Johannesburg Johannesburg were destroyed and their people driven away during the wars emanating from Zululand during the late 18th and early 19th centuries (the mfecane or difaqane wars), and as a result, an offshoot of the Zulu kingdom, the Ndebele (often referred to as the Matabele, the name given them by the local Sotho–Tswana), set up a kingdom to the northwest of Johannesburg around modern-day Rustenburg. The main Witwatersrand gold reef was discovered in June 1884 on the farm Vogelstruisfontein by Jan Gerritse Bantjes that triggered the Witwatersrand Gold Rush and the founding of Johannesburg in 1886. The discovery of gold
The Johannesburg Beth Din The Johannesburg Beth Din The Johannesburg Beth Din is the Beth Din (Court of Jewish Law) of the Union of Orthodox Synagogues of South Africa it serves Jews throughout South Africa, and other countries on the continent. The focus of Beth Din is on areas of family law, divorce and conversion, as well as adjudication of financial disputes. Other areas supervised by the Beth Din are: Circumcision, Stam, Mikvaot and Eruvin. In 2004, the High Court of South Africa upheld a cherem (excommunication edict) against a Johannesburg businessman because he refused to pay his former wife alimony as ordered by