- SA Jewish Report

KAHN: GAZA IS A FOURLETTER WORD / 3
SHOCK ARTIST STEVEN
COHEN’S WORK ON 9/11 / 8
SHATTERING
GRIEF THROUGH
THE EYES OF A
YOUNG GIRL / 9
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Friday, 15 January 2010 / 29 Tevet 5770
Volume 14 Number 1
West Bank’s economic boom
- can it continue in 2010?
PAGE 7
TWO DIFFERENT WORLD VIEWS
A Haredi boy throws garbage at Jewish women coming to pray at the
Western Wall in a monthly session organised by the Women of the Wall, on
December 18 last year. (MIRIAM ALSTER / FLASH 90 / JTA) SEE STORY PAGE 11
Miep Gies who helped
No apology from Masuku South Africans at PULLOUT SUPPLEMENT:
hide Anne Frank, dies / 6 for ‘hate speech’ / 3
home in Oz / 13 Top exam results 2009
SPORTS / 16
LETTERS / 10
CROSSWORD & BRIDGE / 12
COMMUNITY BUZZ / 5
WHAT’S ON / 12
2
SA JEWISH REPORT
15 - 22 January 2010
PARSHA OF THE WEEK
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Back to the future
TOO OFTEN we make the mistake of reading the Torah in the
past tense. This is particularly
true of the portions we are currently going through, which deal
with the narrative of the Exile in
and Redemption from Egypt. We
think of it as story that happened
long ago, another chapter in a
very interesting book of history.
This week’s parsha presents us
with a very exciting episode in the
Exodus drama. Facing a very stubborn Pharaoh, Moshe Rabbenu
displays miracle after miracle,
showing him the greatness of the
A-mighty. First he turns his staff
into a snake and then the waters of
Egypt into blood.
This is followed by many other
plagues that afflict the land. All in
all the Egyptians and the
Children of Israel are shown the
PARSHAT
VA’EIRA
Rabbi Yossi Chaikin
Oxford Synagogue
might of G-d in full force.
The name of the portion is therefore very appropriate: “Va’era”,
which means: “I revealed Myself.”
For the entire portion describes
how Hashem appeared and
divulged His strength to the world.
But the word “Va’era” is very
interesting in that, in the Hebrew, it
can be understood both in the past
tense, “I revealed Myself” and in
the future, “I shall reveal Myself.”
For the parsha is not speaking only
of a revelation that happened long
Minister: Minorities should
be part of the solution
EDITED BY MOIRA SCHNEIDER
CAPE TOWN
PHOTOGRAPH: SHANTI COETZER
MINORITY GROUPS should not
separate themselves from the
broader community and sit on the
sidelines and complain. Instead
they should assume an active role
and be part of the solution.
This was the appeal made by
Minister of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs
Sicelo Shiceka at a meeting with
Website
www.sajewishreport.co.za
Ilan Ossendryver
IC-Creations
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BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Honourable Abe Abrahamson (Hon. Life
President), Stan Kaplan (Chairman)
Issie Kirsh (Deputy Chairman), Marlene
Bethlehem, Russell Gaddin, Norman
Lowenthal, Bertie Lubner, Benjy Porter,
Herby Rosenberg, Howard
Sackstein, Jason Valkin.
Mr Justice Meyer Joffe
(Chair, editorial comm)
ago, but also of one that is ongoing,
right now, in the present.
As we read the portion “Va’era”
we must not only think of the Ten
Plagues that happened several
thousand years ago. We also have
to reflect on the revelations of
G-dliness that are happening right
before our eyes at the present time.
It is obviously far easier to see
the Hand of G-d with the benefit of
hindsight. As the saying goes, with
hindsight we always have 20-20
vision. So we can see a miracle
clearly when we look back at history but find it more difficult to do so
when we are actually part of it.
The word “Va’era” is a reminder
to us that Hashem’s revelation happened, is happening and will continue to happen.
“Va’era” in the parsha refers to
a process of Exile and Redemption.
G-d first appeared to the forefathers, then to Moses and later to
the entire Jewish nation. The end
SAJBD (Cape) Vice-Chairman Lawrence Miller, Minister of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs Sicelo Shiceka, Li Boiskin,
SAJBD (Cape) chairman and Rael Kaimowitz, vice-chairman.
the South African Jewish Board
of Deputies’ Cape Council late
last year.
The engagement, part of the
Board’s ongoing efforts to meet
with government leaders, was
characterised by straight talk
that saw several admissions from
the minister, including: “When it
comes to dealing with HIV/Aids,
we are 10 years behind because of
past denial.”
He also said it was “no longer
acceptable to employ people along
party lines. Government must be
administered by people with
impeccable credentials.” The
minister told the Board that he
wanted to institute the employment of qualified accountants to
manage the finances of all
departments to minimise corruption, the extent of which he
acknowledged.
Minister Shiceka said he had
always admired the Jewish community from a distance, in partic-
SHABBAT TIMES
January 15/29 Tevet
January 16/1 Shvat
Va’eira
Starts
18:15
18:32
18:15
18:20
18:04
18:15
Ends
19:39
20:38
19:36
19:54
20:09
19:57
Johannesburg
Cape Town
Durban
Bloemfontein
Port Elizabeth
East London
of that process was the Revelation
at Mount Sinai, when G-dliness
was shown to the world in ways
and in measures like it never had
been before.
The same is true of the current
process. Though we are still in
exile, as we approach its final
moments, we are exposed to small
doses of Divine revelation.
Ultimately this will result in the
Final Redemption, out of the
Exile and into the MessianicEra.
ular its ability to stick to its cultural values despite all the adversity it had experienced. He
explained that the destruction of
the family unit under apartheid
had led to a loss of values within
South African society and that
the government was exploring
ways to revive these.
In this regard, it was looking to
the religious communities for
guidance. The meeting with the
Cape Council was the first in this
connection and the minister
appealed to the Council to identify areas in which his department
could co-operate with the Jewish
community, asking: “What can
we, as government, learn from
you?”
He praised the Jewish community for always being willing to
engage with government and
spoke of his admiration for the
way in which it looked after its
own, adding that infighting
between groups had been the
cause of serious problems in government.
Minister Shiceka expressed an
interest in the Cape Town
Holocaust Centre and committed
himself to bringing a delegation
to visit in the near future.
1st day at school
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KDVP welcomes new grade 8s. King David High School Victory Park
welcomes new and excited grade 8 learners on the first day of
school. (PHOTOGRAPH: YAEL GORDON)
Tali Benjamin is put at ease by her mom Janice on Tali’s first day in primary
school at Yeshiva College. (PHOTO: ILAN OSSENDRYVER)
15 - 22 January 2010
SA JEWISH REPORT
Wendy Kahn speaking at the conference. (PHOTO SUPPLIED)
The proverbial canary
in the mineshaft
DAVID SAKS
“GAZA IS a four-letter word How Cast Lead was Used to
Justify Anti-Semitism in South
Africa”
was
how
SAJBD
National Director Wendy Kahn
chose to title her presentation at
the Third Global Forum for
Combating Anti-Semitism, held
in Jerusalem on December 16 17. The conference was held
under the chairmanship of
Israel’s Deputy Prime Minister
and Foreign Minister Avigdor
Lieberman, and the Minister of
Public Diplomacy and Diaspora
Affairs Yuli Edelstein. Over 500
senior delegates from more than
50 countries attended, among
them SAJBD Cape Chairman Li
Boiskin and Director David
Jacobson. Speakers included an
impressive array of academics,
political leaders, journalists and
human rights activists.
The sense of urgency at the
conference was encapsulated by
long-serving director of the AntiDefamation League of B’nai
B’rith, Abe Foxman, who said
that 2009 had been “the worst
year of anti-Semitism since the
Second World War”, from which
no continent, country or city had
been immune.
Both traditional forms of antiJewish prejudice and the socalled “New Anti-Semitism”
revolving around on the State of
Israel and Zionism, were on the
increase. As if to confirm this
trend, two well-publicised antiSemitics incidents, namely the
desecration of a Chanukiah in
Moldavia and the issuing of an
arrest warrant by a British court
against Israeli opposition leader
Tzipi Livni for her role in Israel’s
Gaza offensive.
In
common
with
other
Diaspora communities, South
Africa experienced a sharp rise
in anti-Semitic activity as a
result of the three-week long war
in
Gaza
commencing
in
December the previous year.
Kahn sketched some of the most
serious incidents of
antiSemitism directly resulting from
the war, mainly occurring in the
first two months of 2009.
These included then Deputy
Foreign Minister Fatima Hajaig
saying that the US and most
Western
countries
were
controlled by Jewish money at a
protest
rally
in
Lenasia
and
numerous
threatening
statements against the local
Jewish community made by
Cosatu International Relations
spokesman, Bongani Masuku.
Also noted with concern were
cases of clear incitement to violence against Jews on certain
Islamic radio stations and
attempts to launch a countrywide boycott of Jewish businesses.
While
noting
that
antiSemitism activity had indeed
increased significantly in South
Africa over the previous 12
months, Kahn was careful to put
this in perspective by comparing
this with the equivalent situations in other major Diaspora
communities.
Not only were anti-Semitism
levels many times higher in
countries such as Canada,
Australia and the UK, but the
nature of many of the incidents
recorded there were of a much
more serious nature than those
occurring in South Africa. These
included numerous instances of
assault and desecration of synagogues and Jewish cemeteries.
Minister Edelstein, a former
Zionist prisoner of conscience in
the old Soviet Union, noted how
traditional anti-Semitic malice
had successfully been repacked
into a politically digestible form
through the demonisation of
Israel and Zionism.
“It is no longer the individual
Jew or a Council of Jewish
Elders who has led the world into
war and economic collapse - it is
Israel, the state of the Jews, who
have brought war and tragedy to
the world,” he said.
Former
Canadian
Justice
Minister Irwin Cotler outlined
how the delegitimisation of
Israel, once a fringe phenomenon, was now increasingly evident in every facet of society. The
United Nations played a key role
in this process, adopting more
resolutions against Israel than
all other countries combined and
depicting the world’s only Jewish
State as an international outlaw.
Yehuda Bauer, a worldrenowned expert on antiSemitism in both its contemporary and historical manifestations, distinguished between
those who criticised Israel with a
view to creating a better Israel
and anti-Zionists who wanted
there to be no Israel. If Jews had
a persecution complex and were
paranoid, he said, they had a
very good reason for being that
way.
Several speakers stressed that
while anti-Semitism might begin
with targeting Jews, it did not
end with them, ultimately infecting the entire society. Likening
Jews to the proverbial canary in
the mineshaft John Mann,
who chairs Britain’s parliamentary committee against antiSemitism, commented that antiSemitism was being fought “not
just for the Jews, but for our own
country and our own communities.”.
Masuku ignores SAHRC’s
instruction to apologise
ROBYN SASSEN
LATE LAST year, the South African Human
Rights Commission (SAHRC) demanded
that Bongani Masuku, International
Relations spokesman for the Congress of SA
Trade Unions (Cosatu), should tender an
apology to the SA Board of Jewish Deputies
and the community at large, for hate speech
he uttered in the context of a Wits
University rally in March last year.
Masuku was instructed to tender his apology within 14 days, failing which, the matter
would be referred to the Equality Court for
final adjudication, without further notice.
No such apology had been tendered by
Masuku.
The media relations officer for the
SAHRC, Vincent Moaga said when asked by
the Jewish Report about the matter, that
Masuku had not apologised and had no
intention of doing so. “There has been no
movement in terms of the situation, but
there is a likelihood that an appeal would be
set in motion,” he said this week.
Cosatu spokesman, Patrick Craven
affirmed that there would be an appeal.
“The SAHRC is not a court of law,” he posited. “We believe it is completely mistaken in
its findings.”
National Director of the SA Jewish Board
of Deputies Wendy Kahn, commented that
“Masuku hasn’t apologised. Nothing further has happened and there is no appeal
process established with the HRC. We will
be following up with the HRC. They must litigate further on this matter.”
This is where matters stand at present.
The SA Jewish Report will keep its readers
up to date about any new developments.
3
4
SA JEWISH REPORT
15 - 22 January 2010
SOCIAL SCENE
Rita Lewis [email protected]
Edna Freinkel with hostess Stella Beder and Dinah Berman.
Highly talented Misha Favis (13) with Art Forum’s chairman, Lilithea (Lilie) Singer and accompanist Ilsa
Myburgh, head of the music department at St John’s College.
Neville
Palette
with Gwen
Buddingh
and Cathy
Singer.
Misha Favis
who will be
taking up a
music
scholarship
in London
this month.
Professor Solly Levin with his wife Cynthia.
Art Forum, a Jewish
institution, calls it a day
STORY AND PHOTOGRAPHS BY
RITA LEWIS
IT WAS fitting that the very last
meeting of the Art Forum which was its swan song after a
run of 57 years - should have as
its guest artist, a young ‘cellist
who would be performing for the
group, and in South Africa for
the last time, before leaving the
country to take up a scholarship
in London.
It was not just his angelic face
and endearing charm, but from
the first sounds emanating from
his ‘cello, 13-year-old Misha
Favis had the audience of some
60 people absolutely eating out of
his hands.
Hearing him play, it was obvious why the talented youngster
had been offered a scholarship at
the Yehudi Menuhin School of
Music in London. He left at the
end of December, accompanied
by his mother, Merle, for what is
envisaged to be a two year period
of study.
To assist him with his transition to a new life - albeit tem-
Maisie Stein with her daughter Jill Marks.
porarily - Lilie Singer, chairman
of the Art Forum, presented
Misha with a bursary from the
organisation.
The Art Forum was founded by
Singer in 1952, with its first meeting held in March of that year.
Throughout the years it focussed
on fulfilling the needs of those
who wished to have interesting
and intellectual speakers available, without having to travel far
at night to hear them.
Over the many years Singer
has used her many connections
to host a wide variety of interesting and well-known personalities
in many diverse fields. These
included Professors Arthur
Blecksley, Philip Tobias and
Friedel Sellschop, actors Phillip
Berkenshaw,
Moira
Lister,
Richard Haynes, Esmé Berman,
Taubie Kushlik, Marcel Marceau
and a host of other talented and
renowned people.
In the beginning there were
around 50 people attending the
events, but with its fast-growing
popularity, new venues and facilities had to be found to accommo-
date the increasing numbers of
both young and old who wished
to attend.
Eventually, it became necessary to split the numbers and a
younger group was formed to
develop the artistic and intellectual interests of the 9 - 14 age
group with a further one to cover
the interests of the more mature
teenagers, aged 14 - 18.
Sunday night lectures covered
topics on the development of arts
and culture and outings were
undertaken to take the youngsters to visit art galleries, art studios and sculptors, to promote
and extend their interest and
knowledge.
Regrettably, with the increase
of crime, emigration etc, the
numbers of all three groups
catered for by the Art Forum
started dwindling, and alas continued to do so, until carrying on
was no longer viable.
Much to the regret of Singer,
her committee and those who
were still regularly attending, it
was decided to close all three
divisions with immediate effect.
Lilie Singer with her daughter, Elaine Fienberg.
