The suburb is situated on part of an old
Witwatersrand farm called
Doornfontein. It was established in 1893 and is named after
Berea, Durban. Marlene was featured in Britain's influential
The Architectural Review magazine in 1953. The Johannesburg High School for Girls opened in Berea in 1897, serving white girls. The school faced closure in 1989 due to falling enrollment amid white applicants and the government’s continued support for segregated education. However, the school re-opened in 1990 as
Barnato Park High School, a non-racial school. In 1975,
Ponte City was built in Berea, making it the tallest residential skyscraper in Africa. At the time it was a very sought after address in Johannesburg. Amid migration trends of
white flight and the arrival of undocumented African immigrants, the building became prone to gangs and violent crime. In recent years the building has been regenerated, tours are held and students and middle-class city workers are among the tenants.
Jewish community For much of the twentieth century, the area was home to a significant
Jewish community. Berea Shul was consecrated in 1968. Rabbi Morris Swift, a prominent advocate of
halachic law, also served the congregation for a time.
Colin Tatz, who would later become a prominent public intellectual in
Australia, was born and raised in Berea. He had his
Bar Mitzvah at Berea Shul, and later married his wife there. Tatz had lived on Honey Street, where the doctor
Sydney Cohen, father of writer
Roger Cohen, was born and raised. The neighbourhood was also home to the Etz Chaim Shul. As most Jewish residents eventually migrated to the northern suburbs, the synagogues were de-consecrated and the old Berea Shul building now houses a church. The Jewish photographer
David Goldblatt also took apartheid-era photos in Berea. In 1902,
Corona Lodge was built as a
Masonic Society Lodge. The Lodge later fell out of use and was then used by the local Jewish community. The lodge was used by the precursor to the Yeshiva College of South Africa, which was established in 1953. The Yeshiva Katanah divided classes between Corona Lodge and the Beth Hamedrash Hagadol in Doornfontein. Afternoon classes were held at the lodge under the supervision of Rabbi Michel Kossowsky, an
Eastern European Talmudic scholar who had settled in South Africa during the
Holocaust, and Rabbi Baruch Rabinowitz. The subjects the rabbis taught classes around Talmud,
Mishnah,
Prophets, Laws and Customs and Ethics of Judaism. ==References==