Michael Roy
Michael Roy's family name was shortened from a Polish surname, and his ancestors came from a small town south of Warsaw before making their way, by way of London, to Cape Town, South Africa, around the turn of the twentieth century. His grandfather worked as a watchmaker, and the family was very poor. His father, one of ten children, left school after roughly the ninth grade and together with a brother founded a clothing factory during World War One. The business grew enormously, becoming a public company in 1936 and eventually employing tens of thousands of people. His mother's family came from a shoe-industry background in Europe. Michael was born in Cape Town in 1944, and both his parents were first-generation South Africans.
Growing up as a white South African, Michael recalled a tranquil, privileged childhood filled with sport, theater, and fine schooling. He became increasingly aware of apartheid, recalling being ordered off the upper deck of a bus reserved for black riders, and grew troubled that the many workers in his family's factory had no voice in the political system. After university he entered the family clothing business, which by 1965 employed some 22,000 people, before moving into his father-in-law's diamond business, cutting and polishing rough stones for export. Married in 1969, he and his wife Nikki raised three children, and by the mid-1970s decided South Africa's future was too uncertain for their family.
Drawn to America's opportunity and to the growing Sun Belt, the Roys settled in Dallas in January 1980, aided by contacts and immigration attorneys. Michael built his diamond business, marveling at the warmth and openness of Americans compared with the more reserved British style he had known. The family first joined a congregation but later sought a more comfortable spiritual home, becoming founding members of a new synagogue that began meeting in their home in March 1998 and grew into Congregation Anshai Torah, to which they donated its first Torah. Michael served on the steering committee, as treasurer, and later on the board for many years. He remained connected to the wider Jewish community and to the growing South African immigrant community in Dallas.
Full Transcript
good morning today is sep tember the 17 2013 and we're interviewing Michael Roy as part of the room students project of the Dallas Jewish Historical Society Michael I'd like to ask you first to give us a little bit of family history in terms of where your grandparents and your parents came from before we get into South Africa interesting my family name is Roy shortened from polish rooftop ski and the family came from too little town south of Warsaw a town named Jared of 40 kilometers south of Warsaw another town that I can't pronounce starts with a name and there were two families that married in
1800s was Rubenstein and another thing that I don't remember anymore eventually the roid toski family moved to south africa of ireland at some point they were in London for a period of time where some more family was born came to South Africa to Cape Town and imagine in fact I would say it was about nineteen oh five 1903 I don't have a good record of it what I have is a marriage certificate from 1888 of a Rubenstein andorra top ski so they came to Cape Town the ebrahim rock or a top ski my grandfather was apparently a watchmaker and in watchmaking visiting had time the
mother rachel had our nothing worked but the family was extremely poor as I understand that had no resources so the poor grandfather was working in the swatch making storm and when I was a kid I was shown with a store was in Cape Town little Street a very little space and so my dad was one of seven brothers and three sisters ten children and knowing that they were poor eventually two brothers kind of broke out of the pack my father bonnie and his his brother Simon established a more small clothing factory at about the time of the middle of World War one about 1917 roughly
and their first gold I would imagine was to stop you know setting product whatever that was and being cached and family so that they could survive because now they had all these kids they had to go through school my dad had what was the equivalent of about her ninth grade education and then from there he was full time in this clothing company manufacturing and they established some brand named Samson was the name of the working overall and eventually expanded into government contracts became really a huge huge business in cape town but thats many years later but in 1936 the name was officially changed from rotasky
to roy except for one brother you know it's always one in the pack who doesn't go along with the idea and so that particular brother stayed right off ski and his wife just passed away last week at 99 years of age yeah so then my father was established in in the clothing company which became a public company in South Africa in 1936 fleur de dólar Johannesburg Stock Exchange so suddenly the family became much more significant in business perhaps a little more wealthy but they started employed large numbers of people thousand and eventually when I joined the business in 1965 in 1965 there were 22 thousand
employees and how did your mother come into the picture my mother her family an interesting history her name is Lazar and Darcy lozol was her name and the resulting from Beauty paste and bronc and the so you stop picking up orders for Valley shoe and coming back to Switzerland dropping them off and spend a few months resting and then do this trip again and he was a technical guy too so they decided to send him to South Africa to Cape Town and when he got to care Tony had money from the firm and instructions to buy or purchaser build a building and he built a
