Autumn-Winter 2021

We are pleased to present the latest issue of Jewish Affairs (Vol. 76, No. 2, Autumn-Winter 2021). This is the eighth issue of Jewish Affairs in its all-Online format. Together with all issues that have appeared since 2009, all new online issues can be accessed in PDF form on https://www.sajbd.org/pages/je...

This is likely to be the last issue of Jewish Affairs to appear on the main SAJBD website as the new, stand-alone Jewish Affairs website is finally nearing completion. Once up and live, readers will be able to individually access every article (in Word format) that has been published since 2009. Full PDF versions of every issue will also continue to be accessible on the new site.

The SA Jewish Board of Deputies brought out the first issue of Jewish Affairs in June 1941. We welcome visitors to Jewish Affairs Online, and invite you to join the global JA family by signing up as subscribers. Doing so is free and enables you to receive regular bulletins and updates.

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‘A Boerejood on Ster...

Based in part on her own research, this ...

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Searching for Sarah:...

We are delighted to publish an extract f...

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Suzanne Belling (194...

Journalist, author, Jewish communal prof...

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How true a reflectio...

Ivan Kapelus considers the respective hi...

The conflict between High Commissioner H L Samuel ...

Two distinguished Jewish members of the British establishment find themselves at loggerheads in the early years of the Palestine Mandate....

To hell and back: A South African Jew in Stalin’s ...

Idealism, disillusionment and survival - for Joseph Glazer, moving to Stalin's Soviet Union was an adventure that quickly became a nightmare. ...

Free to Choose...

True freedom requires being protected by the confines of just and prescribed laws', while retaining our ability to choose. Charlotte Cohen explores th...

Kismet...

'The curious case of Dr Isaac Newton Levi', as related in this new short story by Clark Zlotchew...

Johannesburg's longest-practicing optometrist...

Harold Levy, with wife Cynette's crucial support, ran his optometry practice for 65 years until his Covid-enforced retirement. ...

A Johannesburger to the Core - Remembering Clive C...

Kathy Munro reflects on the life, achievements and lasting influence esteemed architect, architectural historian and heritage activist Clive Chipkin (...

Has the Hebrew Bible been accurately recopied and ...

Dead Sea Scrolls authority Simon Berg look at the compilation of the Jewish sacred scriptures and considers the accuracy of their transmission down th...

Jacob William Behr - Teacher and Hebrew Scholar...

Scion of a scholarly Lithuanian family, J W Behr devoted himself to strengthening the knowledge of Hebrew in South Africa. ...

Blanche Dugdale…Zionist Par Excellence...

As her diaries reveal, Lord Balfour's niece Blanche Dugdale was also a devoted campaigner for a Jewish state ...

The Lithuanian Slaughter of its Jews...

Sorrel Kerbel reviews of The Lithuanian Slaughter of its Jews, a grim record of Lithuanian culpability in the Holocaust based on the testimony of 121 ...

He Does Not Die a Death of Shame...

Leonard Suransky reviews Jack Hoffman's new novel about growing up in Johannesburg in in the 1950s and '60s...

My 11th Pen Pal - Letters from Menahem...

Israel's birth as reflected in a teenage girl's correspondence with an Irgun POW in Kenya ...

The Age of Isaiah: Bible, History and Archaeology...

'The poet laureate of the Jewish people', Isaiah was both a recorder of and participant in an extraordinary epoch in early Jewish history....

The loud-mouth rabbi who was told to go...

How Andre Ungar became the only rabbi forced to leave South Africa for opposition to Apartheid. ...

A compelling new history of Progressive Judaism in...

A new book on the SA Progressive movement throws welcome light on a previously neglected aspect of local Jewish history ....

‘A Ceylon of the Cederberg’: Benjamin Ginsberg and...

How a Jewish family, the Ginsbergs, were instrumental in making rooibos one of the world's most popular herbal teas and an important export item for S...

Fiction...

