(Author: Gwynne Schrire, Vol. 81, #1, Autumn-Winter 2026) Said Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai, “There are three crowns: the crown of Torah, the crown of priesthood, and the crown of royalty, but the crown of a good name is above them all [1].” Sir Moses
(Author: Kenneth Wright, Vol. 81, #1, Autumn-Winter 2026) EDITOR’S NOTE: In its Winter 2024 (Vol. 79, #1) issue, JA published Alon Shapira’s article ‘”What on earth is there to talk about?” – An act of wartime heroism remembered’ regarding the sinking of the
(Author: Zita Nurok, Vol. 81, #1, Autumn-Winter 2026) We lived across the road from the railway track. I often could be found standing at the fence watching people in the passenger trains going back and forth between Johannesburg and our small town of
(Author: Steven Katzew, Vol. 81, #1, Autumn 2026) Picture the scene: the 27th of July 1974, Ellis Park, Johannesburg, considered the fortress of South African rugby. A crowd of 75 000 predominantly South African supporters hoping for the salvaging of some pride by the
(Reviewer: David Saks, Vol. 80, #2, Summer 2025) As the adage has it, “many hands make light work”, and that is true of many things. It is not always so, however, when it comes to writing community histories, where it can all too
(Author: Gwynne Schrire, Vol. 80, #2, Summer 2025) Unlike countries like America and Australia, owing to discriminatory laws to stop Jewish immigration, few Holocaust survivors came to South Africa. Even though the Holocaust had removed the threat of thousands of unassimilable aliens swamping
(Author: David Saks, Vol. 80, #2, Summer 2025) South Africa’s post-apartheid honeymoon, that halcyon period of renewed hope and unity of purpose characterising the national mood in the wake of the transition to democracy in 1994, has long been a distant memory. The disillusionment
(Author: Ivan Kapelus, Vol. 80, #2, Summer 2025) A new museum, the Chaim Herzog Museum of the Jewish Soldier in World War II, has been established in Latrun, Israel.[1] Herzog was President of Israel from 1983 – 1993 and during World War II
(Author: Reviva Hasson, Vol. 80, #1, Autumn 2025) South Africa’s Jewish population has been steadily declining for decades. From a peak of close to 120,000 in the 1970s, the community has more than halved in size. By 2019, there were just over 52,000 Jews