four-story building as I remember it still stands in Cape Town it's no longer belly and how many established this Barry operation for the shoe company and did their part to get extremely well and he married married amy who was my grandmother friedman at some point and i don't know the dates anymore and they had no memorial children total four and they my dad married Dulce Lazar in also 1936 what a big year that was how did he come to me committing captain my dad was born in katonah my mom was born in cape town so they were first-generation South Africans as we would say in
America today and you know i had i was born in 44 my dad had just come back from the war he'd been in the south african army which was part of Montgomery's forces in World War two in the British Army and gets Ronald in Egypt Olivia and then my sister was born in nineteen forty nine and that's what we were basically through World War two what was tell us about your childhood in South Africa what was it like what are your memories what were the things that you are very similar about that challenge well I think it was a very tranquil and peaceful and wonderful
time for South African people of white skin we were privileged in a certain way about government decree by all these product laws that kept white separate from everybody else and watched had more opportunity than black people and we went to the best schools and had the best education and I just remember the days were you know fooled with theatre play sport and you had to pay to headaches in your room you know see do your schoolwork and get your grades but it was a really wonderful time it was probably the best country in the world to grow up in as a young guy I'm talking
until about age 18 things started to change as we grew older because the system in South Africa started to crack down on everybody got tougher for everybody were you aware of what apartheid meant yeah I can give you a good experience that I had I used to take a double-decker London type bus to from outside my house at the bus stop all the way through to the city of cape town so we lived in the suburbs to go to my school which was sex of every college school was established in about eight eighteen hundreds late middle eighteen hundreds and it was one of cecil rhodes
as favorite schools because thats cool so still has a Rhodes Scholar it goes to Oxford every year so is one of South Africa's prime schools and I used to take the bus into the city and then walk up past what we call the Great Synagogue through the gardens and Cape Town's are very beautiful formal gardens with you know beautiful lawns and flowerbeds less in a government side of my school was just back about half a mile from where the synagogue was and so I went to this school and I would take the bus and then one and and every time the bus stopped i would
go upstairs and sit in the front so one of the front left or right seats i could see everything and one morning as i got on the bus the conductor said you can't go upstairs anymore i said why he said black people only upstairs now I was like shocked that was my seat and the bus at that point of the journey was half empty so it would take you know two or three more stops than the possibly four but I always got my seat so now as downstairs we're all white people were sitting and standing room only at that point so that was a big
experience for me and I suddenly realized what was going on but people were around us who doing the servant gardening shivering car cleaning running the you know working in our factories and so on but not couldn't really understand what what it meant to them at that point I was too young later on as I said around 18 in connersville the hammer dropped and I realized what was happening and when you realized what was happening what were your feelings about it when we had a big advantage white people and we were reluctant to get involved because there was pressure on our parents and all their friends
and all the people in business who are business owners not to rock the boat so to speak because they're off the boat on the police came along and interviewed your parents because your kid was involved in an organization called say new SAS the National Union of South African students like Nicky was involved in and you have issues with the police maybe to affect the business and the message was don't do things that would mess up your parents relationships or business affairs so I was one who was silent for a long time but I had eventually when I finished University in 64 65 I was very
concerned because I went into the speak family business with more of the 2,000 employees and 1900 of them were what we call colored of black people there were our employees and my dad's responsibility I mean he had paid them every week and we had a gigantic peril and yet they had no participation in the political system whatsoever in a very minor way in their own areas affecting local people but not on the provincial or national scale so what was your why did you and your wife decide to leave South Africa well we had got married in 69 and cut and an Mickey and first kid
in 71 that was Gavin at Justin in 72 Monique in 76 by which time I think our feelings that kind of solidified around the fact that the future saw everyone started look bleak from the point of view that our lifestyle was going to change that was the first thing that made me knows well if I can't have a peaceful life and a life where my kids are protected and their futures are reasonably secure then I have to look around and that was the first impetus to take a look and see what's going on in the world on a much more practical level than then theory