15 - 22 January 2010
COMMUNITY BUZZ
LIONEL SLIER
082-444-9832, fax: 011-440-0448,
[email protected]
THE STRAND
From Raymond Cotton:
“The Strand lies on False Bay,
directly on the opposite side of
the bay from Simonstown and
Fish Hoek. Nearby is Somerset
West, which lies in the Hottentots
Holland basin, surrounded by the
Hottentots Holland Mountains
and is separated by the N2 highway.
“If you walk along the coast in
a westerly direction past the De
Beers dynamite factory along the
coast, you will eventually land up
in Muizenberg.
“I grew up in the Strand from
the early fifties to the late sixties.
Once, in my youth, accompanied
by my Uncle Maurice, we did it on
bicycle but coming back it was
high tide and we had to return via
the N2 highway. The police were
looking for us because we
returned home past midnight.
“The Strand Jewish community comprised 20 to 30 families.
The shul was built in the early
‘20s. The resident rabbi was
Rabbi Karvan who lived in the
house next to the shul, together
with his wife and two children,
Naomi and Michael.
“I remember we used to go to
cheder from Monday to Thursday
in the afternoons for 30 minutes.
All the barmitzvah boys had to do
the first half of Friday night
service and every Shabbos morning shul service which started at
07:00 and ended at 08:00 to enable
SA JEWISH REPORT
businesses to be opened.
“The grand old lady of the
Strand was Bobbe Friedman. For
many years we lived in a semidetached house in De Ruyter
Street next to her. (I remember
one year there was a flood and
being very close to the Laurence
River that entered the sea about
200 metres away, we had to be rescued by Mr Swart who worked at
the sewerage works).
“What I can remember of
Bobbe Friedman is the high standard of kashrut that she kept, the
encouragement to go to shul and
the moral support she gave to my
parents. She always had penny
chocolates on her. On Chanukah
she handed out presents to the
children in shul.
“After my mother passed away
I donated a siddur to the Beit
Hamedrash
Chofetz
Chaim
(Johannesburg) where I am a
member and one of the congregants, Trevor Friedman pointed
out to me that Bobbe Friedman
was his grandmother.
“I mentioned to him that when I
lived in the Strand I used to play
marbles
with
Barry
and
Benjamin Friedman, his cousins
and now my son Eric is involved
in the youth with his sons Ari, Eli
and Danni at Chofetz Chaim. “
To be continued.
MUIZENBERG
From Stan Frankel (cont):
“The one Squire brother became
a brilliant cardiologist and righthand man to the famous Chris
Barnard, whom I knew personally in later years in my particular
peripatetic profession.
“I might mention the excellent
Muizenberg Secondary School up
on the hillside, run by an outstanding principal, W A Andrews
and the fine tuition all our
Jewish youth received. I remember too, the notable ‘Hillel
College’ run by an elderly Mr
Levinsohn and how during
Yomtov, the students all came
trooping into shul resplendent in
their brown and yellow uniforms.
“The shul was led by Reverend
Frank, a veteran of many years
and Cantor Katzen who filled
every seat with his magnificent
services. He married a lovely
local lass, Judy (I think). The
shul still stands opposite the
bowling greens.
“I must quote Cecil Rhodes
who lived and died in a cottage in
Muizenberg (St James?), now a
museum. ‘So much to do, so little
done.’ Sic transit gloria mundi.
(So passes the glory of the
world).
“Another quote from Cecil
Rhodes (on his deathbed): ‘What
is life? Two weeks at the seaside
and then it is all over.’ He died in
1902 aged 49.
WALVIS BAY
From: Hyman Jocum:
“One of the most important
events to have taken place in
Walvis Bay between the two wars
was the opening in 1927 by the
Earl and Countess of Athlone, of
the first refrigeration plant at the
dockside for the storage of frozen
beef.
“This refrigeration plant was
established by Wolf Davids and it
enabled cattle farmers to export
their beef directly to European
markets.
“As so many of the inhabitants
of Walvis Bay earned their livelihoods as whalemen or fishermen, there was never any shortage of licenced hotels. Herbert
Pieters managed the Atlantic
Hotel in 1967 and for several
years thereafter.
“Few Jews have distinguished
themselves
in
politics
in
Namibia. One exception was
Herbert Simonson who served
several terms as mayor of nearby
Swakopmund.
“At a time when the United
Party shrunk in membership
numbers and held very few seats
in the Legislative Assembly,
Simonson was elected to represent the Swakopmund constituency in the SWA Legislative
Assemble, but this constituency
included Walvis Bay which supplied 60 per cent of the voters and
had for many decades been able
to retain its English-speaking
character. Simonson won the seat
for the United Party by five votes.
“He and his wife are buried in
the Jewish section of the
Swakopmund Cemetery. What
made him such a popular figure
among the voters of Walvis Bay
was the fact that he was truly
trilingual and could switch from
English to Afrikaans to German
in a matter of seconds when
addressing large audiences.”
JANSENVILLE
(Eastern Cape/Johannesburg)
Born in Jansenville, Morris
Zimerman began to make his
mark as a rugby player while at
the University of Cape Town. He
went on to become a Springbok.
He was a teammate of Danie
Craven and Bennie Osler (covered in previous editions of The
Jewish Report).
5
He became a labour lawyer and
worked side-by-side with Solly
Sachs of the Garment Workers’
Union (the father of former
Constitutional Court Justice Albie
Sachs) in the turbulent 1950s.
When he left private practice to
join the Legal Resources Centre
soon after it was established in
1979, his particular concern was
consumer law, dealing with commercial exploitation of the very
poor. It is not a service that gets
the attorney’s name lit bright in
the legal firmament; it is messy
and often peopled with sordid
frauds, loan sharks and extortionists.
It is frequently fought out of
court or in the lower courts; the
parties pitted against each other
are grossly mismatched in their
access to power and resources.
After Zimmie passed away (in
1990) Issie Maisels paid this tribute: “If you were to ask me who
was the man of undoubted
integrity that I knew, I would put
him first.”
Retired Chief Justice of the
Constitutional Court, Mr Justice
Arthur Chaskalson, and onetime National Director of Legal
Resources Centre, remembers
Zimmie as “a man without subterfuge - direct and honest in his
dealings with people and fearless
in confronting those who acted
unjustly”.
Extracted from an article written by Jo-Anne Collinge. 1990.
HOLLYWOOD
Betty Joan Perske was a cousin
of Israel’s president and Nobel
Prize-winner, Shimon Peres.
Betty Joan who? Actually she
was better known as the actress
Lauren Bacall.
6
SA JEWISH REPORT
15 - 22 January 2010
OPINION AND ANALYSIS
FORUM FOR DIVERSE VIEWS
Illusion and reality are poles apart
A wish list
for 2010
WITH THE year 2010 just beginning, it is a good
time to ponder what we want from it. For one
thing, it will hopefully be better than 2009, with
its full-blown global recession and other nasty
aspects.
Here’s a wish list for South African Jewry,
South Africa, Israel, global Jewry and the world
at large.
In the Jewish community, the issue of “leaving” continues to dominate many dinner tables as it does in other minorities.
While the Jewish Report cannot prescribe to
anyone where they should choose to live, we
encourage Jews who can contribute to South
Africa to do so wholeheartedly. However, it
remains the right of every individual to freely
pursue his personal dreams and ideals. And with
modern communication technology - specifically
the Internet - Jewish expatriates continue to be
part of the broader South African community.
Notwithstanding the above, a wish for this
community is for it to feel it truly “belongs” in
this country, and that the individual contribution will be appreciated, whether in business, the
arts, the professions, academia, politics, etc.
An indication of such a sense of belonging will
be when the “doom-saying” around dinner tables
turns to positive engagement, even while there
may still be healthy criticism - instead of the
current trend among many of “disengagement”,
which becomes contagious, actually feeding off
itself.
A necessary condition for “belonging” is that
Jews - and members of other minorities - should
be made to feel welcome by the majority and not
labelled “racists” when they comment on the
country’s affairs, as happens frequently.
For South Africa as a whole, we look forward
to the Soccer World Cup, scheduled for June,
being the best ever staged in the world - and for
it to engender a much-needed sense of pride and
capability in South Africans, and knock the perception of us being a country of crime and corruption.
A corollary is that our government shows it is
serious about getting on top of crime and corruption and finally providing desperately needed services to its people, especially to the poorest
of the poor who have been crying out for so long.
For Israel, we can only wish for peace - Israelis
and Palestinians finally determining that there
is no alternative to eventually reaching a peace
agreement and that this requires painful compromise from both. The article on page 7 reports
on the state of the peace process.
The increasing demonisation of Israel around
the world must cease. It is almost bizarre to have
to state that neither Israel nor its neighbours are
perfect and mistakes have been made by all in
the conflict; but the extent of the condemnation
of Israel, the ignoring of its positives and the virtual absence of criticism of its enemies is so out
of proportion that there is clearly something else
behind it other than objective analysis.
This applies equally to attitudes towards Israel
in South Africa. Hopefully here, too, the growing
demonisation of Israel will stop and ways sought
to play a positive role rather than simplistically
defining one side as good and the other evil.
A key issue for global Jewry is the growth of
anti-Semitism in numerous countries in various
guises - whether as anti-Zionism or something
else. Attitudes towards Jews have historically
been a bellwether for the general state of health
of a society, and no less today. The article on
page 3 reports on an aspect of this.
For the world at large, action on global warming is vital, as is the need to emerge from the
global recession and for normal trade relations
to resume. Equally important, global terrorism
and rogue states like Iran and North Korea - and
fundamentalists worldwide - must be reined in.
We are at a dangerous crossroads. We need
cool heads and decisive action. Barack Obama,
for one - leader of the world’s most powerful
country and recent Nobel Peace Prize-winner who was elected with so much fanfare, will have
to finally earn his spurs.
INVOKING THE laughably termed
“Middle East Peace Process”, especially in the context of yet another attempt
by ambitious international do-gooders
to get it moving, calls to mind an early
“Madam and Eve” cartoon involving
the maid, Eve, and Madam’s cantankerous mother, newly arrived from
England.
The two have been at loggerheads
from the word go and Madam Gwen, in
a naïvely optimistic attempt to get
them to resolve their differences,
forces them to confront one another
over a table and talk things out. The
strip concludes with three identical
panels showing Eve and Mother
Anderson glowering at one another
without saying a word.
Something rather similar actually
happened during Nelson Mandela’s
presidential inauguration 15 years ago,
the respective players in this regard
being Israeli President Ezer Weizman,
Yasser Arafat and Mandela himself. As
recalled
by
the
then
Israeli
Ambassador Alon Liel, Mandela met
with the two leaders and then told
them: “Take the nearby office and use
the opportunity to settle your differences - good luck!”
One wonders what Peres and Arafat
actually said to each other during the
ensuing impromptu meeting. Mandela
has since expressed deep disappointment over the ongoing failure of the
Israelis and Palestinians to achieve a
South Africa-style “miracle”.
Like his Democratic predecessor Bill
Clinton, Barack Obama has expended
much effort in trying to resuscitate the
Israeli-Palestinian peace process, with
a view to achieving fairly soon a mutually satisfactory final status peace
agreement.
Clinton and then Israeli Premier
Ehud Barak saw their efforts collapse
into all-out violence as Arafat, confronted with a straightforward choice
between peace and war, opted for the
latter.
This should stand as a dire warning
of the dangers of forcing the pace
when not all the parties are ready to
make the necessary painful compromises. (Is there any significance, one
wonders, in the fact that Obama and
BARBARIC
YAWP
David Saks
Ehud Barak, who similarly went hell
for leather to bring the peace process
to a successful conclusion in one dramatic package, being near namesakes?)
September this year will mark the
10th anniversary of the start of the
conflict that Arafat launched, one
that in light of the continued unrest
on the Gaza border, cannot be said to
have ever truly ended. What in retrospect was so dangerous about the
failed Camp David talks back in mid2000, was that they created a very
real illusion that a peace deal was
within everyone’s grasp.
Neither Clinton nor Barak would
seem to have understood the extent
to which the issues were not just
about such concrete nuts and bolts
concerns as land, borders, security
and the like, but about appearances.
For the Palestinians, indoctrinated
from an early age to regard the State
of Israel as a criminal entity that
must be fought as long as it existed,
no agreement accepting the Zionist
entity’s legitimacy could ever be
swallowed no matter how many concessions by Israel accompanied it.
Arafat’s dilemma at Camp David in
this regard is at least understandable. Right up until those talks, when
the CNN cameras were pointing elsewhere, he had assured his people
(and these included the far-flung
Palestinian Diaspora as well) that
nothing less than the destruction of
Israel and liberation of all of
Palestine would be accepted.
Now, he was being asked to tell
them in effect that the war had been
lost and that Israel was there to stay.
Having failed to prepare the
Palestinians for this, he found himself trapped in an irremediable
quandary that he could only escape
through reverting to the terrorist
violence that had characterised his
pre-Oslo career.
It could further be argued that the
US role in forcing the Palestinians
into going to the polls at the beginning of 2006, was another example of
well-intentioned foreign meddling
that backfired. Exercising their democratic choice, the Palestinians put the
totalitarian, explicitly anti-peace
Hamas movement into office, and this
led in short order to the emergence of
an Islamist terrorist statelet in Gaza.
Today, peace activists must wrestle
with the reality of two distinct
Palestinian territories, with one
grudgingly adhering to a vision of
peaceful co-existence with Israel
while the other continues in word and
deed to reject it.
Given the region’s lamentable history, Barack Obama’s ambitious
vision for getting the international
community involved once more in the
Middle East, can only be regarded
with alarm.
With the situation being so volatile,
perhaps the whole concept of a final
status peace agreement needs to be
put on the backburner in favour of
smaller, incremental achievements
on the ground.
There is no hope for Gaza so long as
Hamas persists with its ruinous policies, but in the West Bank, greatly
reduced levels of violence are resulting in a gradual normalisation in
daily life there, evinced by scaled
down Israeli security measures and
surprisingly high levels of economic
growth.
Who knows whether it will ever be
possible to sort out the fraught questions
of
settlements,
settlers,
Jerusalem and refugees, to name just
four of the deal-breaking issues that
continue to defy a resolution.
However, if Israel and the West
Bank can maintain this process of de
facto non-violent co-existence, it may
not matter as much in the long term
as people seem to think. What is
decidedly not needed is the involvement of outside parties, however well
meaning, whose efforts only lead to
unrealistically high expectations
being raised.
Miep Gies, who
helped Anne
Frank, dies at 100
AMSTERDAM - Miep Gies, the woman who helped
hide Anne Frank and recovered her diary, has died
at 100.
Gies, who died on Monday in the Netherlands, was
the last surviving member of the small group that
hid Anne and her family from the Nazis for two
years.
Gies died from neck injuries after a fall shortly
before Christmas at her home. She was the last of a
handful of non-Jews providing food, books and
encouragement to the secret annexe behind the
warehouse where Anne, her sister, parents and four
other Jews, stayed hidden from the Nazis. The
Gestapo eventually in 1944 raided the hiding place
and the Jews were deported to German death
camps.
Gies returned to the attic after the raid and found
the now famous diary and loose papers of Anne.
The diary Anne wrote at the age of 13 tells of her
life in hiding, from June 12, 1942 to August 1, 1944.
