Ivan Thompson
Ivan Thompson was born in 1959 in Harare, Zimbabwe, then called Salisbury in Southern Rhodesia. His late mother, Layla Thompson (nee Flax), grew up in Manchester, England, and moved to South Africa after World War II, where she met Ivan's father, Lou Thompson, on a blind date arranged by an aunt in Durban. Lou was not Jewish, though family research suggested Jewish ancestry on his side. His parents settled in Rhodesia, drawn by what they saw as a more progressive society and booming economy, and by his mother's opposition to apartheid. Lou became an executive with Anglo-American Corporation, while Layla, a qualified teacher, continued her career.
Ivan described a privileged and almost idyllic childhood in Harare, acknowledging the advantages bestowed on the white minority. The family belonged to the Sephardic Jewish community, whose roots traced to Rhodes, Greece. He attended a Jewish nursery school at the Sephardic synagogue and had his bar mitzvah there, while attending public schools with significant Jewish populations. He joined the Zionist youth movement Habonim and recalled strong community support for Israel, including after the 1973 Yom Kippur War. At 17, when his parents separated, he moved with his mother and brother to Manchester, later completing college at the University of Natal in Durban.
Ivan met his wife Allison through her sister, a college friend, and after a period of friendship they married in Johannesburg in 1986. Concerned about political violence, and moved by a moment watching graphic news coverage while raising their first daughter, the couple immigrated to Canada in 1992. They lived in a remote northern Ontario mining town and later Thornhill before Ivan, a human resources professional, took a role that eventually brought the family to Dallas. Settling in Far North Dallas, the Thompsons attend a Chabad synagogue and are involved with the Hebrew Order of David, the Jewish Film Festival, and the Dallas Holocaust Museum. Ivan urges future generations to affiliate with the Jewish community and synagogue.
Full Transcript
[Music] and all right well I want to uh thank you Ivan for being here it's the uh 10th of July 2015 and we are going to be doing a video for part of the roots to boots project which is a project of the Dallas Jewish Historical Society the way I'd like to start this interview is by asking you if you could tell us what you can about the history of your our family on both the maternal and the paternal side prior to their arrival in South Africa where they came from how they uh came to South Africa when and why okay so I'll start on
the my mother's my late mother's side and um I was actually born in Harari Zimbabwe and uh my late mother's um married name lla Thompson her maiden named Layla flax and she uh after World War II in the UK uh from the UK to South Africa so my mom went to to visit her for a vacation and met with you know while she was on vacation met my father um through my aunt and um that's when they decided to move up to what was their rodesia to um to live so uh that's on my my mother's side I'm not sure if there's more depth that
you want on there that's fine father so my late father's name was Lou Thompson um as I said my dad was not Jewish um through some family um history searching we believe there were Jewish roots on the side of his family because um one of my uncles did some research which found out that part of the ancestry led to the Royal Navy in jalta um and U our ancestor and I don't have those details so I'm going to continue that study U married a Jewish women in Spain and they moved to the UK but my father's parents um his mother was from Edinburgh in Scotland
her name was Jean hog and my father's father's name was Godfrey Thompson um and he was born in South Africa and I I I never met either of them they passed away before I was born um but on my father's side the their history was in the South African gold mining indust industry and my late grandfather um before he passed away was the general manager of Rose deep mine which is in Geron which is east of um of Johannesburg so how did your parents meet so um they met on a blind date arranged by my aunt and um at my this the story my mother
told me was at the end of they went out there was a forom that went out including my my great aunt and when she she at the end of the evening came home she looked at my mother and said you're not to marry him cuz she I guess saw on the first date that there was um uh you know connection and uh U my mother did end up marrying him so that's how they met in Durban in South Africa for a period of time that my mother was in Durban uh she um was a qualified teacher and um at the time South Africa you know
was under aate um my mother actually had a job at a school in Durban um near um graille race course uh which uh was a school that under apartate was for children who looked black or mixed race but whose parents were actually both white and under the system of aparted because of these children's appearance um they were segregated uh into a school um for for them and um just tells you one of the travesties of apartate that these were kids whose even though they had white parentage Under the system of aparte they could not attend white schools so they stay they were educated in a
in a school that designed for set up for kids who look black but you know his parents were white um my parents' experience of living in the apartate South Africa was one of the things certainly on my mother's side that um caused her to want to leave South Africa I would say my parents at that stage and even you know through the time we lived in Zimbabwe were not highly politically active but were um against you know what against the the the racial discrimination and so that was caused my mom to decide to actually move up to what was then the Federation of Ria and
nasal land U which at that time in the mid-50s was a booming economy of three countries uh Southern rodesia Norther rodesia and nasal land Southern rodesia became Zimbabwe Northern rodesia became Zambia and nasal land became Malawi um and um I was born in 1959 so I don't have great memories of the last four years of that Federation because it broke up in 1964 but for my mother it was an area where she you know where she felt it was um very Progressive in terms of race relations economic boom Etc so my mom went up there and my father followed her and they they got married