you know what is just take it up yeah it looks good in England looks good in Canada you know you know let's do a few trips so we did a few trips we we knew people through business in the United States in New York and your people in Britain New South Africans who left and done well in England when you South Africans have left to Canada to the United States way early on in the 60s professional people much older than us doctors you just after the shuffle incident in South Africa with that shot 70 odd people a lot of professional people have doctors said enough
they had been struggling already with us apart a problem since nineteen forty eight you know we were much younger so we didn't struggle with it and talk we were adults so the formation of the idea was was really to protect our futures in terms of I needed a business career in a safe place I one of my kids to have a good education of the participants in a in a good economy safe economy and I wanted a country that was secure and I eventually all our thoughts came to America every time you thought about Australia England Canada the english-speaking countries principally because it make it
easier to communicate in English rather than try and he ruled and French or whatever it was so America was the center and particularly at that time the publicity coming out of a miracle the news coming out of America because I read Time magazine given week for since I was a little guy and and whatever else I could get from America like National Geographic and readers digest they all came to our house I read everything so America was the place when I walk through our factory everything there was machinery from the US denim from the United States cotton drawer fabric from the United States I had
this background of this is a powerhouse what am I missing you need to go find out and it became obvious reading all these various newspapers and books that what was being spoken about was Sun Belt the Sun Belt cities from Miami through atlanta houston dallas phoenix to the southern part of california was the growth area of America in the late 70s and I will go to the United States Information Service office in captain which is run by the American consulate I made friends with the librarian in charge and I said feed me everything you can on some don't you know just put it aside for
me and I'll come in once a week pick up what I can borrow and we'd what I had to read there and do it there so all of a sudden in the late 70s a friend of ours was doing a trip to the USA ended up in Dallas had met some people had been introduced to make engulfed the law firm and recompose doing immigration and despite our efforts in cape town to get immigration visas going we use dry hump and the next thing we had visas now I we do so you know it was centered on Dallas because of a constellation of advanced really rather
than picking the place because it's such a great city you know which as this turned out to be it's very good wonderful place what was what was the status of the business assuring with your father at that time when you were what was the stature of it what's the status of it was it was running was very big business so it was that that business I've left the business and was clothing i went into my father-in-law's business which was diamonds acted as a manufacturer of Polish rough diamonds into diamond gemstones and then export those stones to clients in Antwerp in New York so that was
an international business so in order to make the transition from South Africa to another country I really needed a large scale I didn't want to get back into the fabric business I didn't think I had growth potential or I had I would be able to capitalize a large fabric or peril manufacturing business in the US or else for that matter with the resources that we had because we couldn't take money out of South Africa in the first place and certainly I would need at that point I would have needed you know millions of dollars and in the diamond business I could have stopped I could
have started my business on small parcels coming in to me you know doback for rich i would sell it on paper it's it on paper and build and that's what I did so I worked for my father in law in cape town for five years just short of five years I did my American Gemological diamond certificate here through the school in cape town at the head and qualified and you know just put the visa back together and go into a console centered here to take and gump and we immigration papers pretty soon so the clothing company was still running I was in the diamond business
from 1976 January 76 and we actually came here in january nineteen eighty so events move pretty fast and when you came here did you you say you knew maybe someone here in Dallas oh I new attorney in there any evidence and I knew robbery and Lorraine Abramson both from Cape Town over tony was living in Johannesburg had just emigrated to Dallas and we had an introduction to Martha more got off in the real estate business you probably know who she is and to rise steinhardt to a spanker so personal introduction to both lets people through one part on his family's I'll another through a friend
mind so that really was the core of it I maybe when you want to know we knew had emailed it to of course yeah okay how did you find the am at the process of emigration of it was it easy for you to get integrated into the community you talking about the documentation well the personal arriving here at the airport to meet you know getting integrated energy integrated into society what was that like I thought people wonderful I could not believe the friendships and AT&T had a slogan or was reach out and touch someone and I somebody mentioned that like in the first week I