She died at the age of 15 of typhoid in the BergenBelsen concentration camp, a mere two weeks
before the Allied troops were to liberate the camp.
“Miep Gies was a beacon of light during the dark
days of the Holocaust,” said Rabbi Marvin Hier,
founder and dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre.
“Without her, the world would never have known
about Anne Frank and hundreds of millions of people would never have been inspired by her story.”
(JTA)
Miep Gies at home. 1999 (Gon Buurman © AFH/AFF)
15 - 22 January 2010
SA JEWISH REPORT
7
OPINION AND ANALYSIS
FORUM FOR DIVERSE VIEWS
Can West Bank improvements hold in 2010?
LESLIE SUSSER
JERUSALEM
IN ISRAEL and the West Bank,
2009 was the year that ended without a bang - and people were
grateful for it.
For the first time in a decade,
Israel experienced a year without
a suicide bombing. According to
official Israeli figures, five Israelis
were killed in incidents in or with
attackers originating from the
West Bank (In all, 15 Israelis were
killed in 2009 by terrorism, including nine during the Israel-Hamas
war last January).
By comparison, 17 Israelis were
killed by West Bank terrorism in
2008 and 429 in 2002, at the height
of the second Palestinian intifada.
Shooting attacks were down to
22 in 2009 from 83 the previous
year, while the use of explosive
devices fell to 13 from 54. Of the
633 recorded terrorist incidents in
2009, more than 90 per cent were
considered minor - including the
throwing of stones or Molotov
cocktails.
The decline owes both to Israeli
and Palestinian practices.
The security fence Israel erected in the West Bank is proving to
be a highly effective barrier
against terror spilling over from
the West Bank into Israel proper.
Inside the West Bank, besides
the deployment of roadblocks and
checkpoints, Israeli troops have
honed a successful modus operandi around Palestinian cities:
During the day they usually stay
out of sight, and at night, acting
on real-time intelligence, they
move in on would-be terrorist
cells.
More important than enhanced
Israeli anti-terror capabilities,
however, is the sharp decline in
Palestinian efforts to wage terrorist attacks.
Palestinian Authority President
Mahmoud Abbas, in power since
2005, has consistently opposed the
use of violence as a means of
attaining Palestinian goals. He
argues that when pitted against
Israel’s military superiority, it is
ineffectual and ultimately selfdefeating.
Terrorism also does not sit well
with PA Prime Minister Salam
Fayyad’s two-year state-building
project, which requires a modicum of stability and a great deal
of international support.
The West Bank also is in the
midst of a major economic boom,
which a new round of terrorist
attacks would undermine.
Underpinning the newfound
calm is the successful training and
deployment of local Palestinian
forces, responsible for law and
order in major West Bank cities.
Since 2006, US Lt-Gen Keith
Dayton has been building a
Western-style gendarmerie intended to provide the security foundation for the would-be Palestinian
state. The carefully vetted recruits
are sent on intensive four-month
training courses at a base near
Amman, Jordan, run by US,
Canadian, British and Turkish
instructors, and return to the West
Bank imbued with new Western
standards of policing.
The results on the streets have
been dramatic: Armed gangs have
disappeared and crime rates are
down, and there is a new can-do
social and economic atmosphere
fuelled at least partly by the new
sense of law and order.
In the context of
local
Palestinian politics, the National
Security Force, known derogatively as “Dayton’s Army” by its
detractors, is very much an arm of
Abbas’ Fatah Party. As such, it is
helping to keep a lid on violence
by its more radical Hamas rivals.
This also helps explain the decline
in terrorist acts against Israelis in
2009.
The establishment of the new
security force is an integral part
of Fayyad’s state-building plan.
Not only are Dayton’s men set to
provide the security nucleus of
the emerging Palestinian state,
their uniformed presence on the
streets is perhaps the most overt
sign for Palestinians that their
state indeed may be on the way,
again reducing the incentive for
Palestinian violence.
The law and order imposed by
the combined efforts of the Israeli
Defence Forces and the Pales-
Members of the Palestinian security forces marching through the West Bank city of Ramallah as part of a
training session, on December 18, 2009. (PHOTOGRAPH: ISSAM RIMAWI / FLASH90 / JTA)
tinian security force has enabled
Israel to eliminate dozens of roadblocks and checkpoints, allowing
more freedom of movement. This
has helped accelerate the economic boom in the West Bank, itself
one of the strongest brakes on
Palestinian terrorism.
By any standards, the boom in
2009
has
been
impressive.
Economic growth in the West
Bank reached 7 per cent - far higher than in Israel or the West.
Tourism to Bethlehem, which
doubled to 1 million in 2008, was
up to nearly 1,5 million in 2009.
New car imports increased by 44
per cent. Gleaming new shopping
malls opened in Jenin and Nablus.
Palestinian developers are planning to build the first modern
Palestinian city, Rawabi.
Law and order, the boom and
the state building all augur well
for peacemaking over violence.
“One of the things holding back
progress towards a permanent
settlement is an Israeli concern
that there is no one on the other
side capable of cutting a lasting
deal,” Shlomo Brom, director of
the
programme
on
IsraelPalestinian relations at the Tel
Aviv-based Institute for National
Strategic Studies, told JTA.
“But the more you go forward
on the state-building project, the
more you will be able to overcome
that lack of confidence.”
Yet as encouraging as today’s
trends are, it all could unravel
very quickly.
With Israeli-Palestinian peace
deadlocked for more than year,
Palestinian leaders have begun
showing a degree of ambivalence
toward
terrorism.
In
late
December, Abbas commemorated
the 50th anniversary of the birth
of
female
terrorist
Dalal
Mughrabi, and the governor of
Ramallah named a square in her
honour. Mughrabi was one of the
leaders of a 1978 bus hijacking in
which 38 Israelis, including 13
children, were killed.
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Facilities - Single rooms or suites with
kitchenettes, all with own bathrooms.
Highly qualified medical and nursing
staff. Permanent or temporary frail care
section for post-operative or acute care.
Entertainment to suit all - Discussion
groups, video evenings, musical appreciation, cultural activities, bridge, rummy,
scrabble and other card games,
Other conveniences: Library, small
shop, banking facilities, beautician,
hairdresser, manicurist, podiatrist, all
available on the premises.
Healthcare: Social worker, occupational
therapist and physiotherapist with daily
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Transport available for outings to
theatres, shopping malls and/or medical
needs. Parking facilities available.
Friday night - Orthodox Shul service on
the premises. Progressive Congregation
within walking distance.
We look forward to meeting you and
offering you a personal tour of Jaffa
(DVD available on request).
Also in late December, Abbas
dubbed as “holy martyrs” three
terrorists shot dead by IDF forces
after killing a Jewish settler in a
roadside shooting.
Security experts estimate that
potential Palestinian militants
have about 120,000 weapons hidden underground in the West
Bank, all of which could come out
should the situation deteriorate.
That’s aside from the possibility
that in a crisis, Palestinian security forces could turn their guns on
Israel; that happened when the
second intifada broke out in 2000.
Past experience shows that economic prosperity alone is no guarantee of peace and quiet. Both
previous Palestinian intifadas, in
1987 and 2000, erupted at a time of
economic growth.
Whether the West Bank terrorism statistics rise or fall in 2010,
could depend on whether or not
serious peace talks between Israel
and the Palestinians get off the
ground. (JTA)
8
SA JEWISH REPORT
15 - 22 January 2010
TAPESTRY
ART, BOOKS, DANCE, FILM, THEATRE
ARTS MATTERS
COMPILED BY
ROBYN SASSEN
Call 084-319-7844 or
[email protected] at
least one week prior to
publication
Artisan Contemporary Gallery, Morningside, Durban:
Collection 2009: an exhibition
featuring ceramics, fabric art,
turned wood and paintings,
until January 20, (031) 312-4364.
Brodie/Stevenson gallery,
Craighall: “In the Red/In the
Black”, an exhibition of new
work by Sean Slemon, until
February 13, (011) 326-0034.
Catalina Theatre, Durban:
The Annual Musho Festival,
with a critically sharp package
of theatre and performance
ends January 17, (031) 305-6889.
David Krut Projects, Rosebank, Johannesburg: “Journey”, work by Gail Behrmann,
until January 30, (011) 447-0627.
Steven Cohen’s ‘Golgotha’
is all about weight of loss
ROBYN SASSEN
“WHEN I first met Steven Cohen,” Austrian
photographer Marianne Greber comments in
Paris, “I recognised his baggage.” She’d lost a
sister to cancer. Cohen carries the loss of his
brother, Marc.
Yes, this is the same Jewish South Africanborn Cohen, who pioneered performance art
locally, simultaneously wowing, bewildering
and angering audiences. He was headhunted by
Ballet Atlantique’s Régine Chopinot in 2002;
he’s alive and well and living in Paris.
It was he who nakedly flick-flacked around
Jewish culture, with a head of make-up and
very high-heeled shoes. Side-stepping back
troubles, Cohen debuted “Golgotha”, a new
work, at the prestigious Fest d’Automne at
Paris’ Pompidou Centre, last month. Billed by
French critics as the definitive 9/11 artwork,
“Golgotha” engages with loss.
Cohen keeps fit running, cycling and swimming; “but everything’s in trepidation”, he says.
His spinal fusion prognosis could end his performance career. Given that part of Golgotha
sees him on a dollar-covered pogo stick; another,
wearing a ‘30s Russian G-Force suit - with shoes
weighing 30kg each, his need for robustness is
clear.
The work’s not only about physical prowess,
but also hard emotional engagement. In it, he
destroys Vallaurises - ‘50s French porcelain
ornaments. “I destroy them because I love them.
It is about obliterating the past; letting go.”
Structured with the melding of seemingly disparate videography, music, photography, installation and performance, “Golgotha’s” premised
on a bizarre shopping discovery Cohen made in
New York: a shop called Evolution, in the Chanel
strip. It sells décor for the obscenely wealthy and
morally rotten: its stock includes human bones.
“They’re oriental, far as I have been able to
establish,” Cohen refers to two skulls he bought.
“They were never buried, or broken. Their price
is determined by their teeth. These poor people
lost power over their own bones.”
Hout Street Gallery, Paarl:
Annual
Summer
Salon,
including work by Na’ama
Nothmann, on show until
February 28, (021) 872-5030.
Iziko, South African National Gallery, Cape Town:
“Dada South?” curated by
Kathryn Smith and Roger van
Wyk, interrogating South
African art after Dada, with
work by Candice Breitz,
Steven Cohen, Neil Goedhals,
Kendall Geers and more, until
February 28, (021) 481-3800.
Joburg Theatre, Braamfontein: In the Mandela Theatre,
“Hotel California - The Eagles
Experience”, a tribute show,
January 20 - 31, (011) 877-6800.
Kim Sacks Gallery, Rosebank: “Made by Hand in
Black and White”, with work
by Carolyn Heydenrych, Kim
Sacks, Lisa Firer, and more
until January 22, (011) 4475804.
Linder Auditorium and
associated venues, Johannesburg: The Johannesburg
International Mozart Festival,
originally
conceived
by
Richard Cock to correspond
with Mozart’s 250th anniversary in 2006, January 23 February 9. www.join-mozartfestival.org
Market Theatre, Newtown:
In the Laager, by popular
demand, Mpumelelo Paul
Grootboom’s “Foreplay”, until
March 14. In the Main
Theatre, “Songs of Migration”
compiled by Hugh Masekela
and James Ngcobo; directed
by Ngcobo, until February 21.
In the Barney Simon, Monde
Mayephu’s
“The
Pen”,
January 18 - February 21, (011)
832-1641.
Old Mutual Theatre on the
Square, Sandton: “Tomfoolery”, a musical comedy by
Tom Lehrer, starring Kate
Normington, Malcolm Terrey
and Matthew Stewardson;
directed by Greg Homan, until
February 14. (011) 883-8606.
Rose Korber, Camps Bay:
The 18th Annual Art Salon,
curated by Rose Korber, until
January 31, (021) 438-9152.
Walking in New York, toward the Trinity church, butterflies on his head, skulls for shoes,
Steven Cohen presents Golgotha. (PHOTOGRAPH © MARIANNE GREBER)
FELDMAN
ON FILM
Peter Feldman
Pick of the Week
Brothers
Cast: Tobey Maguire, Jake Gyllenhaal, Natalie
Portman, Bailee Madison, Taylor Geare,
Patrick Flueger, Sam Shepard, Mare
Winningham, Clifton Collins Jr, Josh Berry
Director: Jim Sheridan
“Brothers” is a powerful indictment of war and
Irish director Jim Sheridan draws the viewer
in on a deeply spiritual and emotional level.
His careful observation, his measured pace
and that lived-in feeling is strongly reminiscent
of one of those European productions. It is an
engrossing work with first-rate performances
from a cast who bring home the reality of
Americans fighting on foreign soil.
“Brothers” is the story of two siblings, thirtysomething Captain Sam Cahill (Toby Mcguire)
and his younger brother Tommy (Jake
Gyllenhaal), who are polar opposites. Shipped
out to Afghanistan, Sam is presumed dead when
his Black Hawk helicopter is shot down in the
mountains. At home in suburbia, the Cahill family suddenly faces a shocking void, and Tommy
tries to fill in for his brother by assuming newfound responsibility by taking care of Grace
(Natalie Portman), his brother’s wife and their
two daughters.
When Sam returns home unexpectedly, a nervous mood settles over the family. Sam, uncharacteristically withdrawn and volatile, grows suspicious of his brother and Grace. Their familiar
roles now nearly reversed, Sam and Tommy end
up facing the ultimate physical and mental challenge when they confront each other.
In the shifting family dynamics, the question is
who will dominate? And how will the brothers
come to terms with issues of love, loyalty, and
manhood - and with an attractive woman in the
middle?
“Brothers” is a remake of Susanne Bier’s 2004
Cohen responds to assertions of immorality
in his work enthusiastically. “It’s morally
obscene,” he agrees. “Even death in our society
is commodified.”
Cohen employed a boatmaker to create a shoe
using a human skull as its instep. But isn’t
standing on the skulls corroborating this
immorality?
“Of course!” he spits. “Working with these
objects, I feel foreboding. I was challenged,
when I found them, to give them dignity in my
work.”
This understanding of dignity feels contradictory on paper. In the context of the work,
backed by a characteristically diverse array of
music rendering Judy Garland’s rendition of
“Glory Glory Hallelujah”, a dirge to 9/11, its
impact is devastating.
“I tried not to get lost in the trauma of my
brother’s suicide. All my life I have hidden in
my costumes. In this piece I am utterly vulnerable.”
In “Golgotha”, with the shoes, Cohen wears a
conventional business suit, his head a perfect
mask of make-up and butterfly wings. Using
vanitas symbols as old as the Italian
Renaissance, Cohen’s comments on life’s
fragility are palpable.
A pinnacle - or nadir - in “Golgotha” is an
extract from a filmed US-government execution. “I found the video cassette in that shop
too.
“When ‘Golgotha’ performed in Brussels, a
man in the audience fainted upon seeing this
clip.
Is this a cheap trick to get audiences talking?
Cohen nods. “The immorality and trashy indecency of the work is key to its offensiveness.”
He’s had plenty of fan mail from strangers
recognising the weight of loss.