'A drop of milk' by Clark Zlotchew...

Helen Aron, champion of Johannesburg's heritage...

A woman of passion, intelligence, flair and courage, Helen Aron was an acclaimed documentary and art photographer of Johannesburg’s disappearing past....

Celebrity concerts for Israel in 1950s South Afric...

A program for a 1955 concert recalls how famed Jewish entertainers performed in South Africa on Israel's behalf. ...

Articles, Theses & Books pertaining to SA Jewry an...

The latest compilation by archivist J-p Burke of recent publications of South African Jewish interest....

A Day of Remembrance at the University of Vienna...

In 1998, a plaque was unveiled by the University of Vienna’s Medical Faculty in memory of teachers and students exiled or murdered under the Nazi regi...

GRIT in inteGRITy...

The story of immigrants Reuben and Sophia Newstead and their part in establishing the Claremont shul, framed as an imaginary first-person memoir by th...

Obituary: Ralph Zulman...

Long-serving Jewish Affairs editorial board member Judge Ralph Zulman, who passed away on 8 August 2020, combined a stellar career on the Bench with o...

Blogs640X480 Fascinating Free State How Philippolis Gots Its Name

Two Daughters of the Free State and their Poetry: ...

Like Olga Kirsch, Jennifer Friedman grew up in the Orange Free State and wrote poetry in the Afrikaans language she grew up in. Brian Josselowitz tell...

Lockdown Pesach 2020...

What made this year's Seder night different from all other Seder nights? Charisse Zeifert describes how....

Heads or Tails for South African Jewry?...

The theological roots of antisemitism go back to the early centuries of Christianity itself, and persist even to this day. An Anglican priest consider...

The Statute...

Just because your own eyes aren't deceiving you doesn't mean that the other person is wrong: A metaphor for understanding other points of view. ...

The effects of the Spanish Influenza Pandemic on t...

58% of Jewish deaths in South Africa in 1918 occurred during the period of the Spanish Flu pandemic. The authors cast new light on this tragic and...

Chagall and the Murdered Poets...

"Despite living and working in freedom, Chagall felt himself ... a hostage": How the 20th Century's greatest Jewish artist was unable to escape the sh...

FICTION...

'Reality' by Clark Zlotchew...

BACK THEN...

A re-imagining of old Doornfontein, bustling heartland of Jewish Johannesburg during the early decades of Jewish settlement....

OUR JOHANNESBURG...

Jews have been part of the fabric of Johannesburg from the very beginning. Veteran journalist Lionel Slier reflects on the current state of the commun...

A BRIEF JOURNEY THROUGH GREEK JEWISH HISTORY...

Two great ancient civilizations, Jewish and Greek, influenced and impacted upon one another, and collectively altered the course of world history. Ber...

CAPE TOWN JEWRY AND THE 1918 FLU PANDEMIC...

The Covid-19 crisis invites comparisons with an even deadlier pandemic, the 1918 Spanish Flu. A survivor describes the Flu's impact on Jews in Cape To...

THE BUBONIC PLAGUE AND THE JEWS IN CAPE TOWN, 1901...

Gwynne Schrire reflects on a previous epidemic that struck Cape Town in 1901 and how minority groups, including Jews, were scapegoated because of it....

THE 2004 TSUNAMI AND SOUTH AFRICAN JEWRY...

The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami was one of greatest natural catastrophes in recorded history. David Saks reflects on how SA Jewry reacted to the tragedy...

FEODORA CLOUTS: “THE GRAND OLD LADY OF CAPE TOWN J...

Feodora Clouts played an outsized role in Jewish communal life in 20th Century Cape Town. She was further influential in women being given due recogni...

SYDNEY CLOUTS – SOUTH AFRICAN JEWISH POET...

One of South Africa's most accomplished poets, Sydney Clouts remains surprisingly little known outside academic circles. A new, intimate appraisal hel...

THE TRANSVAAL AUTOMOBILE CLUB - NURSERY OF JEWISH ...

