In 1652, when Jan van Riebeek was sent to the Cape by the Dutch East India Company to set up a refreshment station, two Jews, Samuel Jacobsen and David Heijlbron, were among those building the Castle. Baptised, according to Dutch East India Company laws, as no other form of worship other than that of the Calvinist Dutch Reformed Church was permitted. Eventually between 1804 & 1806 under British rule, freedom of worship, Freedom of the Press & the Abolition of Slavery were instituted. In 1820, emigration to the Cape was encouraged and a number of practicing Jews were among the settlers. "On the eve of the Day of Atonement, on 26 September 1841, 17 males of the Jewish faith met and conducted a service in accordance with Orthodox worship at the home of Benjamin Norden in Hof Street, Helmsley Place, which today forms part of the Mount Nelson". One week later, the Cape Town Hebrew Congregation known as Tikvat Yisrael or the Hope of Israel was established and land was purchased in Woodstock for burial purposes. In 1849, a building known as Belvedere House in St John's Street was purchased & refurbished to form the first synagogue in South Africa with Reverend Isaac Pulver as its first spiritual leader. By 1863 the congregation had outgrown the synagogue and a vegetable garden & stables besides Government Avenue was purchased and a new synagogue was built which today houses the entrance to the South African Jewish Museum complex. Further growth of the congregation led to the building of today's Gardens Shul or The Mother Synagogue in 1895, designed by Parker & Forsyth and consecrated in 1905 when Cape Town boasted its first Jewish mayor, Hyman Liberman.