Seven years out of South Africa, Cohen has
artistic status everywhere else. “I’ve performed
in 14 countries,” he adds, bewilderedly. “It costs
a fortune: venues pay my agent thousands and
thousands of Euros”.
At “Golgotha’s” opening, artistic director of
the Fest d’Automne, Marie Collin invited him
back in 2011 for what will be his fifth appearance at this festival; the only South Africans
he’s shared this status with are French-knighted Robyn Orlin and William Kentridge. He
laughs: “Three old white Jews.”
He’s bought a house in Lille, north of Paris,
aided by the French government. “I love it! It
mixes glamour with squalor. It has rudimentary bathroom facilities but a glass-ceilinged studio. Government support is standard for all
artists, here. I feel I wasted years struggling in
South Africa, seldom with critical support,
more often with parochial mockery.
“I still love South Africa, but most things I
loved there are gone.”
From December, Capetonians can see
Cohen’s screenprints from the late ‘80s. He has
work on a show at the SA National Gallery and
a solo show at Michael Stevenson. “They’re
works I can no longer look after. So much was
stolen from my house in Troyeville. This is not
for money. It is to find the pieces foster homes.”
• “Dada South?”, curated by Kathryn Smith
and Gary van Wyk is at Iziko, South African
National Gallery, until February 28, (021)
481-3800.
• “Steven Cohen” is at Michael Stevenson,
January 21 - March 6, (021) 462-1500.
Danish feature, “Brodre”, and it remains faithful to its essence. Screenwriter David Benioff
and Sheridan retain the themes and psychological nuances of the original.
Jake Gyllenhaal, as the black sheep of the
family who is released from prison after a bank
robbery and unable to find his centre, and
Toby Macguire as the Marine captain who
returns from being incarcerated by the Taliban
and is a changed man, are potent forces. Their
scenes together crackle with tension. Though
Grace is overjoyed at the news of Sam’s return,
she does not realise the man she loved and
married, effectively died in Afghanistan.
The core of the film lies in Sam’s shredded
psyche and its nowhere more profound than
when he is unable to reconnect with his children, Isabelle and Maggie, and is haunted by a
belief that Grace and Tommy are having an
affair.
He is a broken, dangerous man - the kind of
person who has been shaped into a weapon but
no longer has a reason to use it. More than anything else, the film addresses the effects war
has on man.
Top Results 2009
15 - 22 January 2010
SA JEWISH REPORT
National Senior Certificate & Independent Examination Board
ard
A supplement compiled by Britt Landsman and Alison Goldberg. Contact (011) 886-0162 or visit www.sajewishreport.co.za
Jewish learners shine bright in 2009 matric exams
OWN CORRESPONDENT
WHAT A WELCOME refrain! The Jewish
day schools and also CrawfordSchools
which cater for the majority of the country’s Jewish learners, again boast topdrawer 2009 matric results - be it IEB or
National Certificate.
The irony is that one has become so
used to the excellent results posted by
Jewish learners, that it is “taken as read”
- not thinking about the 12 years’ hard
work by the learners, the dedication of
well-trained teachers who go way beyond
the proverbial extra mile, and parents
playing an active role in the education of
their children.
Just when you think: It can’t get any
better, it in fact does!
King David High School, Linksfield, the
biggest of the Jewish day schools, this
year, boast eceptional matric results, with
four candidates (Gal Feller, Sean Hurwitz,
Steven James and David Subel) in the IEB
top achievers and with KDL’s candidate
distinction list, the school is ranked as one
of the very top achieving IEB schools in
the country.
Five candidates had nine distinctions
each; 4 with 8; 5 with 7; 8 with 6; 6 with
5; 5 with 4; 15 with 3; 16 with 2 and 25
with 1.
Staggeringly, 27 per cent of the matrics
achieved at least three distinctions and 56
per cent of the group achieved at least
one distinction.
“As impressive as our distinction statistics, is the fact that the overall average
for all candidates for all subjects is 70 per
cent, which indicates the third consecutive year-on-year improvement across the
board,” says headmaster Marc Falconer.
He says it shows that not only are
KDL’s top achievers making an outstanding effort, but that all pupils have shown
commendable commitment.
“It is obvious, but worth repeating,
that no school is better than its teachers.
These results are a testimony to the King
David staff; engaging with a new curriculum, new demands and equipping pupils
to excel in the increasingly demanding
higher order thinking and problem solving
that the IEB exams demand.
“These achievements are not a result of
mere exam coaching, but a real demonstrable and sustainable education that
has ensured exam success but - perhaps
more importantly - promises continued
excellence at university and beyond.”
King David High School Victory Park,
KDL’s sister school, also excelled in the
IEB exams.
Eighty four learners sat the exam and
they achieved 180 distinctions. Forty seven received at least one distinction.
Gabriella Geffen was on the IEB “Outstanding Achievers” list and Jarren Lange
and Daniel Katzew were on the “Commendable Achiever” list.
Andrew Stead, executive head of
KDVP says: “Over and above this we
had several learners who ranked in the
top one per cent in individual subjects.
They were: Tamaryn Fox (Life Sciences),
Michael Friedman (History), Gabriella
Geffen (Dramatic Arts, English, Hebrew,
Physical Sciences), Zara Kretzmer (Life
Sciences), Jarren Lange (Information
Technology, Maths), Ilan Price (English,
Life Sciences, Maths, Physical Sciences)
and Daniel Sive (English).
Jarren Lange achieved 100 per cent for
maths, an incredible feat, and the three
learners who did Advanced Programme
Mathematics, Tamaryn Fox, Jarren Lange
and Michael Friedman, all achieved distinctions in the subject.
“I would like to extend my congratulations to the students and staff for these
outstanding results. Everyone’s hard work
and dedication has certainly paid dividends.”
Headmaster Marianne Marks, principal of Herzlia High School in Cape Town,
said: “Today the Herzlia High School Class
of 2009 did themselves proud when they
achieved a 100 per cent pass rate in the
National Senior Certificate (Matric) exams.
In addition, 94 per cent of candidates
achieved university entrance passes and
we were therefore placed in the top 10
schools in the Western Cape.
“These achievements are particularly
noteworthy because our school is the
only one of the 10 top schools that is fully
academically inclusive! I would like to pay
tribute to the pupils and their teachers for
once again bringing such honour to United Herzlia Schools.”
Alex Isaakidis, CEO of ADvTECH
Schools Division, says of CrawfordSchools’ outstanding results:
“We are very proud of the achievements of all our Jewish students that
wrote matric in 2009. A total of 17 Jewish
students achieved three or more A symbols, including Alex Levine and Danielle
Sher who each achieved 9 A symbols,
with Danielle achieving 93 per cent for
Hebrew as well!
“Jewish students attend all our schools
in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng and are
an important part of our academic, cultural and sporting successes of the CrawfordSchools. Many of these students will
be continuing their studies this year at
South African universities as well as top
overseas universities, including Oxford,
Harvard, Yale and Browns and we wish
them every success for the future.”
Rabbi Dovid Hazdan, dean of the Torah
Academy, said: “We are delighted that Torah Academy has yet again maintained its
unbroken record of 100 per cent passes
with university exemptions in the matric
exams - as well as 44 per cent of all papers written, achieving a 70 per cent or
higher aggregate from the class of 2009.
“We are proud of our students and pay
tribute to the teaching staff for concentrating on the individual needs of each learner - for to optimise the potential of each
student is the real measure of success in
education.
“Our school has reiterated its commitment to excellence in secular and Jewish
studies. But we also believe in the bigger
picture of educating not only to make a
living, but to ensure a quality in life,” Rabbi
Hazdan said.
Another “stalwart” in Johannesburg is
Yeshiva College , regularly boxing above
its weight.
The school said: “We had a relatively
small group of matriculants, 33, and be-
tween them they accumulated 74 distinctions. This works out to an average
of 2,24 distinctions per candidate, a
truly amazing statistic.”
Shira Solomon was the top performer with six distinctions. Five learners got five.
A number of YC learners achieved
one or more results in the top one
per cent of Life Orientation; Eitan Dubb
was in the top one per cent for Business
Studies, Chava Goldberg for Business
Studies and Computer Applications
Technology, Dani Sher in English and Life Orientation and
David Azaraf for Hebrew.
At the small Theodor Herzl
High School in Port Elizabeth,
32 matriculants passed their examinations and all except one got a university
entrance.
“We had three Jewish students who
did exceptionally well and got level 7 (over
80 per cent plus in specific subjects) in
10 of the possible 21 subject results, “
says the school’s head of department in
humanities, Adina Pieters.
Yeshiva Toras Emes in Johannesburg
was a dark horse, catching some big
ones in the home straight.
Rosh Yeshiva Rabbi Gedalia Sternstein and Principal Alan Karp, are justifiably proud of their school’s outstanding
results.
Eight learners got 33 distinctions between them, with an average of over four
distinctions per learner.
“We’re a Jewish religious school which
participates in advanced Jewish
studies for Yeshiva. The learners
only begin secular studies at 13:30
because they do religious studies
from 07:00. We’re the only school
in South Africa that specialises in
preparing high school boys to be
able to fit into Israeli yeshivas that
are made for Israelis.
“All of our learners have gone to yeshivas in Israel, which are the equivalent
of Oxford University. We are in a school
that is very in focus with our learners,”
says Rabbi Sternstein.
I
II
SA JEWISH REPORT
15 - 22 January 2010
TOP RESULTS 2009
KD Schools Foundation
KD schools maintain reputation of excellence
IT IS FREQUENTLY remarked that history repeats itself and King
David High School Linksfield and King David High
School Victory Park have
once again proved the
truth of this adage in their
magnificent matriculation
results in the IEB system.
Of course, it is important not to take
such excellence for granted and to remember that such standards are not achieved
simply because it is traditional.
They are the result of the magnificent
teamwork of teachers and learners over
a number of years, and we pay tribute to
the outstanding efforts of our dedicated
teaching staff, to the hard work of our
learners and to our loyal parents for endowing the right combination of genes.
Such a tripartite combination of forces
must inevitably produce excellence. The
statistics of the results make staggering
reading: 243 learners wrote the examinations, and a total of 487 distinctions were
obtained with 94 per cent achieving university exemption.
Four King David learners were placed
among the IEB “Outstanding” Top 57 and
three among the IEB “Commendable” Top
48; totalling 7 learners in the IEB Top 100
countrywide.
Thirty two learners achieved the proverbial “full house”.
Of equal importance is the fact that many
of those originally assessed as learningdisadvantaged, proved the sceptics wrong
by achieving matriculation passes.
These magnificent matric results, the
culmination of a 12-year learning process, might suggest that our learners are
ruthlessly competitive and that academic
achievement is the only measure of success.
Our schools have recorded outstanding
results in every facet of school life across
a broad spectrum of sporting and cultural
activities and are highly respected for their
achievements in these areas.
Not to be overlooked is the very commendable social awareness programmes
of all the King David schools and their considerable efforts to assist their disadvantaged counterparts.
We are justifiably proud of our achievements in 2009 and look forward to the
challenges of 2010.
We are sure that the tradition of excellence, the results of the remarkable spirit of
co-operation between learners and teachers, will once again prove the wisdom of
the verse in Tehillim: “From all my teachers
I have gained understanding.”
15 - 22 January 2010
SA JEWISH REPORT
III
TOP RESULTS 2009
King David High School Victory Park
2009 National Senior Certificate results
84 candidates - 180 subject distinctions
EIGHT DISTINCTIONS:
EIGHT DISTINCTIONS:
EIGHT DISTINCTIONS:
EIGHT DISTINCTIONS:
EIGHT DISTINCTIONS:
SEVEN DISTINCTIONS:
SEVEN DISTINCTIONS:
Gabriella Geffen:
Afrikaans, Dramatic
Arts, English, Hebrew,
Life Orientation,
Maths, Maths Paper
3, Physical Sciences.
Daniel Katzew:
Afrikaans, English,
Hebrew, History, Life
Orientation, Maths,
Maths Paper 3, Physical Sciences.
Jarren Lange: Accounting, Advanced
Programme Maths,
Afrikaans, English,
IT, Life Orientation,
Maths, Maths Paper
3, Physical Sciences.
Lindy Pincus:
Afrikaans, English,
Hebrew, Life Orientation, Life Sciences,
Maths, Maths Paper
3, Physical Sciences.
Ilan Price: Afrikaans,
English, Life Orientation, Life Sciences,
Maths, Maths Paper
3, Music, Physical
Sciences.
Michael Friedman:
Advanced Programme
Maths, English, History, Life Orientation,
Life Sciences, Maths,
Maths Paper 3.
Natasha Salant:
English, Hebrew, Life
Orientation, Maths,
Maths Paper 3,
Music, Physical Sciences.
SEVEN DISTINCTIONS:
SIX DISTINCTIONS:
FIVE DISTINCTIONS:
FIVE DISTINCTIONS:
FIVE DISTINCTIONS:
FIVE DISTINCTIONS:
FIVE DISTINCTIONS:
Daniel Sive: Afrikaans, English, History, Life Orientation,
Life Sciences, Maths,
Physical Sciences.
Marc Sacks: English,
History, Maths, Maths
Paper 3, Music,
Physical Sciences.
Daniel Arenstein:
Afrikaans, English,
French, Maths, Physical Sciences.
Jade Courcol:
Afrikaans, English, Life
Orientation, Life Sciences, Maths.
Jonathan Hurwitz:
IT, Life Orientation,
Life Sciences, Maths,
Physical Sciences.
Jess Morris: IT, Life
Orientation, Life Sciences, Maths, Maths
Paper 3.
Micael Zollmann:
English, Hebrew, Life
Orientation, Life Sciences, Maths.
FOUR DISTINCTIONS:
FOUR DISTINCTIONS:
FOUR DISTINCTIONS:
FOUR DISTINCTIONS:
Lara Bloch: English,
Life Orientation, Life
Sciences, Maths.
Nerissa Bloch: English, Life Orientation,
Life Sciences, Maths.
Adam Gray: English,
Life Orientation, Life
Sciences, Visual Arts.
Zara Kretzmer: English, Life Orientation,
Life Sciences, Maths.
FOUR DISTINCTIONS:
FOUR DISTINCTIONS:
FOUR DISTINCTIONS:
FOUR DISTINCTIONS:
Yehuda Rabinowitz:
English, Hebrew, History, Life Orientation.
Adam Retter: English, Life Orientation,
Life Sciences, Maths.
EIGHT DISTINCTIONS:
Tamaryn Fox: Advanced Programme
Maths, Afrikaans,
English, Hebrew, Life
Orientation, Life Sciences, Maths, Maths
Paper 3, Physical
Sciences.
Isa Orlianski: English,
Life Orientation,
Maths, Maths Paper 3.
FOUR DISTINCTIONS:
Dean Sevel: Geography, Life Orientation, Maths, Physical
Sciences.
Jillian Penaluna:
Afrikaans, English,
History, Life Orientation.
FOUR DISTINCTIONS:
Lisa Shein: Dramatic
Arts, English,, History,
Life Sciences.
3 DISTINCTIONS
- Joshua Brook: Dramatic Arts, English,
Life Orientation.
- Roxan Friedland: Life Orientation,
Maths, Maths Paper 3.