The Transvaal Automobile Club long dominated South African Squash, largely through its many Jewish players. Steven Katzew describes this golden age fo...

HERBER HOUSE: "A HOSTEL FOR JEWISH CHILDREN" (Part...

The "Cane Mutiny", a "Feral Culture", rawfers and shluppers and liedjies on the school bus - All this and more in this final part of the author's hist...

DID THE SAJBD SIT ON THE FENCE UNDER APARTHEID?...

Did the SA Jewish Board of Deputies shirk the challenge of opposing Apartheid or was its policy of neutrality during most of that era justified in vie...

A WUNDERKIND IN WONDERLAND...

Denis Goldberg was thirty years old when he stood in the dock alongside Nelson Mandela and others during the famous 'Rivonia Trial'. Renowned journali...

SA JEWRY UNDER APARTHEID – A VERY OLD DEBATE REVIS...

The Jewish community's political behaviour during the apartheid years has long been the subject of vociferous debate. 25 years after South Africa's tr...

Obituary: Isaac Reznik...

Isaac Reznik (1936-2019), dubbed South African Jewry's 'Living Encyclopaedia' left a lasting mark in multiple areas of Jewish communal life. David Sak...

Fiction...

'My Friend Joey' by Clark Zlotchew...

Mementos of the Anglo-Boer War...

Part of the legacy of the Anglo-Boer War are the innumerable artefacts made by Boer POWs in captivity. Gwynne Schrire looks at the Jewish background o...

New Poetry...

Contributors: Ben Krengel, Rodney Mazinter ...

Uprooted and uncompensated: the mistreatment of ‘R...

Acclaimed historian Richard Mendelsohn relates how immigrant Jewish storekeepers were also victims of the British 'scorched earth' tactics during the ...

'A Hostel for Jewish Children' (Part II)...

From 1943 to 1966, Herber House provided boarding facilities for Jewish children, mainly from the country areas, attending schools in Johannesburg. Th...

Dickens, Fagin and Me: A Tale of Two Countries...

Combined with a memoir of growing up in apartheid South Africa before moving to the UK, Harold Behr reflects on the antisemitic legacy of one of Dicke...

Fiction...

Someone on the Ceiling (by Charlotte Cohen) ...

John Dillinger Fbi Wanted Poster E1564510126810

I am John Dillinger (A Memoir)...

Bernard Levinson recalls a Chicago boyhood when for many, mobsters like John Dillinger were cult heroes. ...

THE ROLE OF SWISS BANKS DURING THE HOLOCAUST ...

In January 1997, as chairman of the SA Jewish Board of Deputies, I was sent to London to take part in one of the most important meetings of the post-H...

ISRAEL’S WOMEN WAGE PEACE SHOW THE WAY...

Coinciding with South Africa’s Women’s Month, the SA Jewish Board of Deputies recently hosted a delegation from the Israeli peace movement ‘Women Wage...

THE BIRZAI/BIRZH MEMORIAL PROJECT, LITHUANIA...

On 16 June 2019, a new memorial for the victims of the massacre that took place near Birzai, Lithuania, was unveiled. Located in the Astravas Grove in...

HERBER HOUSE: “A HOSTEL FOR JEWISH CHILDREN” (Part...

“The ten fateful years between 1939 and 1948 changed the Jewish people and the course of Jewish history (M E Katz)” It was during this disruptive, d...

QUIRKS AND CURIOSITIES...

Welcome to the first Jewish Affairs ‘Quirks and Curiosities’ feature! It is envisaged that this will be a regular item looking at some of the more unu...

NEW POETRY...

Contributors: Peter Austin (‘In the Auschwitz Infirmary’) and Charlotte Cohen (‘Smartphone’). ...

JEWISH BITTEREINDES OF THE ANGLO-BOER WAR...

The Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902, the 120th anniversary of which falls on 11 October this year, was the last and by far the greatest of the many confli...