up there um and U my mom continued her teaching career in in rodesia um unfortunately what happened in 1965 the southern Rian government declared um illegal or unilateral independence from Britain and um for the next 20 or 15 years there was conflict between that country and the UK okay and unfortunately there be there was a civil war a Guerilla War um which ultimately ended in the um the end of well it ended in the end of the um white minority government and the transition to a democratic government which was um um under which was um elected into power under Robert macabi who since then has
been in power ever since the political change there during the the time that your your mother was teaching what was it that your father was doing so my father was an executive with a South African multinational corporation called um anglo-american Corporation so um he had been working in the um South African Customs Service at the in the port of of Durban and when he moved to um rodesia he secured a job with anglo-american and then Rose through the ranks there as I said ended up as an executive um running um some for part of the forestry and Mining business as well as the head of
Human Resources then he retired from anglo-american um 198 what was it like for you as a child we had a very privileged existence uh wonderful childhood um it was privileged quite candly because of the Privileges that were bestowed on the upon the white minority so we had a um you know a standard of living and opportunities that um probably as a middle class family we wouldn't have had has come as easy as they did to us there the child our childhood was um very almost idilic we had a very high standard of living we had very good standard of education and uh we belonged to
uh the spartic Jewish community in what was Salsbury that then was renamed Harari so our childhood was was um actually remarkably eclectic um in terms of having a Jewish upbringing um I my brother and I attended a um Jewish Day Jewish Nursery School at the spodic synagogue there was also a large ashkenazic or relatively large ashkenazic community but um I'll get into more of that later so we we we belong to the Safar Community um in in Harari and had um you knowa after school we went to public school both my brother and I had bomit visit the spodic synagogue in in Harari why did
you choose the Saar my mother uh grew up in Manchester England and when she was looking for to join the Jewish Community a Jewish community in in Harari um there was a everything else for me was spartic um food that was originally out of the basis of rhods Island because the saftic community in Harari um was essentially started by people who'd come from rhod's Island in Greece and had either gone direct to what was then rodesia or had traveled through the Congo and had ended up in in rodesia so you had a a very rich judaic life in harar we did yeah was it was
it at all zionis yes there was a large element of uh of Zionism and in my teen years I joined habonim as you know Zionist youth movement and the community was generally very pro Israel very supportive of Israel and I do have memories of after the October 73 yur War you know in terms of going to uh communal Community Services in support of Israel which were very also very well supported by the uh then rodisian government and also I remember the fundraising and fund and and raising funds for for Israel which was quite um remarkable because at that time redia was under economic sanctions and
there was a shortage of foreign currency but if I remember correctly I think the redian government uh enabled um you know funds that were raised for Israel to actually be sent to Israel through foreign currency that otherwise would not have been available so there was quite a there was actually quite a rich Zionist tradition amongst the Jewish Community certainly that I was uh exposed to now you went through um were you you were a Jewish Day School or no a Jewish Nursery School um there was a Jewish Day School in Harari called the the Sharon school it was what we called a junior school probably
went up to I seventh grade I'm just trying to reconciled that we called it standards there so it went through to standard um standard five um but we did not go there we went to Public Schools um in in areas um that were actually heavily Jewish so the junior school I went to in Harari was called Alexandra Park school and then I went to high school at Mount Pleasant school and there were significant numbers of of Jewish students at those schools and but did you go on to college in in so um when I was 17 my parents separated and my mother brother and I
moved to Manchester in England and I completed my a levels at stand Grammar School uh in Whitefield which is near Manchester the school no longer exists uh but I went to college in South Africa I attended University of natal in Durban um so went went went to South Africa to complete my my college could you ever go back to um during my college Years I did um I had some summer jobs there um the last time I went to Zimbabwe was in 1992 because my brother had gone back there and was working there um we had my wife and I had decided to immigrate to
Canada and so I went up to Zimbabwe just to see my brother before I headed to Canada yeah now this is kind of it's not off topic but it's it's just kind of a side question have you met people in Dallas that were from Harari yes um you know Brian Cohen Brian and benzy yes yeah okay beny so so I it's so the answer is yes um beny Cohen has a cousin who lives in Toronto now Teddy Levy Teddy is married to Sandy sy's late mother was my Nursery School teacher in Harari so um s's maid name was mcnick and Mrs M Nick was our