- Alissa Gritzman: English, Hebrew, Life
Orientation.
- Montana Levin: English, Life Orientation,
Life Sciences.
- Erin Maserow: English, Hebrew, Life
Sciences.
- Boaz Valkin: Hebrew, History, Life Orientation.
FOUR DISTINCTIONS:
Diana Berkowitz:
English, Life Orientation, Maths, Music.
IV
SA JEWISH REPORT
15 - 22 January 2010
TOP RESULTS 2009
King
David
Linksfield
NINE DISTINCTIONS:
NINE DISTINCTIONS:
Gal Feller: Afrikaans,
English, Hebrew,
Life Orientation, Life
Sciences, Maths,
Maths P3, Advanced
Programme Maths,
Physical Science.
Steven James: Accounting, Afrikaans,
English, Information
Technology, Life Orientation, Maths, Maths P3,
Advanced Programme
Maths, Physical Science.
NINE DISTINCTIONS:
NINE DISTINCTIONS:
Daniel Ross: Accounting, Afrikaans,
English, Hebrew, Life
Orientation, Maths,
Maths P3, Advanced
Programme Maths,
Physical Science.
Daniel Stoch: Accounting, Afrikaans,
English, Hebrew, Life
Orientation, Maths,
Maths P3, Advanced
Programme Maths,
Physical Science.
David Subel: Afrikaans, English, History,
Information Technology,
Life Orientation, Maths,
Maths P3, Advanced
Programme Maths,
Physical Science.
Saige Epstein:
Afrikaans, English,
Hebrew, History, Life
Orientation, Maths,
Maths P3, Physical
Science.
SIX DISTINCTIONS:
SIX DISTINCTIONS:
SIX DISTINCTIONS:
SEVEN DISTINCTIONS:
SEVEN DISTINCTIONS:
SEVEN DISTINCTIONS:
SIX DISTINCTIONS:
SIX DISTINCTIONS:
Dean Joffe: Business,
Studies, Dramatic
Arts, English, Life Orientation, Maths, Maths
P3, Visual Arts.
Daniella Malin: Afrikaans, English, Hebrew, Life Orientation,
Life Sciences, Maths,
Physical Science.
Joshua Victor:
Accounting; English,
Hebrew, Life Orientation, Maths, Maths
P3, Physical Science.
Emma Berkenfeld:
English, Hebrew, History, Life Orientation,
Life Science, Maths.
Jessica Cohen:
English, Hebrew, History, Life Orientation,
Life Science, Maths.
Laurie Colman:
Accounting, English,
Hebrew, Life Orientation, Maths, Physical
Science.
FIVE DISTINCTIONS:
FIVE DISTINCTIONS:
FIVE DISTINCTIONS:
FIVE DISTINCTIONS:
FOUR DISTINCTIONS:
FOUR DISTINCTIONS:
Nicole Sakinofsky:
Geography, Life Orientation, Life Science, Maths,
Physical Science.
Daniel Shalem:
English, Hebrew, History, Life Orientation,
Maths
Kayli Tucker: Hebrew, Life Orientation,
Maths, Maths P3,
Physical Science.
Ronit Levy: English,
History, Life Orientation, Life Science,
Maths Lit.
EIGHT DISTINCTIONS:
NINE DISTINCTIONS:
Courtney Fuhr:
English, Hebrew, Life
Orientation, Maths.
Kelly Goldstuck:
English, Life Orientation, Life Science,
Maths.
Greg Epstein:
Accounting, Business Studies, IT, Life
Orientation, Maths,
Maths P3.
Kerri-Lee Fox: Accounting, English, Hebrew, Life Orientation,
Life Science, Maths.
FOUR DISTINCTIONS:
FOUR DISTINCTIONS:
Saul Pincus:
Afrikaans, English,
Hebrew, Life Orientation.
Kfir Rusin: Business
Studies, Hebrew, History, Maths.
15 - 22 January 2010
SA JEWISH REPORT
TOP RESULTS 2009
EIGHT DISTINCTIONS:
Daniel Frichol: Accounting, Afrikaans,
English, Hebrew, Life
Orientation, Maths,
Maths P3, Physical
Science.
SIX DISTINCTIONS:
Josh Kaplan: Accounting, Business
Studies, English, Life
Orientation, Maths,
Maths P3.
FOUR DISTINCTIONS:
Daniel Zar: English,
Geography, Life Orientation, Maths.
EIGHT DISTINCTIONS:
EIGHT DISTINCTIONS:
SEVEN DISTINCTIONS:
Joshua Harris: Accounting, English, Hebrew, Life Orientation,
Maths, Maths P3,
Advanced Programme
Maths, Physical Science.
Sean Hurwitz:
Afrikaans, English,
Hebrew, Information Technology, Life
Orientation, Maths,
Maths P3, Visual Arts.
Camille Bracher:
Accounting, Afrikaans,
English, Hebrew, Life
Orientation, Maths,
Physical Science.
SIX DISTINCTIONS:
SIX DISTINCTIONS:
FIVE DISTINCTIONS:
Maya Tal: Business
Studies, English,
Hebrew, History, Life
Orientation, Maths.
Romy Genende:
Consumer Studies,
English, Life Orientation, Life Science,
Maths Lit.
Adam Kotzen:
Geography, Life Orientation, Life Science,
Maths, Maths P3,
Physical Science.
3 DISTINCTIONS:
- Tali Arbel: Accounting, Business Studies, English.
- Liane Benjamin: Afrikaans, Life Orientation, Maths.
- Hayley Brayton: Accounting, Life Orientation, Maths.
- Casey Chelchinskey: English, Life Orientation, Art.
- Jayde Courtney: English, History, Life Orientation.
- Kaeli Epstein: History, Life Orientation, Visual Art.
- Sarah Gore: Hebrew, Life Orientation, Life Science.
- Danielle Graiser: English, Hebrew, Life Orientation.
- Glen Immermann: Business Studies, Life Orientation, Maths.
SEVEN DISTINCTIONS:
Josh Glauber: Accounting, Business
Studies, English, Life
Orientation, Maths,
Maths P3, Physical
Science.
FIVE DISTINCTIONS:
Daniella Koszewski:
Accounting, Afrikaans,
Business Studies,
Hebrew, Life Orientation.
3 DISTINCTIONS:
- Jaydene Katz: Business Studies, Hebrew, Life
Orientation.
- Candice Kotzen: Afrikaans, Life Orientation, Maths
Lit.
- Gilad Mensky: Life Orientation, Maths, Physical
Science.
- Daniel Mirkin: Accounting, Business Studies,
Maths.
- Maxine Ohayon: English, Hebrew, Life Orientation.
- Wayne Pincus: Afrikaans, Hebrew, Life Orientation.
Design College - leading
force in design education
DESIGN IS THE art of conceiving,
planning and shaping concepts
that are made to serve people
so as to answer to their individual
and collective needs and desires.
The Design School Southern Africa was founded by Lesley Sternberg in 1990 and has since been a
leading force in design education.
It began with a handful of students
in Pretoria and has grown to become an institution with several
hundred students at campuses in
Pretoria and Johannesburg.
The Design School Southern
Africa is fully accredited by the
CHE (Council for Higher Education) and registered with the
Department of Education. It is
an Adobe, Autodesk and Lectraaccredited training centre.
DSSA offers the following threeyear fulltime courses: Bachelor of
Arts Interior Design, Bachelor of
Arts Graphic Design, Bachelor
of Arts Fashion Design, Diploma
Photography and Photoshop,
Foundation Art and Design, as
well as part-time courses: Interior Decorating, CAD, Photoshop,
Lectra, Animation.
By emphasising multifaceted
design skills, side by side with
new technology, business skills
and a heightened awareness
of socio-economic issues, the
Design School Southern Africa
is committed to furthering the
design education process with
the end-objective of turning out
insightful highly skilled and wellformed graduates who will contribute positively to the economy.
The DSSA strives to promote
the education process by communicating knowledge through
the provision of pioneering and
challenging teaching techniques
in an environment that supports
an understanding and awareness
of social values and differences.
This process focuses on learning
through application (with a unique
balance of theory and practical
skill) to develop an individual voice
for students when confronted
with having to solve visual challenges in a creative manner.
At DSSA we aim to equip designers for a world that places
high value on the quality of human
interaction. Staff are highly qualified and technically experienced
in their fields.
A number of our students have
achieved industry success, locally
and internationally, after completion of their course.
DSSA has proudly produced
many winners and/or finalists in
national design competitions, the
likes of Plascon, P G Bison, Coin
and Bank Note, Durban Fashion
Week, among others.
V
VI
SA JEWISH REPORT
15 - 22 January 2010
TOP RESULTS 2009
There are truly many positive aspects
to outcomes-based education
Marc Falconer, King David Linksfield.
OWN CORRESPONDENT
FOUR PRINCIPALS of Jewish day
schools have cautioned against the
rubbishing of outcomes-based education, because of poor implementation. Marc Falconer, headmaster of
King David Linksfield in Johannesburg, maybe sums it up best when he
says that “no school and no system
can be better than the people implementing it - and when one is allowing
teachers to enter the profession who
are not most academically able, the
system is always going to be terminally flawed”.
Geoff Cohen, director of education,
Herzlia Schools in Cape Town, says:
“The philosophy of OBE is in my mind
a very sound educational principle. It
promotes thinking by equipping learners with the necessary tools to enable
them to discern what is important and
what is relevant.
“What makes OBE successful is its
transparency. It sets agendas for both
the teachers and the learners and
provides a framework to assist them
in their planning, organisation and execution.”
A task team set up by Minister of
Basic Education Angie Motshekga
last year to get rid of glitches in the
implementation of outcomes-based
education and to address teacher
concerns about “drowning in paperwork”, came up with a set of recommendations which got a thumbs up
all-round.
Falconer is adamant: “What is certain is that what OBE stands for is not
going to change - the implementation
will.”
Outcomes-based education is a
tried and tested system implemented
with huge success in countries such
as the US, Australia, the UK, Canada, etc. But these are First World
countries with the necessary strong
infrastructures (such as well-trained
teachers) to make such a system
work. To transplant a sophisticated
Andrew Stead, King David Victory Park.
system such as OBE to a struggling
township school, is a recipe to court
disaster.
Falconer said OBE suffered from
a typically South African syndrome a label that made it easy to criticise
and discard OBE. He said the system first proposed in a completely
different First World setting by Bill
Spady, was never going to work in
South Africa.
“The sensible thing to do would
have been to call the system something like ‘revised democratic education’, or ‘education for life’, or something neutral that was not going to get
in the way of the improved system
itself.”
Andrew Stead, executive head of
King David Victory Park, welcomed
the broad changes envisaged by the
National Curriculum System (NCS)
report. He pointed out that the teaching environment in South Africa had
“certainly changed” since the early
nineties. Whereas learners have holiday breaks, nowadays teachers work
through those breaks. He cited last
October’s break when many teachers
and school managers at KDVP were
hard at work developing curricula,
marking, writing reports, doing training or preparing learners for their final
exams.
He stresses that the task team report does not propose “giving up on
the vision and intention of the NCS,
but aims to better align the current realities of the classroom with the vision”
(as espoused in the policy bulletin of
the Independent Schools Association
of Southern Africa - or ISASA).
He says the objective of the report
is to create more time for teaching
and learning, and to decrease an unnecessary administrative workload
on teachers. “This I think is extremely
important and will hopefully allow
more focus on that which we are
appointed to do, namely teach with
excellence.”
Denese Bloch, principal of the Yes-
Geoff Cohen, Herzlia principal.
hiva College High Schools in Johannesburg, went “back to basics” by
first explaining what outcomes-based
education meant and the philosophy
behind the concept.
“When one considers the changes
in education since the introduction of
the National Curriculum Statement
(NCS) which ushered in outcomesbased education (OBE) in South Africa, it is important to define OBE.
Internationally, educators have been
focusing more and more attention on
outcomes results, performance and
skills.”
She said OBE had been introduced
in many countries before being introduced in South Africa. “The concept is
that one starts by developing a clear
idea of what it is that learners should
know when they reach a certain point
in their education and then base the
curriculum on achieving those outcomes.
“In South Africa OBE has been
seen as one of the ways to address
the need for social transformation in
our country and to ensure that the
potential of each learner is achieved.
OBE has changed education in South
Africa, in that the focus is far more
on acquiring skills than learning facts
which need to be repeated.
“Learners are taught to apply their
knowledge rather than to simply relay information that they have been
taught and then learned by rote.
“In addition, collaborative learning
is encouraged with learners being
set tasks to be completed in pairs or
groups. Peer assessment is one of
the assessment tools used in OBE,
and by marking each other’s work as
well as providing a rationale for their
marking of the work, learners are given a greater degree of independence
and are able to move away from total
reliance on educators. This kind of assessment also leads to greater understanding of the educational process.”
Bloch says another significant
change is the fact that every piece of
Denese Bloch, Yeshiva College.
work has to be accompanied by a rubric which explains what is required,
as well as the way in which the marks
will be allocated to the task. This also
ensures that learners have far more
clarity as to how to approach their
learning tasks and the way that these
tasks will be assessed by the educator.
A great deal more self-study and investigation are promoted by OBE and
often educators become facilitators
and consultants in the learning process, she says.
She adds that one of the cornerstones of OBE is the focus on integration of knowledge and skills and the
ability to apply skills across subject.
She concludes: “It is clear that the
changes brought about by the introduction of OBE, have resulted in
greater learner independence and this
educational model is far more learnercentred than the previous ‘chalk and
talk’ system. Learners are far more
involved in all aspects of the learning
process rather than being forced to sit
passively and absorb information being fed to them by educators.”
Falconer sees OBE as “a democratic educational system, designed
to stimulate critical thought and
problem-solving and to allow pupils
to think for themselves. Other things
OBE encourages is responsible use of
the environment, IT, to see the world
as an interrelated set of systems and
the entire premise of the system is that
the pupil is at the centre of the educational process - not the teacher...”
A major concern of some of OBE’s
“baggage” has been the tremendous new administrative workload on
teachers.
The task team made some key
recommendations in this regard. It
acknowledged the need to lighten
teachers’ administrative workload and
also recommended the “discontinuation of learner portfolios”. It also recommended reducing the number of
learning programmes (subjects) in the
intermediate phase (grade 4 to 6) from
eight to six. An important recommendation is to target curriculum training
for teachers and lastly, “developing a
coherent, clear and simple five-year
plan to improve the understanding of
the NCS in the system”.
Stead says he is hopeful that these
recommendations will go some way
to relieving teaching workloads going forward. “I am, however, committed to a skills-based educational
approach as the conditions that our
students will face in the future will certainly require adaptive skills, resilience
to change and a solid value system to
ensure success.”
Cohen says OBE was designed to
provide learners with specific skills
that will produce more competent and
informed adults. It sets clear goals
which are required in each learning
area.
“What seems to have worked with
the OBE system that is different from
the previous educational programme,
is that it moves away from rote learning and from memory testing. Learners are assessed according to skills,
as opposed to content retention.
“OBE has had the added benefit of
demanding solid preparation. It has
brought about a new excitement for
education and has certainly got teachers thinking about what they have to
do in the classroom.
“Creating rubrics in all subjects for
most tasks has provided a structured
framework for subject departments.”
