(Author: Suzanne Belling, Vol. 65, No. 2, Rosh Hashanah 2010) Whenever I had the privilege of interviewing David Susman, z”l, – first in the 1970s and in subsequent years for various publications – the phrase that always came to mind was: “an officer and
(Author: Cedric Ginsberg, Vol. 65 #1, Pesach 2010) It is now almost a year since the untimely passing of Joseph Sherman, scholar, translator, lover of Yiddish, raconteur. In 2001, he left South Africa to take up the position of Woolf Corob Professor of Yiddish
(Author: Suzanne Belling, Vol. 65 #1, Pesach 2010) Susan Woolf is known as Mathabo (Mother of Happiness) by the people and taxi commuters of the streets of South Africa to whom she has introduced a concept that will change their lives. She lives up
(Author: Gwynne Schrire, Vol. 68, No. 3, Chanukah 2013) Few in the year 2013 think it strange that the immediate past Chairman of the SAJBD Cape Council and the current SAJBD National Chairman and National Director, respectively Li Boiskin, Mary Kluk and Wendy Kahn,
(Author: Allen Jacobs, Vol. 67, No. 3, Chanukah 2012) During World War I, Lithuanians voted Vilna as the capital of their newly liberated country. There were about 65 000 Jews in Vilna at the time. The vibrant Jewish life there gave birth to numerous publications
(Author: Reuben Musiker, Vol. 67, No. 2, Rosh Hashanah 2012) When the distinguished Jewish American composer George Gershwin died of a brain tumour in 1937 at the unacceptably young age of 38, the eminent music critic John O’Hara remarked: “George Gershwin may be dead
(Author: David Saks, Vol. 66, #3, Chanukah 2011) At the opening of the 46th National Conference of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies on 27 August 2011, the SAJBD Human Rights Award was presented posthumously to Arthur Goldreich. At the presentation of the
(Author: Riva Morgenstern, Vol. 68, No. 2, Rosh Hashanah 2013) We lived in the town, where life was more civilized and “up to date” than in the rural shtetl. My memories of that time – seen through the eyes of a small child –
(Author: Naomi Musiker, Vol. 70, No. 2, Rosh Hashanah 2015) On 4 September 1939, after a historic and heated debate, the South African parliament agreed, by a slim majority, to enter World War II on the side of Britain and her allies. This was despite