Nursery School teacher who became a very close friend of my mother so yes no beny and Rose con I'm also friendly with Jeff lber I'm not sure if you know Jeff lard but Jeff but I know I know beny and Rose well yes so so no beny he's from buo I'm from San Rose Jeff L who lives in Dallas we were at high school together in in Harari and uh Deborah Luen who lives in Dallas we were at high school and I'm trying to think I think there might be someone else from the Jewish Community there but yes so you went back to South Africa
then and um at what point uh did you meet your wife where did you meet your wife so at the University of Nal um had a social you know group of friends and one of uh the friends in the group was Philip and Michael and um and when I was about to graduate and I accepted a job with univa in South Africa and the job was based in the Johannesburg area Philipa said said to me that you need to connect with my sister Allison Michael and um as it turned out turned out Allison came down to Durban so you know met her and um when
I got up to Johannesburg started socializing with Allison and her group and after being friends for about 3 years so we then figured we actually should probably start dating so um I met Alison through um her sister who's a college friend of mine and we met in Durban and you know became friends in Johannesburg and then decided to to to get married and so did you marry in Johannesburg um we did um I um that's the way life goes about I I decided that I given this political situation in South Africa needed to look at maybe moving somewhere else and I'd never been to Israel
so um I signed up to to do Anan at kib M in Israel and as as as life goes you know 3 weeks before I left Allison and I decided there was actually more to to our friendship than just friendship so I did I went over to Israel for 6 months um and um Allison came over to see me there we decided uh that we would get married um I proposed to her in Jerusalem on Bena Street and I I'm getting recorded so I want to make sure I have this on the record uh but decided that um probably made sense for us to start
our married life in South Africa so um I went back to South Africa and um was able to get my a job with unever again um and the job was in Durban but Allison and I U got married in in Johannesburg at the Jewish Guild in Johannesburg and then did you did you uh talk then about leaving South Africa at that time or did you start start to to lead your life in in South AFA we did both um at that time we we were married in 1986 and um as you know a young Jewish couple in our mid 20s mid to late 20s um
and given the political situation I mean that was the topic of conversation but um we both had good jobs starting a good career and um it was I guess always something that was a topic but we carried on with our Our Lives um when Nelson Mandela was released um you know I cannot explain the Elation in South Africa it didn't matter what really didn't matter what your political persuasion was what your your racial background there was just an amazing sense of hope um with the fact that we' reached a point where you know we could see there was going to be a political solution to
um apartate in the end and and um us and many of our other friends started thinking right you know great we've got you know we're going to have a great future here in South Africa we started looking to buy a you know bigger house and all this kind of stuff um and life went on um unfortunately the level of criminal violence in South Africa just continued to to escalate um and um a turning point for us that really led to our decision to decide to leave was uh we had our first first uh daughter born in South Africa Rael and we put her to bed
and we sat down you to watch the evening news and my wife and I were just basically having a TV dinner watching the news and they had live coverage of some uh political violence that was about um 8 km from our house and my wife and I were eating our meal watching all this violence and some of was pretty graphic and we turned to each other and said there's something wrong with us we can eat our meal watch this and it's not impacting us and that then triggered and us look to say look we we've got real concerns about the future and our ability to
you know raise our our daughter in that kind of environment where it had stopped appear to stopped defecting us and so um in 1992 we we you know we we did our research and decided that we had a good opportunity to be able to uh immigrate to Canada so in 1992 to we immigrated from South Africa and moved to Canada did you move with the same company that you were working with I I would I wanted to um but what was happening um the South African economy was not in great shape there was a brain drain of of talent and univa had basically said to
the South African operation look we're really not going to try and encourage and facilitate the the transfer of of talent from the South African business to Canada so I had asked I said I'd love to be able to get a role in in Canada and what I was able to do with letters of introduction connections Etc so I did meet with senior Executives in univa in Canada um there were no roles at that time so I I I was able to find a job with a Canadian mining company and as things go you know shortly after I got that job un Lea called me and
said hey look we've got a role we think it might be of interest to you but I'd already made my commitments to the role I was in so I was not able to but how long did you stay in Canada so we stayed in Canada for 5 years um and we moved to Toronto because that was where the job opportunities were large Jewish Community Etc but the job I took um because my profession is in human resource management and what I really needed to do was to establish myself um in the profession in in Canada but the agreement that Allison and I said was right
whoever whoever gets the jobs job first that's where we're going because you know as immigrants we need to start getting established as quickly as we could and the job I got was with a a gold mining company at a mine sight north of um Lake Superior God and uh the joke was it's not the end of the world but it is the end of the road and it was and yes we had nine months of winter um but we said well look we'll go up there we'll save money for a couple years move back to Toronto well we stayed up for four years had four
