Tightknit Sticking together helps South African Jews make the transition. Ilene Schneider, editor and writer who lives in Orange County.
Siblings follow each other.
Then the parents come. Then people run into people they know from their school days. Pretty soon, there's not enough room around the dining room table for the whole extended family. That, according to Hazel Dyer, is the way it goes with the South African community. Although there have been minor inconveniences, such as learning to drive on the right side of the road and understanding American slang, the steady flow of 35,000 South African Jews to Orange County during the past 20 years has been a relatively smooth transition, Dyer says.