Cohen says a further benefit worth
mentioning is the sharing of ideas
which has occurred between teachers and between schools.
“The greatest negative of the OBE
system has been the tremendous
number of administrative tasks that
have gone hand in hand with it. This
has had the effect of overburdening
teachers as well as using valuable
teaching time in the classroom. The
recent announcements that these are
to be reduced, is very welcome.”
15 - 22 January 2010
SA JEWISH REPORT
VII
TOP RESULTS 2009
Pretoria’s Jewish
matriculants shine
Edenvale
High School
Pretoria Boys
High School
FIVE DISTINCTIONS:
FIVE DISTINCTIONS:
Although only five Jewish learners wrote the matric exams
in Pretoria this year, they all excelled, making their schools,
family and community proud.
Darryl Margolis: Maths, Information
Technology, Economics, Accounting, Life
Orientation.
Jed Lazarus
Alon Bernitz
DIANE WOLFSON
PRETORIA
THE TOP JEWISH matriculant in Pretoria for
2009 was Jed Saul Lazarus, who obtained 6
distinctions in English, Maths, Afrikaans, Life
Orientation, Accounting and Life Sciences,
at Crawford College Pretoria where he was
elected onto the executive body (prefect).
He intends studying medicine.
Jed took part in many sports during his
school years, such as powerboat racing
where he became junior world champion and
in soccer he obtained senior and junior colours and was selected to represent the SA
under-18 Maccabi team in 2009.
Alon Bernitz obtained 5 distinctions at Pretoria Boys High School for English, Afrikaans,
Maths, Information Technology, Computer
Science and Life Orientation.
He was awarded full academic colours,
and was elected as a school prefect and
served as hostel prefect as well (the only
Jewish student in a matric group of 320).
Alon intends studying engineering at UCT
when he returns from the UK where he is
spending a gap year.
Romy Loren Yuter obtained 2 distinctions
for Life Orientation and Dramatic Arts. Romy
was also head girl at Crawford, Pretoria.
Torah Academy
FIVE DISTINCTIONS:
Tamar Stein: English,
Maths, History, Business
Studies, Life Orientation.
FOUR DISTINCTIONS:
Shaul Yachad (head boy):
English, History, Business
Studies, Life Orientation.
FOUR DISTINCTIONS:
Chaya Mushka Kesselman: English, CAT, History,
Life Orientation.
3 DISTINCTIONS: Rachel Dadon: History, Business Studies, Life Orientation.
Alon Bernitz: English, Afrikaans, Maths, IT,
Computer Science, Life Orienation.
VIII
SA JEWISH REPORT
15 - 22 January 2010
TOP RESULTS 2009
Yeshiva
College
FIVE DISTINCTIONS:
SIX DISTINCTIONS:
Yeshiva
Toras
Emes
THREE DISTINCTIONS
David Tobias: Maths, Maths 3,
Accounting.
Avraham Goldstuck: Maths,
Computer Applications Technology,
History.
Shira Solomon:
English, Maths, Maths
Paper 3, Hebrew,
Computer Applications Technology, Life
Orientation.
David Azaraf:
English, Maths, Maths
Paper 3, Hebrew,
Business Studies.
FIVE DISTINCTIONS:
FIVE DISTINCTIONS:
Eitan Dubb: English,
Maths, Maths Paper
3, Hebrew, Business
Studies.
Raphael Volpo:
Accounting, Life
Orientation, Hebrew,
Science, Maths, Maths
3, Afrikaans.
Aharon Markovitz:
English, Afrikaans,
Maths, Physical
Science, Hebrew,
Life Orientation,
History.
SEVEN DISTINCTIONS:
Raphael Chaskalson: AP Maths,
English, French,
History, Zulu, Life
Orientation, Maths,
Maths Paper 3,
Physical Sciences.
FIVE DISTINCTIONS:
Alter Volpo: Accounting, Maths, Maths 3,
Hebrew, Life Orientation.
Alexandra Appelbaum: Accounting,
English, French,
History, Life Orientation, Maths, Maths
Paper 3.
FIVE DISTINCTIONS:
SEVEN DISTINCTIONS:
FOUR DISTINCTIONS:
Shmuel Slasky:
Maths, Accounting,
Life Orientation, History.
David Leibowitz:
English, Afrikaans,
Maths, Life Orientation, History, IT, Life
Sciences.
Joshua Meltz: English, Geography, Life
Orientation, Maths,
Visual Arts.
FIVE DISTINCTIONS:
FOUR DISTINCTIONS:
Joshua Weiss:
English, Maths, Life
Orientation, Geography, Visual Arts.
Emma Tollman:
English, History,
Maths Literacy, Visual
Arts.
Hirsch Lyons
FIVE DISTINCTIONS:
FIVE DISTINCTIONS:
SEVEN DISTINCTIONS:
Redhill School Greenside School
NINE DISTINCTIONS:
Chava Goldberg:
English, Maths,
Maths Paper 3,
Business Studies,
Computer Applications Technology.
SEVEN DISTINCTIONS:
FIVE DISTINCTIONS:
FIVE DISTINCTIONS:
FIVE DISTINCTIONS:
FOUR DISTINCTIONS:
Grey College
Secondary
School
Bloemfontein
FIVE DISTINCTIONS:
Yonatan Peretz: English, Maths, Business
Studies, Computer
Applications Technology, Life Orientation.
Jonathan Sidney:
English, Afrikaans,
Hebrew, Information Technology, Life
Orientation.
FOUR DISTINCTIONS:
FOUR DISTINCTIONS:
Photo not available
Hadassa Goldfein:
English, Hebrew, Life
Orientation, Maths,
Visual Arts.
Michael Glass:
Accounting, English,
Hebrew, Life Orientation,
Maths.
Theodor Herzl
High School,
Port Elizabeth
Saul Glass:
Accounting, English,
Hebrew, Life Orientation,
Maths.
Akiva Berkow:
English, Life Orientation, Maths, Science.
Justin Shein: Accounting, Business Studies, Life Orientation,
Maths, Physical Science.
Eden College Durban
EIGHT DISTINCTIONS:
FIVE DISTINCTIONS:
FOUR DISTINCTIONS:
FOUR DISTINCTIONS:
Chana-Leah Unterslak: English, History,
Life Orientation, Visual
Arts.
Gary Ganz: English,
Geography, History,
Maths.
SIX DISTINCTIONS:
Yael Kersh: Maths,
Hebrew, Maths Literacy, Life Orientation.
Yaffit Swisa: English,
Afrikaans, Hebrew,
Maths.
THREE DISTINCTIONS
- Gabriel Perelman: English, Hebrew, Life
Sciences.
- Daniel Sher: English, Hebrew, Life Orientation.
- Melanie Sher: English, Computer Application Technology, Life Orientation.
Kirsty Fouche: English, Maths,
Afrikaans, Life Orientation, Life
Sciences, Accounting.
Sarah Bryer: Afrikaans, Business Studies, Drama, English,
Life Sciences, Life
Orientation, Maths.
Ian Bear: Drama, English, IT, Life Orientation,
Maths.
15 - 22 January 2010
SA JEWISH REPORT
IX
TOP RESULTS 2009
Yeshiva College - the complete Jewish schools
been enthusiastically received and attendance
has been outstanding. We also always partticipate in the inter-schools public speaking
competition where we have always achieved
outstanding results.
One of the areas in which our learners excel is that of chesed and outreach. They are
continually involved in many projects aimed at
improving the lives of all our fellow South Africans.
They learn a great deal through their interacttion with those who are less privileged than they,
DENESE BLOCH
PRINCIPAL, YESHIVA
COLLEGE HIGH SCHOOLS
MOST PARENTS WILL testify to the fact
that choosing where to have their child or
children educated is one of the most important decisions that they will make. Many
factors will influence this decision, including religious considerations, the past record
of the school as regards academic results,
location, cost etc. However, the main concern certainly has to be the kind of young
adult that emerges from the school at the
end of the educational process.
At Yeshiva College we equip our learners
with superb skills in both Torah studies and
general studies. Our academic day is divided between these two disciplines and we always marvel at the fact that, despite having
far less classroom teaching time in general
studies than almost all other schools, our
learners always produce results which are
among the best in the country and among
the best in the IEB system.
Matriculation results are always awaited
with a degree of anxiety, even if one is confident that our learners will “pull it off” in the
end. The year 2009 was no exception for
Yeshiva College and yet again our learners
did us proud.
However, as much as we applaud and
celebrate our top achievers, we never lose
sight of the achievements of all our learners and are proud of their success in all areas of endeavour. We wish all our learners
from matric 2009 a hearty mazal tov and
may they achieve all their goals in the future
based on the very solid foundation provided
for them at Yeshiva College.
We believe that the focus on Torah learning enhances the ability to learn in all areas.
It encourages discipline and intellectual
curiosity as well as the ability to interpret
and interrogate an issue or information. It
demands understanding and the ability to
apply knowledge, all of which are prerequisites of outcomes-based education.
Most young adults who have spent time
learning in a yeshiva or seminary after school
before registering for a degree, agree that
the skills that they acquire through Torah
learning, equip them fully for their tertiary
education and make success at university
that much easier.
The hours spent pouring over texts, which
good Torah learning demands, provides an
excellent training for all kinds of learning.
We are also very conscious of the importance of the physical well-being of our
learners and to this end encourage all to
participate in sport. In this regard we have
been led by the interests of our learners
and in addition to the usual school sports
we have recently introduced pilates and
kick boxing for our girls. Both of these have
as well as those who are resident at the old aged
home and various other homes and institutions.
Their involvement in the Fountain of Love home
for abandoned children and Ma’Afrika Tikkun
provides them with an awareness of the diversity of South African society and the needs
of others. We believe that this knowledge and
sensitivity are essential in order to create graduates who are aware of life outside of the narrow
borders of school.
It is all of these opportunities and facilities
that ensure that the young men and women
who emerge from our school have been provided with all the skills and knowledge one
needs in order to take one’s place in any field
of endeavour.
Our past students have taken their place in
society as leaders in many fields including the
religious world, the business world and all the
professions. We feel very confident that when
we send our graduates out into the world, we
have sent out young men and women of value
who will contribute to society in a meaningful
way.
X
SA JEWISH REPORT
15 - 22 January 2010
TOP RESULTS 2009
Attending university pays dividends later in life
FANIE HEYNS
AS THE WORLD emerges from the global economic crisis, demand for university education will be higher than ever,
says Angel GurrÌa, secretary-general of
the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
“To the extent that institutions are able
to respond, investments in human capital will contribute to recovery,” he adds.
Growing advantages for the better educated and likely continuing high
levels of unemployment as economies
move out of the recession will provide
more and more young people with
strong incentives to continue educating
themselves.
Governments need to take account
of this in planning education policies
OECD analysis shows that attending university pays dividends in later life
through higher salaries, better health
and less vulnerability to unemployment.
In most countries, the difference in pay
levels between people who have degrees and people who do not, is continuing to grow
The numbers involved in the jobs crisis that resulted from the international
recession from the fourth quarter of
2008 to the third quarter of 2009, are
staggering. From a 25-year low at 5,6
per cent in 2007, the OECD unemployment rate had risen to a post-war
high of 8,5 per cent in July 2009, corresponding to an increase of more than
15 million unemployed.
The OECD believes, however, that
higher education could be a long-term
answer.
It also calculated the return on investment in education by balancing
the costs of education and of foregone
earning against prospects for increased
future earnings as a result of higher education attainment.
According to these calculations, said
GurrÌa, a male student who completes
a university degree can look forward to
a gross earnings premium over his lifetime of more than $186 000 on average
across OECD countries, compared with
someone who only completes secondary school.
For a woman, the figure is lower,
reflecting the disparity in most countries between male and female earnings, but it still averages out at just over
$134 000. The highest earnings advantagesareintheUnitedStates,whereamale
graduate can expect to earn more than
$367 000 extra over his lifetime, and a
female graduate more than $229 000.
Italy comes second for men, with an
average lifetime earnings advantage of
just over $322 000; and Portugal for
women, with an average advantage of
nearly $220 000.
And the benefits do not stop there:
Government budgets and the overall
economy also reap an advantage from
higher numbers of graduates, the OECD
figures show. The average net public return across OECD countries from providing a male student with a university
education, after factoring in all the direct
and indirect costs, is almost $52 000,
nearly twice the average amount of
money originally invested.
For female students, the average net
public return is lower because of their
lower subsequent earnings. But overall,
the figures provide a powerful incentive to expand higher education in most
countries through both public and private financing.
GurrÌa also revealed that the number
of people with university degrees or
other tertiary qualifications has risen
on average in OECD countries by 4,5
per cent each year between 1998 and
2006. In Ireland, Poland, Portugal, Spain
and Turkey, the increase has been 7 per
cent per year or more.
In 2007, one in three people in OECD
countries aged between 25 and 34
years had a tertiary level qualification. In
Canada, Japan and Korea, the ratio was
one in two.
In most countries, the number of people who leave school at the minimum
leaving age is falling, but in Germany,
Japan, Mexico, Poland, Turkey and the
US, their numbers continue to rise.
of the Portfolio Committee on Finance,
education expenditure as a percentage
of GDP is well above the world average
and has remained that way for a number
of years.
The problem, Moloto maintained, is
not the amount of money spent but the
outcomes of our education system.
In all international tests of South African learners, such as the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study and
Trends in International Mathematics and
Science Study, South African learners
come last. African countries that spend
much less than South Africa, such as
Botswana and Ghana, come ahead of
South African learners.
Moreover, when comparing the results of high school finishers across 19
emerging market economies, South Africa comes second last The question is,
why? And what can South Africa do to
change that?
cal literacy of school-leavers are very
low.
The resolve by the Minister of Basic
Education Angie Motshekga to return to
the basics, is a good start on the way to
recovery, said Prof Eloff.
A lack of FET colleges
Eloff told Achiever that whether the
country invests enough energy to encourage young people to resume study
after school, is debatable.
The problem is that too many learners
who do not qualify academically want to
go to university, and too few want to go
to Further Education and Training (FET)
colleges
Minister of Higher Education and
Training Blade Nzimande resolved to
increase the number of FET students
to one million by 2012, from the current
400 000.
International best practice is to have
five times as many FET students as
h
higher education students
With 800 000 higher education stud
dents, South Africa should boast four
m
million FET students. But the current
5
50 FET colleges cannot carry this burd
den, even if we had the numbers. That
m
means that serious investment in the
F
FET sector is necessary
N
Need to invest in human resources
P
Prof Eloff says it is clear that South Africa
is in dire need of more young people in
Early childhood education is growing
fast, and nowhere more than in Sweden. On average in OECD countries,
enrolments have risen from 40 per cent
of three- to four-year olds in 1998 to 71
per cent in 2007; and in Turkey, Mexico,
Korea, Poland, Sweden, Switzerland
and Germany, enrolment in early childhood education more than doubled.
Young people who leave school at the
minimum leaving age without a job are
likely to spend a long time out of work. In
most countries, over half of low-qualified
unemployed 25- to 34-year-olds are
long-term unemployed.
People who complete a high-school
education tend to enjoy better health
than those who quit at the minimum
leaving age. And people with university
degrees are more interested in politics
and more trusting of other people.