was he hasn't that's incredible I never heard that in South Africa my entire life it's like the foreign in South Africa developers it was so anchored in the British style of you know hanging back rather than going forward which is America's all about going forward and so to reach out and touch someone and everybody who matt said hey you know can get back in touch with us we need to talk to you you know what does your business aren't very interested to talk to you things like that happened and then socially of course we wanted to meet people and the core group of South Africans
of course all fed on themselves initially because there were 10 in there were 20 then there were 30 but we wanted to be very American patent East Dallas happenings and so people are very hard though they might as over and maybe it was a special thing like Passover order was breaking the fast or Thanksgiving as well important holidays and so that's how we met you how was it for your children in terms of getting adjusted to the American school well you know my oldest was Maya Gavin and he I thought it was very South African until he hit Dallas and the next day he's speaking
America so has it happened here that's really funny well he's you know to give you a perspective today's I come baseball Nathan Heaton quote stuff that happened years before he even was born it wasn't from the time he came to America so I think that the three kids it was properly a challenge meeting kids I remember Justin coming home and telling me he I don't understand what teacher I think she speaks Spanish and her name was mrs. Hairston at prestonwood and so we had a meeting with mr. taste and well she was texin she's you know one of the other funny things was just as an aside was we bought this house that we still have on the warmest and the Builder was shut up and cook and sew in the hand of the house to us we finally got the mortgage approved moving of the keys and all that stuff there was the supervisor of shut up and cook his name was Bob and so he goes down the list you know this is the camera Bob this is the window goggle and this is the concrete guy Bob and this is the door guy bull
mmm everybody was bubble but what really Bob oh no buddy boy and that was really funny I was thinking this is really strange he's got the same name the kids the kids I think integrated really fast and then you know because what was really going on with Gavin how he just turned nine and four years to Bar Mitzvah so we had to kind of get him up to speed so we joined to ferret Israel I shouldn't really say it on tape but you know it wasn't the right fit for us it was too Orthodox we had a reform background so conservative or was much more
in a line with in alignment with what our feelings were spiritual background so sheriff was easy oh so we switched eventually to sheriff and so you know Gavin Harris bonus for soda Justin well he had a bat mitzvah and they'd all met kids because at some point just and I'm only going to between academy solomon schecter in those days with a fine stainless principal and they met many other jewish kids and some non jewish kids and everything seemed to be working fine honestly in those years people were so connected and the community was so involved seems to be not in your personal affairs but involved
to see that things were moving well for everybody and it's different today of course how do you see it differently I think 911 changed America in a chain p.m. step back and said maybe not everybody is a friend anymore it's a strange feeling you think that you see that here in dallas in the Jewish community the Jewish community in Dallas you know I'm quite involved through this in an organ etc but I don't see it in the sure when I see it a lot in business in business when I started out a blues yeah come on down and see us whether it was in Waco austin houston didn't matter said you know that's places that are travel to to get my business going and established clients today it's completely different so a couple thing and
things happened at the time of 911 one was the shock of their attack laughter face the other i think was the growth of the internet because people stopped traveling so much and the internet was growing like crazy and next thing you had all these websites now we had a disconnect from people could only reach somebody through an email or now it's with texting I hate that I'd rather said I'll cross from somebody and explain this is what I do this is my product used in your store if you can these are my terms it's our work and it's not like that anymore door it's very
cutthroat I think in business people almost to a certain extent put up areas to welcome you in and so almost you have to qualify to coming well do you attribute that to 911 or just the growth of Technology I think 911 has the security aspect is that mental that's been thrown over us like everything you better be securely to make sure and it's visible right outside your building here you know it's the big poles and the concrete blocks it's everywhere it's much worse in a city like London you know when you travel to London you look at you don't realize what you're looking at until