wonderful years years up there our second daughter Danielle was born in Sous St Marie Ontario and um we were the only Jewish Family there we did eventually discover that another one of our friends wives uh was was Jewish but had essentially stopped practicing Judaism um and um so one of our key things was okay how do we maintain a Jewish life in a town uh you know as as isolated as it was and we were very very fortunate I mean we um uh the town was extremely welcoming very interested in in in you know we were the first Jewish Family there so Allison uh took
on the role particularly when our older daughter Rael you know we started going to nursery school and the elementary school up there in terms of when you know when the Jewish holidays rolled around she would be at the schools you know you know educating kids and and teachers on Jewish holidays and S and we uh connected with the Jewish community in Su St Marie Ontario which is about 4 hours Drive Southeast of where we were Thunder Bay was about 4 hours Drive West and um we had stopped in at Su St Marie when we drove up to the small town where we were going to
live called manage and um coincidentally there was a South African South African Jewish Family who were members of the sh there so we connected and it was actually as we discovered some connection between the families um which I can go into separately but so we we joined that Community which meant that for pesak and Ros and yam kipur we would drive the four hours and go and spend time with our friends the jaffet who were there and uh that's how we retained our our a level of Judaism now we knew that as the kids got older we really needed to get back to a Jewish
Community like Toronto so after years I was fortunate the company relocated me back to Toronto and we lived in Thornhill where there's a significant Jewish community and actually felt that I really need to get out of the gold mining industry from a you because of my professional development and uh I was offered a role with Microsoft in lascalas so I accepted that role and so we relocated from Houston to Dallas and and that's how we got to Dallas and with all these relocations you were able to get your visa status and all of that and yes so by the time we left Canada we you
know we had become Canadian citizens and then uh you know company sponsored visas and green cards when we were in the US so uh very proudly today we have dual us and Canadian citizenship so yeah we're here to stay we're here to stay and how old are your children at this point so Rael is 26 and she's now working in Manhattan in a she works for an advertising agency and Danielle is 21 and she's a student at Tain University and she's going to be entering her senior year awesome and what is your wife doing so Allison is in she um was educated as a geologist
in South Africa and then moved into the IT industry and she is a data warehouse manager for a large home construction company here in the Dallas area and what part of the city do you live in we live in Far North Dallas at Preston and Frankfurt yeah we attend RAB D's kabad sh near where we live He's a wonderful man he is he is everywhere in the world I go if I go into a kabat house they ask me if I know mki seriously I know we we we've benefited from that yeah it's it's terrific but you know this whole thing about Jewish geography I
mentioned you know we connected with the Jewish Family in um in s St Marie the Jaffer family unfortunately our friends have since passed away uh Joan and Alan jaffet but we're still friendly with their children who live in Toronto but we were sitting around um I think it was Hanukah and chatting and talking about stuff and it turns out that uh Joan's late father were served in World War II and was very friendly with my late dad's brother-in-law who's not Jewish but uh they had very close connections and my late father went to the same high school as Jan's late father in South Africa so
before we knew it we had all these connections and um not only that Allan brought a picture of his mom to show me to show us and this in the photo was another woman who we were very friendly with in my mother was very friendly with in Durban and whose granddaughter actually is part of the kabad community in in Houston so just the intertwining with that particularly that South African Jewish geography is is quite remarkable yes it is so aside from belong belonging to uh Robie D Dei show what other um social or um Community involvements do you and your wife have here in not
not enough um but I I'm a member of the Hebrew order of David H which was started um late last year so we involved with that um uh we we um attend the Jewish Film Festival we you know we friended with Peter and Brenda Marcus fabulous they are I'm on their committee to pick the films oh really yes I work very closely with Peter okay you know what now I recognize you because I think I've seen you at some of the showings of films okay so yeah so we we love that um obviously the the chili cook off if there events at K but um
apart from that we you know not enough involvement to be candid because um you know we both work full-time and we just haven't cracked the code on how to make more time to be more involved with the community well you know it's it's interesting because I was trying to think of who it was I was interviewing last week just or the week before and also mentioned the Hebrew order of David and I'd never heard of it before and then I started to look it up it seems like it's an organization that started in England and then then moved to South Africa but why don't you
tell me a little bit more about that so that we have that on record yeah so um actually when I was a student in South Africa a friend of mine um who's now lives in in Sydney Australia had had suggested that I um get involved I had no idea what it was although when I was in high school I was involved with an organization called interact which was like the young rotarians so I joined Hebrew order of David in in in in Durban and it's an organization for for for Jewish men of all ages and it's an organization that promotes fraternity amongst Jewish men but