South Africa and the OECD
Countries that form part of the OECD
spent 6,1 per cent of their gross domestic product on education. South Africa
is not one of the 30 member countries
of the OECD, yet a level of co-operation
exists between the OECD and South
Africa.
In 2007 South Africa spent R105,5
billion, or just more than 5 per cent of
GDP, on education. That amount is currently R110bn per year.
Where South Africa’s expenditure on
education is just more than 5 per cent of
its GDP, that of Poland is 5,6 per cent,
and that of Brazil 4,1per cent.
In spite of South Africa’s significant
investment in education, it has not
yielded the desired results. According to
a paper delivered in February last year
by Koena Moloto, then acting chairman
Negative role of labour unions
Professor Theuns Eloff, chairman of
Higher Education South Africa (HESA),
told Achiever website that the problem
was not the amount of money South
Africa invests in education. “My information is that we spend more than 20
per cent of GDP on education - that
includes expenditure on basic education, further education and training and
higher education.
“Especially the expenditure on basic
education is high, but does not yield
the desired outcomes. Our average expenditure on higher education is slightly
below that of other comparable countries, but it has increased in the last few
years,” he said.
“Our school system suffers from many
ailments, among them the negative role
played by the labour unions (especially
SADTU), the loss of a teaching and
learning culture in most of our schools,
the preparedness of teachers to teach
the outcomes-based education system,
and lack of facilities (including the availability of books),” added Eloff.
A study conducted by HESA showed
that levels of language and mathemati-
a post-secondary system. The reality is
that neither universities nor FET colleges
can absorb many more without substantial investment by the government.
The problem is that even if South Africa possessed the investment in infrastructure, it does not have the human
resources to run more and larger universities and/or FET colleges. Investment
in human resources takes longer and is
more difficult to show quick results.
People get an education, and then
leave for better paying jobs. This is a
vicious cycle that South Africa has not
been able to break, said Prof. Eloff in the
interview with Achiever.
Vicious cycle caused by poverty
The matric pass rate of South Africa
was 62,5 per cent in 2008 (it has since
dropped even further), but it paints an incomplete picture. This is due to the high
dropout rate from grade 11 to 12. Of the
920 716 learners who were in grade
11 in 2007, only 333 681 advanced to
grade 12 in 2008 and passed their exams.
This signifies that only 36 per cent,
just over a third, of all learners who were
in grade 11 in 2007, completed their
matric in 2008. (Source: The Municipal
Outreach Project, January 2009
The main reason learners give for
not completing their matric is the inability to pay fees. Poverty remains
a major factor in decisions to leave
school, as children from poor families
and communities are required to have
an income in order to supplement the
household income.
With over 10 million South Africans
living on less than R250 per month, poverty remains a hurdle in South Africa’s
socio-economic development. (Source:
The Municipal Outreach Project, January 2009)
OECD message about tertiary
education and pass rates
In South Africa, the jobless rate increased to 24,5 per cent of the labour
force in the third quarter of 2009, from
23,6 per cent in the second quarter.
Labour Force Survey, Statistics South
Africa said the total number of unemployed people stood at 4.192 million in
the three months to September. Stats
SA said the number of employed people
fell by 484 000 to 12,885 million.
Unemployment among young South
Africans is hovering at 30 per cent,
shooting up to over 60 per cent for
youths in their late teens and early 20s.
According to a 2008 report by the Centre for Development and Enterprise, a
think tank that researches the effect of
poverty and unemployment on South
Africa’s economic growth rate, 65 per
cent of the four million youths between
15 and 24 who were available for a job
in 2005, were unemployed.
Pre-recession figures by the stateowned Human Sciences Research
Council furthermore show that about 30
per cent of youths between the ages of
25 and 34 years are jobless. Low education levels form part of the problem. Statistics by a Cape Town-based consumer
research agency, Government Statistics
show that 24 per cent of South Africans
older than 25 are illiterate.
“This crisis is growing, as many
youngsters are not in school, drop out
or do not have some sort of a degree,”
said Mike Abrahams, programme coordinator at Change Moves, a development and training co-operative that
offers training, capacity building and
management services. (Source: Inter
Press Services, 2009)
Research by the Development Policy
Research Unit in the University of Cape
Town’s School of Economics found that
unemployment among graduates grew
from 6,6 per cent in 1995 to 9,7 per cent
in 2005. Yet, a policy brief published in
September 2005 added that graduate
unemployment remained low relative to
overall unemployment, with graduates
comprising only 2,6 per cent of the jobless South Africans.
GurrÌa said that lifelong training and
education is more important than ever
before and education policies should
make provision for enough advanced
educational systems for older adults
who have to acquire new skills. According to GurrÌa, programmes for advanced training and education are often
designed to compensate for shortages
and initial education systems.
15 - 22 January 2010
SA JEWISH REPORT
XI
TOP RESULTS 2009
SIX DISTINCTIONS:
SIX DISTINCTIONS:
SIX DISTINCTIONS:
CRAWFORD SANDTON
CrawfordSchools
Sandton, Lonehill
and Pretoria
NINE DISTINCTIONS:
FIVE DISTINCTIONS:
Alexander Levin:
Maths, English, Life Orientation, Afrikaans, Business Studies, Geography, History, Maths Paper
3, Advanced Maths.
FOUR DISTINCTIONS:
NINE DISTINCTIONS:
SEVEN DISTINCTIONS:
SIX DISTINCTIONS:
Danielle Sher: Maths,
English, Afrikaans, Life
Orientation, Science,
History, Hebrew, Advanced Maths, Music.
Tslil Clingman:
English, Afrikaans,
Maths, Life Orientation, IT, Advanced
Maths, Maths Paper 3.
Claire Niselow:
English, Maths,
History, Life Orientation, Maths Paper 3,
Advanced Maths.
FOUR DISTINCTIONS:
FOUR DISTINCTIONS:
FOUR DISTINCTIONS:
Photo not available
Darryl Franks: English, Maths, Afrikaans,
Life Orientation, Life
Science, History.
Joshua Greenberg:
Life Orientation,
Drama, Business
Studies, History.
EIGHT DISTINCTIONS:
CRAWFORD LONEHILL
FOUR DISTINCTIONS:
Romy Jankelowitz:
English, Life Orientation, Biology, History,
Art, Drama.
Roxanne Abbott: English, Afrikaans, Maths,
Life Orientation, IT, Physical Science, Dramatic
Arts, Maths Paper 3.
David Brauer: Maths,
Life Orientation, English, IT, History.
FIVE DISTINCTIONS:
Diane Moalem:
History, Drama, Art,
Life Orientation.
FIVE DISTINCTIONS:
Photo not available
Photo not available
Jordan Avraham
Sweke: Design, Visual
Arts, English, Life Orientation, History.
Michael Jaffee
Moss: Music, Life Orientation, Geography,
History, Design.
Adi Steiner: Life
Orientation, Business
Studies, Dramatic
Arts, History.
SIX DISTINCTIONS:
CRAWFORD PRETORIA
Callandra Youngleson: Life Orientation,
English, Maths, Afrikaans, Dramatic Arts,
Business Studies.
Jed Saul Lazarus:
English, Maths,
Afrikaans, Life Orientation, Accounting, Life
Sciences.
Takara Lubner:
English, History, Life
Orientation, Business
Studies.
Georgina Katz:
Drama, Business
Economics, Visual Art,
History.
THREE DISTINCTIONS
CRAWFORD SANDTON
Jami Selikow: Maths Literacy, Business Studies, Life Orientation.
Nikki Solomon: Business Studies, Geography,
Life Orientation.
Jade Soal: Life Orientation, Maths Literacy,
Visual Arts.
Claude Merdjan: Life Orientation, Design,
History.
XII
SA JEWISH REPORT
15 - 22 January 2010
TOP RESULTS 2009
No-holds barred look at our ailing education system
OWN CORRESPONDENT
SOUTH AFRICAN SCHOOLS are in
a disaster zone, Graeme Bloch, an
education policy analyst at the Development Bank of Southern Africa,
wrote in an article on education in
South Africa.
Bloch points out that “instead of
being a place of academic achievement and excellence, where pupils
can develop their talents and shoot
for the stars, our schools have become zones of exclusion, where
many pupils feel unsafe because of
bullying or violence, and where the
skills, attitudes and behaviours for
employment and a democratic future
are not being nurtured”.
Bloch is blunt and critical, calling our outcomes “poor”. He adds:
“Worse, these poor outcomes take
a racial dimension in a society where
all children rightfully expect the best.
Ineqaulities are reproduced in ways
that are neither fair nor sustainable.”
Bloch says there are plenty of
facts to show that we are just not
getting value for our spend, despite
vast resources and a high budget for
education. “In Europe, 75 per cent of
children can do what only our top 10
per cent can, yet we have to compete
in a globalised, cut-throat globalised
world. More than half of our children
sue where our teachers are neither
prepared nor disciplined. Nor have
they the content knowledge to teach
effectively. “Unions have become
locked in confrontational labour re-
Graeme Bloch.
drop out before matric.”
He says “historical legacies” have
been compounded by serious policy
mistakes in post-apartheid South
Africa - “from inexplicable teacher
retrenchments to closure of teacher
colleges to the over-optimistic ideals
and regressive impacts of outcomesbased education”.
Three levels that interact to hold
us back are firstly, the “in-class” is-
lations mode, at war with education
departments”.
He says there are limited management skills among the 27 000 principals and inadequate support from the
government and education districts.
On a societal level, “whether because
of infrastructure backlogs, gangs,
hunger, low parent involvement or a
society that fails to value educational
aspiration and achievement, educa-
Fewer Jewish medical students:
Is it fact or perception?
ALISON GOLDBERG
SOUTH AFRICAN JEWISH students
are applying in smaller numbers to
study medicine than in previous
years.
Marianne Marx, headmistress of
Herzlia High School in Cape Town
says the numbers have definitely declined over the 17 years that she has
been at Herzlia. The emphasis, she
says, is now on business science
which is the most popular choice of
career every year.
“We still have a good few who
are applying, but that is four to five
at most. The vast majority of Herzlia learners apply to the University of Cape Town - that is 80 per
cent of them - but we may get one
or two applying to Stellenbosch or
Rhodes.
“Increasingly,” she adds, “more
and more pupils are applying for Varsity College which is a Unisa degree
but where there are actual lectures
and tutorials in specific areas.”
The reason for the declining
number of medicine applicants, she
believes, is because it has got so
difficult and though she says it is a
“thumb suck”, Aids she thinks has
tion has not found its accepted place
as the tried and tested route out of
poverty”.
Instead of a learning nation going
forward, he says, “a deep mix of his-
been one cause.
“In addition to that, the marks required are so high now that if you
are white you have to be a super A
plus student to enter medicine,” she
says. She doubts that the two years
community service is a deterrent to
medical students.
Mark Falconer, headmaster of
King David Linksfield in Johannesburg, has also witnessed these
numbers declining, but stresses that
his reasons are “perceptions”.
He adds: “There has been a
noticeable shift. Commerce, ac-
countancy and actuarial science are
now fields of choice. We have a fair
number of pupils applying for medicine but over the past five years out
of 160 matriculants the numbers are
now 10 - 15 whereas five years previously they would have been 25.”
He believes community service
is problematic and that the social
s
standing
of doctors is not what it
u
used
to be. He thinks the choice to
e
enter
the business world is a cause
o a society such as ours, which enof
c
courages
entrepreneurship.
Andrew Stead, headmaster at King
D
David
High School Victory Park, says
n
numbers
are fluctuating. In 2009 the
sschool had more applicants for medic
cine than the previous year.
He confirmed the long-term trend,
b
but was reluctant to be drawn on dettails or reasons for the decline. What
h
he has noticed, however, is that
m
more and more students are taking
a gap year to reflects on what they
want to study the following year.
The Wits Faculty of Health Sciences Development Office and the
Health Graduates Association could
shed no light on the subject, saying
they did not distinguish between
Jewish and other students.
tory and sociology, of bad choices
and unsatisfactory delivery, of institutional failure and social deficit, holds
back our country and stops schools
from doing what they should”.
But all is not doom and gloom.
“There is much to give hope. Yet
without a massive change in mindset, an agreed vision and a clear plan
with priorities and targets, unless our
society mobilises around education
as the priority, we will continue to fail
generation after generation of young
people.”
• In a recent book, “The Toxic Mix”,
with its subtitle: “What’s wrong with
South African schools and how to fix
it”, Bloch warns that “if we don’t get
education right, we won’t be able to
get anything right”.
He points out that the Section 21
schools or “former Model CF schools”
have heavy community involvement.
But at the same time there is “a racial dimension in that the bulk of the
children in the schools continue to
be largely white suburban residents”.
He adds that it follows that when
schooling inequalities are cited, these
schools become “a soft target”.
“The bottom line is that the dynamic in these schools is little understood
and subject to much prejudice and
assumption.”
Teaching, he says, continues to
be held in low regard. Where it was
once an occupation of choice for aspirational blacks, this is no longer the
case. The teaching staff of the Section 21 schools remains predominantly white.
IAWBs: Is it a teaching
panacea or a gimmick?
IS THE INTERACTIVE white board
(IAWB) the panacea to many learning
ills in our schools? Michael Carvalho
of Johannesburg thinks so. In a letter
to a newspaper he sings the praise of
this teaching aid.
He says “a teaching revolution has
taken place over the past 10 years
in schools around the world” as the
IAWB and associated technology is
replacing the traditional “chalk and
talk” method “That has been used
since the Greeks first formalised education”. He posits that where this new
technology is in place, implemented
by trained and competent teachers,
“results are being achieved that previously were only educational dreams,
especially with slower pupils”.
Carvalho says today in schools all
over the world - from pre-primary to
final senior exams - pupils are being
taught this way. China is already using over 2,7 million of these boards
while in the UK the government has
installed IAWBs in every classroom.
He says research has shown that by
the age of 10, pupils are on average
5,7 months ahead of those taught by
the traditional “chalk and talk” teaching methods.
“The teaching of mathematics, sciences, languages and biology using
IAWB iis iimproving
i results
lt and
d enaIAWBs
bling pupils to pass exams that they
would previously not have passed.”
In South Africa, he says, “the majority of independent and elite schools
are now fully equipped with teachers
well trained in the use of IAWBs...”
Furthermore an advantage is the
low cost of a board in the classroom
with a computer and a data projector.
15 - 22 January 2010
SA JEWISH REPORT
XIII
TOP RESULTS 2009
Herzlia High School
SEVEN DISTINCTIONS:
SEVEN DISTINCTIONS:
SEVEN DISTINCTIONS:
Samuel Besser:
Dramatic Art,
English, History, Information
Technology, Life
Sciences, Maths,
Physical Science.
Oren Katzeff:
Accounting,
Afrikaans, Hebrew, Information Technology,
Life Orientation,
Maths, Physical
Science.
Rafael Lubner:
Afrikaans, Economics, English,
French, Information Technology,
Life Orientation,
Maths.
FIVE DISTINCTIONS:
FIVE DISTINCTIONS:
FIVE DISTINCTIONS:
Benjamin Katz:
Dramatic Art,
English, History,
Life Orientation,
Maths.
David Platt:
Dramatic Arts,
English, Hebrew,
History, Life Orientation.