you actually look at it's a beautiful flower pot yeah but it weighs five tons of hard tons of concrete and one little plant in it it's the four reason let me ask you this aside from the laws regarding apartheid were there any laws or specific cultural differences that you experienced between that were different between South Africa and the United States either with regard to gender or anything else that would have been apparent to you I mean the Americans that came to Cape Town prior to the period of me traveling to America to visit were incredibly nice people and I didn't notice anything related for example
to race relations for example my father made his personal chauffeur black sugar available to our friends who came from New York and told the driver told us shiver you know drive them all over wherever they want to go and they sat in the same car for two or three days on end of April placed better place to place in his driver's name was Lawrence and you would take my friend my dad's friends student very around they were American white people and the driver was a black guy that stopped for lunch nobody interfered with him was obvious this was the driver of the colonists was that
the guests from another country and there was never any trouble in South Africa and I my observations at that time were that Americans are fully involved in the world and had a worldview and had stature and this really massive industrial output that has changed a little bit now nothing nothing could face American South America and I kind of a pod for was an amazing feat considered considering the isolationism of the thirties into the massive growth of America in the 60s and 70s ages when I interviewed your wife she told us the story about the amazing feat of bringing the safer tore up from from the
from South Africa that your family uses is there any particular item physical item that you personally brought or would have liked to have brought yourself from South Africa well I'll tell you it's a funny thing i would like to have taken the entire city of Cape Town on broader to marry everybody would have been an incredible experience of course ridiculous he can't do it I think some family if some family had followed me or maybe gone ahead of me and say it yeah this is good we should do this for the family but nobody's followed me and not my sister that she says she wants
to turn the lights off so I missed that yes that's a piece that which had happened physical physical objects no you leave behind what you leave behind I left a beautiful city of beautiful mountains see forests right on our doorstep and hummus that in a way because Dallas is a January a flat place of not many topographical features that you would say this is great kept on how many of those on any morning in between 10 and 12 and you could go pacquiao table mountain in the morning and in the afternoon and go to the beach and in the evening go to the waterfront have
done over 70 we'll go fishing or you're walking in the Hills beautiful were there any pieces of family memorabilia that you did bring that were significant well we're both photographs and now we see probably not enough you know my dad was an avid photographer some of the reports and photographs got lost and not to be retrieved because I guess I'm got destroyed over time just lost my sister has some and I believed that with her all that connection litter I mean I have great memories and I will find time one day perhaps to write a story for my kids and my grandkids particularly so they
know where we came from why we unless will help but you know why we why we did what we did and why we ended up in Dallas and what I did in business some why I did certain other things how often have you been able to go first two trips are unfortunate my father died my mother died then we went back in 85 that was trip three for Nicky's parents golden wedding anniversary and then we went back in nineteen ninety nine for a real holiday trip to cape town with my entire family and a governor had his his wife jenny and there were no grandkids
at that point we did the cam reserves and kept on that was really good and then we went back in 2005 to see my sister and she was a weighing between family of mine and friends of ours their kids and we also did another trip to a game to a game park and I haven't me back since 2005 and if I religion need at this point to go back is it on no it's basically done um so when you first arrived here you told us about the congregation that you joined and then the change are you still members of shared Israel no that's history he
stepped sheriff Israel until about nineteen ninety seven and then sheriff Israel was as being huge rather impersonal types that I got where I don't think Mickey oh I really had an outfit for what we were looking for Moorhead true feeling that we could just relaxing sure was so busy and so best and so many people walking in and out up and down more time and particularly at that time in night early in 1998 stefan rabbi steven weinberg had said to me what about starting a shoe I had lunch with him and one day in property februari or march film-like must have been january-february of 1998
it's still employed by sheriff his kind of contract was not going to be I said well if you start sure count us in and that's as far as the conversation went never thinking it would amount to anything because not many jewels get started and so a month later Nikki answered the phone at homeland was stiffen or somebody representing steph and said look we want to have a first meeting of this new synagogue that stiffeners going to start and we want you to be you know founding members and would he give your house for it and so notch third of 1998 we had the first meeting