also um one of the objectives is to give back uh you know to the community not only the Jewish Community but the community in general but it's more an organization for Jewish fraternity and um to bring members of the Jewish Community together for the purposes of of of of doing good in the community and I I think the history of why it started in in England was um you know at the time it was started there was a lot of there was restrictions on Jewish membership of um you know certain fraternal organizations Etc so this was a way for a Jewish man to to get
together and to to help each other and to help the community and here in in Dallas you know that's been spearheaded by uh you know three three gentlemen Martin Burke Boris gont and Gary boner and uh it is not for you know South AF Jews of South African Heritage it really is you know an organization for for for Jews in in in Dallas and specifically for Jewish men to be able to get together and as I said you know have the fraternity and the opportunity to give back to the community while at the same time building you know a strong Jewish fraternity sounds terrific it
is yeah I don't think enough people know about it no and I think and then one of the things that I think you I know that what we we're doing as a large is um slowly slowly building and making sure we build the right foundations and it's a very inclusive organization so uh we want to make sure that you know more people do know about it and and absolutely appreciate it's not it's not a South African Jewish Organization no not at all but I mean I think that the movement is quite strong in South afria and that's least what I'd read you're right and there
are lodges in Atlanta and Toronto um I know they tried um with limited success in Houston I forget which other cities they in and in London well what other things are important for us to know about you as a person um in terms of your history or things that you'd like to leave from a legacy standpoint uh verbally to your children and to the community I thought about that um well I think just the the importance of affiliation with the Jewish community and the importance of affiliation with the synagogue um you know in South Africa and Zimbabwe um you know I was not brought up
in a kosher home Etc but the synagogues were you were Orthodox synagogues now we had reform and there still are reform synagogues and I think that that the membership and the movement there is growing um for me my leg what I would say to Future Generations is belong affiliate because the the the the the benefit to yourself selfishly in terms of having that that support network and the foundation and grounding in Jewish values is so terribly important um um and you know join us in a God and even if you you know even if you're only able to make it there on the high holidays
do it because don't lose the connection with the with the the the Torah because it's the blueprint for life and the more you're able to observe um the stronger our community will be but also you know don't be put off if you feel that because you can't do it all you shouldn't do any of it um no get in there and get involved um on a non-religious side you know things like we have in Dallas with the the Chile Cookoff I mean it's just a wonderful Community event where it doesn't matter which part part of the community you belong to or affiliate with we're all
together at one event and you know the VA Kash you know supervises it so there's a standard of Kash that makes it comfortable for everyone in the community to to participate whereas I know in some other cities where they don't have the uh benefit of a of of a local vaad you know certain parts of the community are not able to participate in in community events because the standards are not the standards that that they um ascribed to and um we have such a wonderful religion and such a wonderful future as a as a religion particularly in the United States as a free country don't
don't take it for granted get involved and affiliate and joy thank you so much it's been a real pleasure getting to know you likewise thank you and um we wish you all the best wish your family the best thank you I'm hoping of course that I'll run into you at many more events in the in the community I think I will we certainly will knowing what your interests are certainly the film festival jelly cook off and other things and of course I forgot we we belong to the Dallas Holocaust Museum as well which is just a terrific terrific institution and organization and it it absolutely
needs support from more more you know more in the Jewish Community because it just does as wonderful work and connects us to you know to our heritage have you seen the recent the the exhibit on 3 no we we we just haven't made it yet it's terrific yeah no we we're going to go and see that but you know we were at the Curious George um exhibition and then we came to the JCC to to listen to the uh Chief Rabbi of Poland speak the a fantastic and in fact you know you know on my maternal grandmother's side you know we know they come from
wood or lods in po Poland and we we're battling to you know find the documentation so he inspired me to do more and I got to get into action and either reach out to him or other I've got other connections that I can work through but I think the the connection between the Dallas Holocaust Museum and the the events and opportunities they provide for us as a Jewish Comm Community to to connect with our past and build our future I would say that's part of the Legacy that that we have to ensure and endure so it's all good you've got so much we've got so
much going for this community in in Dallas um we we cannot take it for granted because it takes the efforts of people like you and others who you know volunteer and do the the work you do to make sure that we we you know we continue the Legacy well thank you so much for realizing that and thank you for being part of that and being active as well it takes people like you who appreciate it and get uh get involved with the community and appreciate you taking your time today to sit down talk to us my my pleasure Delight thanks for the opportunity you're welcome
have a good shavas thank you good chabas thank you good chabas to you thank you