to in you know what felt like a crime Laden area and we felt like we were living in the ghetto is this what he signed up we didn't stay there long I think we stayed there for six weeks and then ended up getting an apartment to ourselves but that was a big challenge she she wanted to work and she wanted to participate in something other than staying at home and she did actually end up being and it was it was very good and very positive in the end but she ended up sort of volunteering
she didn't also couldn't work for money so it was a matter of going to the old age home what was called golden acres golden acres on darlin road right and my my my office was not far from there either and we were living ride down there at the bottom of that part of town as well so she actually volunteered herb sure why don't have hips around said he's not the director anymore but I know yes I herb herb and her established a long relationship as a result of her you know working and volunteering her time and effort for for about a year until she was
able to get real work yeah what did she find her employment after that um a degree was in psychology and she ended up working for a psychotherapist up in North County doing counseling but then she ended up going to North Texas State to get a PhD so she you know the first few years was wasn't you know it was really leading up towards her further degree where did you get involved at any point in any of the congregation's here or any of the Jewish education opportunities in Dallas we did I think right from the outset we were we associated ourselves of different Israel met some
people there I mean I think so that was a big part of more I don't know winners what I took from my father took from my family but it was always wherever you go you're going to find Jews and you that's where you need to be you know so really right from the outset it was like okay we got to find ourselves a shrewd and that sort of fit our our level of practice and observe and so we were deferred for several years and we moved to share it when our kids were born and we were served on the board at there's the solomon schechter
day school and that was in its formative years and i think that was yeah that oh and then I helped all have shell on get stuff and i sat on the board and help them find a shoe the house very good friends what can you think of any South African Jewish cultural traditions have you brought here with you that you maintain if any interesting question dude that's important there may not be I'm just curious if there's a specific South African Jewish go and it maybe not maybe it could be just similar to what we have here I don't know yeah or life but the other
set the flip side of that is can you think of any traditions that you're no longer doing that you did back home that you're not doing here mm-hmm well we used to make wine four passes not made your own yeah it was a family tradition Wow because we were in close to the vineyards in Cape Town and and I think thinking back on it I think probably one of the motivations was that it probably wasn't a big selection of kosher wine so my father and his brothers and his father had like this little wine cellar and each family had their own barrel and all the
children would get together and grandchildren and stuck the barrels and add the sugar and was just sweet like you know for Sweden kosher wine wasn't this have you thought about doing that here I think there's a bunch of fried making it yet yes I bought a little barrel not tried making it that didn't work yeah don't give up you said that Israel and the idea of Zionism was very important to you growing up in South Africa how have you continued with that here you know i would say i haven't i've tried to inculcate that to my children i think just to the extent that we've
taken a lot of family trips to Israel you know we've done a lot of I don't do anything like support the COA or any of those organizations I mean I support them financially but it's it's more of a mindset of making sure that we're on Israel side you know that we're not we but Jews in diaspora without any links to Israel I tell us about your family your own family how many children do you have where are they now so we had three children they were all born in Dallas and then three girls there two of them living in Los Angeles and our youngest daughter
just moved to Houston because they worked her there but they 27 28 and 33 years we left Dallas when they were 15 and 10 and 11 so their memories of dallas are generally good memories because a lot of their formative years were here and they went to school I went to solomon schecter and when did you leave here and where did you go what did you do we left in 96 to Southern California to San Diego specifically with a job with jobs or um you know it was a it was sort of a planned or mindful move unit was it was an effort to get
back to an environment that was close lifestyle wise to it I was accustomed to I think growing up in Cape Town yer the environment was so much part of your identity as much as being Jewish was so was the ocean in the mountains so I think we're not having that in Dallas I think that was probably the biggest adjustment for my wife and I to make was living in an inland sea without the benefit of outdoor activities um do you still have close family in South Africa I have most have been left right now yeah it's a good question you know we had a very
very large extended family my father was one out of ten siblings and my mother was one out of six of lives and on collectively growing up I think I had something like three just customers so we had the big family most of them were in Cape Town we had a few that had moved to Johannesburg but out of those thirty first cousins you know most of them almost all of them got married but almost all of them left South Africa there there might be a handful left that are still living in South Africa do you miss anything at all about your life in South Africa
going up there I missed a lot in the first five years i think i have i have that as my rule of thumb Slyke takes five kids to get it out of your system because um I know there are a lot of South Africans who still say they miss things the name is look out you asked the question about Judaism and cultural Judaism and what was different versus what's here there's a never-ending complaint from fellow South Africans and I don't necessarily feel the same way but there's a never-ending complaint from South Africans over the high holidays at wouldn't it would wouldn't it be nice to
her the Hazara and acquire you know growing up in South Africa all the major tools made a point of sort of outperforming each other by having a better husband and a better choir and it's still it's still quite important in a lot of the shrills in South Africa and you'll go back there people will say oh I've heard that why i was so lovely and said personally I've sang in choirs and we've had acquired we had a choir we tried it at the shul here in Dallas when I was living here over the holidays and I enjoyed singing out almost every they're very few South
Africans that will say that they don't enjoy it they're very few people who will say I mean it seems like so many people had it as a rite of passage growing up as well as a pre Bar Mitzvah singing in this show quiet was like every South African father was like you got to sing the pie so I sang in the cloud when it was a little kid and I enjoy singing now and we have a community qui in San Diego but all right have you returned there to visit back home I do return I'm either snow living inside so how often do you get
back probably every two years how do you feel describe your feelings a little bit what it's like to go back home you know I i will say that it took us many years to make our first trip back home and that was only because we were you know took us a long time to get established here and he had little children and it wasn't an easy thing to to get away and I remember the first time and maybe the second time then I went back home and just felt you know it felt my phone had built but everything was familiar and just love the people
are so different though you know the culture felt fascinating and felt warmed I felt good to be in an environment that I had very very fond memories of when I go back today it doesn't evoke the same sorts of emotions and I think part of it is look I will say for myself personally part of it is fact that I feel like I'm living in a place that's nice of him yes so I don't miss cake time I mean Cape Town is exceptionally beautiful but it has I'm very realistic about you know the social problems on the crime and and the things that people who
have chosen to stay and live there making in terms of sacrifices versus living in America you know as a wrap-up I just want to end with this why are you glad that you're here now in the United States and specifically in California so we've had an opportunity in the last several years to to to travel a lot of the world and I think for me it's each time I go where I have a greater appreciation for the United States you know I have a tremendous you know since establishing myself and you know overcoming the initial sort of hurdles of immigration which were you know the
first two or three years and and the first five years to really stop missing cake done since since then I've always had tremendous appreciation for the types of opportunities that are available in the United States and I feel like I think many times you never know what were your path will take you but I feel that I could have absolutely no regrets for the part that I chose I don't know whether I would have what my path would have looked like had I not come to America but I feel strongly that it is number one land of tremendous opportunity secondly that the freedoms permitted here
for the individual to be what they are and who they are are tremendous the you know you and said in traveling the world you really understand like the service orientation of this country that people are geared towards you know respecting one another and that it works you know everything works here you don't have to worry about old class systems you don't have to worry about you know whether you're going to be prejudiced for one reason or the other that's good that's it thank you very much crying appreciated you