Morris Alexander

Morris Alexander
Born	1877
Died	January 24, 1946
Alma mater	St. John's University
Occupation	Politician
Years active	1908-1946
Political party	South African Party
Spouse	Ruth Shechter 1908-1935 Enid Asenath Baumberg 1935-≤1946
Children	3

Morris Alexander (1877 – 1946) was a South African Jewish politician. Morris was born in 1877 in Znin, Poland to a German Jewish family. He moved to Cape Town in 1904. He founded the Jewish Board of Deputies for the Cape Colony in that same year. Morris would be educated at St. John's College in Cambridge. He would marry a woman named Ruth Schechter in June 1907. They would have three children but divorced in 1935. He would later remarry Enid Asenath Baumberg. He would be a member of the Cape of Good Hope Parliament from 1908 to 1910 and later a member of the Union of South Africa Parliament from 1910 until his death in 1946.

Personal life

Born to a German Jewish family in 1877, Morris would move to South Africa in 1904 at the age of 17. He would be educated at St. Johns University. Morris Alexander would be married to Ruth Shechter, the daughter of Solomon Shechter in June 1907. They would have two sons and one daughter before they divorced in 1935. He would remarry a woman named Enid Asenath Baumberg.

Political career

Morris would first get into politics in 1904 when he founded the Cape Jewish Board of Deputies which dealt with issues of Jewish immigration to the Cape of Good Hope. From 1908 to 1910 Morris was elected to the Cape of Good Hope Parliament.

During this time he would lead a campaign to have Yiddish reclassified from a Semitic language to a European one allowing Yiddish speakers to emigrate to South Africa without being stopped on the grounds of race. Prior to this many Jewish immigrants to South Africa where rejected on racial grounds. During this time he and his wife would both become staunch supporters of Gandhi as they both were united over their support for Yiddish speakers.

He later suggested that a chief officer of Jewish immigration be appointed and on January 1, 1914, Mr. B.S. Hersch was appointed to that role. This would be significant as after World War I many Jews immigrated to South Africa. In his later career he would work for the interests of the country's racial minorities, join the South African Party and become a devotee of the ideas of Jan Smuts, and would become a significant Jewish community leader.