central african zionist organisation (cazo)
The CAZO Magazine, as it was fondly known, was the key medium within the-then Rhodesian Jewish Community – reporting monthly news and events for and about the community. Started in 1958 and edited for many years by the indominatable Barney Katz from his office in Bulawayo – the magazine was continuously published well after Zimbabwe became independent and included editors such as Arthur Kaplan. Even in 2005 the tiny community left in Zimbabwe have managed to produce some issues under Zac Menashe and later under Benny Leon.
Below is a gallery of magazines through the years 1958-1975
Scanning was difficult due to the binding. Click to open the images and then use your browser to increase the zoom on the image.
To view additional copies of the CAZO magazine from additional years – click here
The magazine is in itself a history book of the Zimbabwe Jewish Community covering over 46 years of its affairs. This first section which is being posted on the ZJC website covers a selection of 137 pages scanned from magazines between 1959 and 1972. The pages include some interesting articles for example a 5-part history of Zionism in Rhodesia by S.A.Rochlin started in 1959. It has references to visits to Rhodesia by Moshe Dayan in 1957 and Moshe Sharett in 1960. It also includes many barmitzvah and batmitzvot, Zionist conferences, youth movement and other community activities. Pages were mainly chosen for their pictures and personalities they described.
The magazines were kindly provided from a unique and bound collection owned by Mervyn Lasovsky z”l of Rehovot, Israel.
ZJC is grateful to David Gelfand for his help in scanning the pages and for his efforts in assisting this project. Some of the pages were difficult to scan because of the thickly bound books – designed to protect the magazines.
