In 1943, he relented and agreed to help set up the first progressive congregation in Cape Town, and was able to call upon Sherman, his friend and Hebrew Union classmate.

[5][6] Sherman led Temple Israel in Green Point for the ensuing decades, seeing exponential growth with 25% of Cape Town Jewry affiliating themselves with the Reform movement.

[5] The profile of the local Atlantic Seaboard Jewry differed from the Yiddish-speaking Jewish migrants that settled in District Six and Woodstock, Cape Town generations before.

[9] In the 1940s and 1950s there was a Johannesburg-Cape Town cultural split when Temple Israel in Green Point rejected a proposal for the creation of the position of Chief Minister under which all Progressive congregations would fall.

[8] Weiler had sent Victor Brasch as his emissary to Cape Town to assure the community of the need for central control, based in Johannesburg, and enuring that each congregation follow the same formula.

However, Cape Town wanted a looser federation where each city made its own decisions and pushed back against the notion of a Chief Minister, arguing that it was against the democratic principles of Reform Judaism.

[5] The arrival of the congregation and Reform Judaism in Cape Town was met with opposition from Rabbi Israel Abrahams, spiritual leader of the Gardens Shul.

He wrote to his congregants telling them that the UJW, as a social and charitable organisation, had no right to invite a Reform minister (Sherman) to address them.

Rabbi Rosen conducted a Bat Mitzvah service with the participation of the Temple Israel choir and the two synagogues worked together to set up a facility in the area to provide cheap meals for vagrants.

During his tenure, Major Hall at Temple Israel had a dual function as a centre for African culture, literacy and poverty alleviation projects.

The congregation has invited figures such as the Israeli politician Aryeh Eliav[15] and Robert Kaplan, Chair of the United Jewish Appeal (UIA) South Africa.

[16] The congregation has also been addressed by Nobel Prize winners, F. W. de Klerk, State President of South Africa[17] and Desmond Tutu, the Anglican bishop.