of what was poor shomrei torah at time and I was on the steering committee and five or six of us five or six families that were the founders of n chattering and Stefan addressed the twinning us are people that were there and you know we made others to people i became a treasurer and there were some officers and we made a ultra profit corporation and then eventually genre torah village tanja by the first into what became a charter for in china met became ancient oral as sean right over i'm going very fast through the history because it was three very very intense months March April
May formats and June and then July was the merger in to ensure Torah and stayed on a board until last year so you've been very involved that thing at the synagogue yeah it was one of the major things that that Nikki and I didn't knew he you know gave a torrid ensured it was the first gift to combine venture had a penchant or I had received from any money other than a few checks to keep us going that was the major gift because the very first question that evening of March third was it was well we've got a rabbi we probably can rent space but
we don't have a Torah and Nikki said we have a Torah people think what avatar about everything that can we can do this have you been involved and on the other community agencies or in Kate on I was involved in what are they call it in cater on the board of Deputies was the Cape Town version of Jewish Federation and some of my uncle's were involved so once in a while let's say you know call these people and see what you can do I didn't do much in cape town but ok when i got to dallas i was introduced to Moe Stein who was the
head of the Jewish Federation executive director right at that time in lil and Martha mogul of late little style work together in the real estate business they sold us a house so gotta know mo real quick so in the first two years I did a little bit of you know here the cards go call these people and I didn't do anything else and I generally got disgruntled the Jewish synagogue seen in Dallas it was very controlled and very contrived I thought a very ritual driven as it still is by the way I've subsequently learned that Judaism is practice by ritual do certain things repetitively every
day or every aunt of every Passover and you don't do anything different if you want something different you have to go to California and do one of those different fuels but our school is a traditional Sherwood we established a chart or and that sits on needs and you know we were proud to be part of it into to be able to build and make it grow into a big entity um how important was Israel to you as a child when you were growing up but for you to consider yourself a Zionist not really point of view that I packed my bags and get on a
plane and loudly I never felt that when I felt more South African until the day I left to come to America then probably any other feeling I ever had and I probably would have hated the idea of getting to live in Israel because I would have had of learned Hebrew had started a new business started a new trade and do things that I really didn't want to do I'm very focused on whatever my gold object it is and don't achieved that and that was on the side I would say this that if in there been a really serious situation Israel like that collapse in 67
or in 73 a manager said this is a tiny done help but it seemed to me that the Israelis had partially in 73 that was mostly had it under control so the Zionist part of it I feel very strongly that we should have a stable is right and has to exist and whatever help we can give we do this weekend michael is there anything that you'd like to add at all about your family your experiences in South Africa or your experiences here in Gallup that I might not have asked you about well the South African family was fast had many different interests and people did
many different things in you know in there were pharmacists and industrialists and a couple of doctors so they were spread through the community in a big way and today I have probably 28 first cousins most of them are still in South Africa who have said this is fine tolerate whatever happens only a couple of cousins have left they live elsewhere wonders in India wonders under my sister still in cape town and i think i think generally i am the kind of person who says to people about people that's what they want give them to it don't interfere well I've had said to my sister many
times you know please come out of here I'll make it happen I have to go through the immigration to make it happen and all that but I would see that happen but she's she wants to stay in cape town but in America I'm you know really been amazed by the strength of community and it's grown stronger over the years the local community and maybe also that after the early years the first ten years let's say from 80 to 90 during which period we had to bar mitzvahs and one bat mitzvah that we connected more and more with the community knew more more people and people
related to us some people started coming to to me in business who I never thought would and I was able to help them in certain ways and then you know the big the big growth spurt of the South African immigration into dallas into Texas really inquisitors really nationwide but a lot so he came to Dallas just expand and the experience you saw people all different kinds and they find the way the many non-jewish people who came from who came to celtx for example which has a big operation in South Africa so they is that community too and on the way you meet all these people
and some stay good friends stay friendly and some we move along and that's how it is Michael thank you so much for spending the morning with us you've been delightful we really appreciate you thank you for the time it's been a pleasure to do this thank you very much