FOUR DISTINCTIONS:
FOUR DISTINCTIONS:
Abigail Gotlieb:
Hebrew, History,
Life Orientation,
Maths.
Jessica Kempen: Accounting,
English, Life Orientation, Maths.
FOUR DISTINCTIONS:
FOUR DISTINCTIONS:
FOUR DISTINCTIONS:
FOUR DISTINCTIONS:
FOUR DISTINCTIONS:
Joshua Lutzno:
Accounting, Economics, History,
Maths.
Ryan McCormack: Accounting, Information
Technology,
Life Orientation,
Maths.
Seth Musker:
English, Life Sciences, Life Orientation, Maths.
Talia Shaban:
Dramatic Arts, Economics, History,
Life Orientation.
Cheyam Shaked:
Economics, Information Technology, Life
Orientation, Maths.
FOUR DISTINCTIONS:
Alexandra
Singer: Design,
English, Life
Sciences, Life
Orientation.
FOUR DISTINCTIONS:
Witney Tucker:
Dramatic Arts,
Economics,
Life Orientation,
Maths.
Keren Setton:
Dramatic Arts,
English, History,
Life Orientation,
Visual Art.
FOUR DISTINCTIONS:
Joshua Kurland: Economics, Information
Technology,
Life Orientation,
Maths.
SIX DISTINCTIONS:
Francesca
Annenberg:
Business Studies,
Design, English,
Life Sciences,
Life Orientation,
Maths.
FIVE DISTINCTIONS:
Jacob Woolf:
Economics,
English, History,
Life Orientation,
Maths.
FOUR DISTINCTIONS:
Yael Lapiner:
Consumer Studies, Dramatic
Arts, Life Orientation, Maths
Literacy.
SIX DISTINCTIONS:
SIX DISTINCTIONS:
SIX DISTINCTIONS:
SIX DISTINCTIONS:
FIVE DISTINCTIONS:
FIVE DISTINCTIONS:
Daniella Boyd:
Afrikaans, Economics, English,
Life Sciences,
Life Orientation,
Maths.
Sonya Cotton:
English, History,
Life Sciences,
Life Orientation,
Maths, Visual
Arts.
Daniel Tadmor:
Afrikaans,
English, Hebrew,
Life Sciences,
Life Orientation,
Maths.
Michael Urson:
Accounting,
English, History, Information
Technology,
Life Orientation,
Maths.
Sharonese
Birch: Business
Studies, Computer Applications
Technology,
English, History,
Life Orientation.
Bronwyn
Frymer: Accounting, Economics, History,
Life Orientation,
Maths.
FOUR DISTINCTIONS:
FOUR DISTINCTIONS:
FOUR DISTINCTIONS:
FOUR DISTINCTIONS:
Jonathan Barr:
English, History,
Life Orientation,
Maths.
Jason Blacher:
Economics, Information Technology, Life Orientation, Maths.
Francesca
Favero: Afrikaans, Economics, English, Life
Orientation.
Joshua Friedman: Business
Studies, English,
History, Life Orientation.
FOUR DISTINCTIONS:
Simone Abrahamson:
Business Studies,
Life Science,
Life Orientation,
Maths.
FOUR DISTINCTIONS:
Kara Levy:
Business Studies,
Design, English,
Life Orientation.
THREE DISTINCTIONS
- Nadav Aharanov: Information Technology, Life Orientation, Maths.
- Claudia Albeldas: Life Sciences, Life Orientation, Maths.
- Gregory Bryer: Business Studies, Economics, Life Orientation
- Joshua Coleman: Computer Applications Technology, Life
Orientation, Maths Literacy.
- Lori Feldman: Accounting, Consumer Studies, Life Orientation.
- Sharon Geva: Economics, Life Orientation, Maths.
- Samantha Goldstein: Accounting, Life Orientation, Maths.
- Megan Korber: English, History, Life Orientation.
- Dylan Oblowitz: Accounting, Dramatic Arts, Life Orientation.
- Ariella Rink: English, Life Sciences, Life Orientation.
- Gina Schalit: Dramatic Arts, English, Life Orientation.
- Samuel Surdut: Life Sciences, Life Orientation, Maths.
- Emma Trappler: History, Life Orientation, Maths.
- Robyn waters: English, Life Sciences, Life Orientation:
FOUR DISTINCTIONS:
Keren Futeran:
English, History,
Life Sciences, Life
Orientation.
XIV
SA JEWISH REPORT
15 - 22 January 2010
TOP RESULTS 2009
OBE - not just a costly educational experiment
The controversial outcomes-based education (OBE) has
died an expected quiet death, although Minister of Basic
Education Angie Motshekga later tried to convince Parliament that it’s business as usual and that OBE was still
in place and was merely being fine-tuned.
PAUL MAREE
AT THE END of October last year the
minister announced less paperwork
for teachers to improve learning and
that from this year pupils across the
country would do fewer projects. She
insisted that only the “unworkable
parts” of OBE would be scrapped.
The minister had accepted recommendations made by a task team
which in effect amounts to doing
things to quite a degree “the old way”.
The “death” of OBE was widely hailed
- but not because it is bad concept,
only that you should have the wherewithal to implement it properly.
Announcing the National Senior
Certificate results - written mainly by
state schools - on January 7, Minister Motshekga again undertook to
lighten the workload of teachers and
to strengthen what she called “poor
management” at schools.
The NSC 2009 matric pass rate
results show a drop from 62,6 per
cent in 2008 to 60,7 per cent. Some
230 000 matriculants failed the exam.
The generally poor showing has been
widely condemned, especially the
poor performance in maths, science
and accounting.
Many educationists insist there’s noth
nothing wrong with the concept of OBE - in
a First World country with well-trained
teachers who understand the ethos of
the concept and learners capable of
working on their own with the necessary aids such as a proper library, internet access and the necessary back-up,
also from parents - but in a developing
country such as ours, it has always been
problematic. Now it’s back to basics:
reading, writing and arithmetic.
The irony is that when well-meaning educationists and people of the
stature of Dr Mamphele Ramphele,
former vice-chancellor of UCT and
Prof Jonathan Jansen, now rector of
Free State University, expressed their
misgivings about the implementation
of OBE in a developing country such
as South Africa, they were vilified.
Rathan Garrib, an educationist who
has lectured at universities, in a letter
in a newspaper, congratulated Minister Motshekga “for her moves towards
some sanity to what has been a chaotic situation created by introducing
OBE.
“For innovation in education, it is
critical that the ground is well prepared
and the situation ripe for change. In
the case of OBE this has not been fol-
llowed, hence lack of resource materrial, under-prepared teachers and officials and confusion even among the
h
hierarchy.”
Lebusa Monyooe, director: Strateg
gic Knowledge Grants at the National
R
Research Foundation, in reaction to
M
Minister Motshekga’s “funeral rites”
ffor OBE, wrote at the time, of prevventing “a further denigration” of our
basic education system. He cites lack
of visionary school leadership and “a
complex curriculum marred by ineffective implementation, assessment
and teacher-learner preparedness to
intelligently address the classroom
challenges.”
Alas, it was again the poorest of the
poor, schools in formerly disadvantaged areas, failing miserably. And it is
not the decision-makers sitting in the
proverbial ivory towers who bear the
brunt of this costly experiment, but
those kids who already are shackled
by a host of disadvantages.
Former Model C schools - (now
Section 21 schools) and private
schools - which include the Jewish
day schools, with a strong infrastructure and well-trained teachers - took
to the new OBE system like a duck
to water, although many teachers
complained about drowning in paper
work. Many of these schools - including the King David Schools - write
the IEB (Independent Examinations
Board) exams.
Umalusi, the council for quality assurance in general and further education and training, approved the IEB,
the adult basic education and training (Abet) and the new National Cer-
tificate Vocational final exams. Yeshiva
College also wrote the IEB exam while
Torah Academy, Herzlia and CrawfordSchools wrote the National Certificate
which all the state schools wrote.
The more than 8 000 matrics who
wrote the IEB exams this year, achieved
a 97,42 per cent pass rate, slightly
higher than the previous year’s 97 per
cent. There had been an increase of 10
per cent in the number of pupils writing
maths 3 paper - a subject universities
have recommended in order to cope
with first-year studies.
If one looks at the top achievers of
the 2009 matric exams - with distinctions raining down like confetti - the
Jewish day schools, as has been the
case in past years, are prominent, the
result of excellent team work between
teachers and learners and strong parental support. We salute them for 12
years of dedication and hard slog.
But a matric certificate in these
days of rampant unemployment and
jockeying for good jobs, is at best a
stepping stone on the road to further
education; it just makes it so much
easier to get access to a place at
one of our universities or other tertiary institutions, especially in fields like
medicine with limited places available
and literally hundreds of hopefuls, with
transformation criteria to correct the
wrongs of the past, making it imperative that a good pass is achieved.
But for the thousands of school
leavers who are not accepted at one
of the institutions of higher learning,
all is not lost. There are at least 100
fully registered private institutions providing post-matric training, says Dr
Paul Steyn, a member of the higher
ed
education committee of the Associatio
tion of Private Providers of Education,
Tr
Training and Development. Some 65
of them offer higher education progr
grammes, some even offering degree
co
courses where doctorates can be obta
tained.
A recent report by the Centre
for Higher Education Transformation, “Responding to the educational
needs of post-school youth”, warns
that South Africa is sitting on a social
time bomb with its more than three
million people between the ages of 18
and 24 unemployed and not receiving
any further training. It also warns that
South Africa will have to drastically
extend and improve its post-school
training opportunities if something is
to be done to the “hopelessness of
thousands of young people”.
The study mentions that those with
matric earn between 40 per cent and
70 per cent more than those with a
lower level of education, while those
with a diploma or certificate earn between 170 per cent and 220 per cent
more, and those with degrees between 250 per cent and 400 per cent
more than those who did not finish
matric.
The trade union, Solidarity, in a report on future prospects for the 2009
matriculants, says about 23 per cent
of the approximately 363 000 matriculants of 2009 will be unemployed this
year. This figure does not include the
approximately 218 000 candidates
who have failed the exam. The union
says about 8,9 per cent of people with
a tertiary education won’t find work,
against some 25,7 per cent of those
with matric looking for employment.
Dirk Hermann of Solidarity says
another reason why matriculants will
battle to find work, is because the
present school curriculum does not
prepare them for entry into the job
market. He urges matriculants to
achieve a tertiary education where
possible. Even in a recessionary
period like the one we have experienced, there is a demand for skills in
field such as accounting, information
technology, teaching, social work,
nursing, for chemists, in engineering
and other technical fields.
15 - 22 January 2010
SA JEWISH REPORT
XV
TOP RESULTS 2009
Interdisciplinary Centre - networking your future
Jonathan Davis.
THE INTERDISCIPLINARY CENTRE
(IDC) in Herzliya, Israel, incorporating the Raphael Recanati International School (RRIS), is a family-style
academic institution where the programmes and general campus life are
streamlined towards the needs of the
student.
Vice-president of external relations and head of the RRIS, Jonathan
Davis, said: “At just 14 years old, this
university is a vibrant campus of learning - both in and out of the classroom
- with students able to take part in a
variety of extracurricular activities, including debate, choir, sports, dance,
diplomacy, entrepreneurship and
more.”
Along with this, students are able
to volunteer within the many institutes on campus and to work at the
various symposiums and international conferences that are hosted by
the university and serve to strengthen
relations with global personalities;
c
countries and institutions, as well as
tto set government policy within Israel
a
and beyond.
The networking opportunities are
a
another huge plus for any student;
w
with lecturers and fellow students
a
always on the lookout for staff and
ffuture business partners and visiting
llecturers always happy to offer advice
a
and sometimes, job offers.
Davis emphasised: “These opporttunities are unique to a higher acad
demic institution and can only serve
tto strengthen CVs and ensure that all
tthe theoretical tools that are gained in
tthe classroom are practised in real-life
ssituations - a powerful combination by
a
any standard.”
The university also operates a
placement centre for students, providing guidance towards integration in
the real (business) world.
Last year, for the first time in Israel, the Council for Higher Education
conducted a comparative study of all
Israel’s universities and colleges. The
study focused on 20 categories that
were designed to evaluate: student
satisfaction in their degree studies;
the level of instruction; the level of the
courses; the relationship of faculty
to students; library facilities; student
services and more. In 16 out of the
20 categories, IDC was ranked in first
place.
The study also dealt with the salaries received by IDC graduates, showing that, in total, our graduates receive
the highest salaries in the fields taught
at IDC - government, diplomacy &
strategy; communications; psychology; business administration; law
(taught only in Hebrew) and computer
science (taught only in Hebrew).
“Importantly, the lecturers on campus are not just academics, but they
are experts in their field who continue to work in key positions within
the fields that they lecture in,” Davis
added.
For South Africans, IDC, through
the RRIS, provides them with a
unique opportunity to attend an international university with little fuss
as they are accepted according to
their matric certificates - no other
entrance exam is necessary. In addition, looking ahead, all degrees at
the IDC are approved by the Israeli
Council for Higher Education, thereby ensuring that IDC graduates stand
a good chance of being accepted for
further degrees at leading Ivy League
and other top international universities, along with other top universities
in Israel.
IDC also enables its international
students not only to mingle with one
another and thereby build strong global networks, but also to mix with the
Israelis who study with them and in
the sister Israeli tracks.
“Many a marriage and many a business has begun on this campus,”
laughed Davis.
As a former aliyah shaliach in Cape
Town, Davis always dreamed of a
programme in Israel where some of
South Africa’s finest students could
obtain academic degrees on a very
high level.
“The main problem for most students always seemed to be that there
were too many bureaucratic prereq-
uisites
uisites, such as psychometric exams
and many other hurdles which made
it impossible”, he added.
“Another major problem was that
most South Africans did not have a
high enough level of Hebrew, and
even intense ulpan in Israel would
have made it difficult to obtain academic achievements in the same
fashion, had they been studying in
their mother tongue.”
IDC also offers its students bur-
saries
socio economic
saries, all based on socio-economic
need.
Said Davis: “We are very proud that
next year (this year 2010) more than
70 South African students will be enrolled at IDC. This is by far the largest
number of South African students in
any university in Israel.”
• For more information contact
Stephanie Miller. Her e-mail address
is: [email protected] or phone her at
+972-9-960-2841.
Education: Most powerful asset you can offer your child
TESSA FORMAN OF the Morningside and
Glenhazel Kumon centres has been nurturing children for the past 15 years in areas of
maths numeracy skills, English reading and
comprehension skills.
The Kumon method, developed by educator Toru Kumon, is the largest mathematics and language educational system in the
world.
As of 2009, over 4 million pupils were
studying under the Kumon Method at more
than 26 000 Kumon centres in 46 countries.
Tessa is rated as one of the top franchises in
Europe and Africa.
Typically a child who is finding maths or
English difficult or who wants to excel further,
will be referred by educationalists, teachers or
parents whose own children have prospered
under her guidance, to her centre.
The most common question asked by the
parent is how much time it will take from their
child’s already hectic schedule.
The Kumon Method is an individualised
learning method and each pupil needs to
spend 10 to 15 minutes a day completing the
programme at home and attending the centre twice a week.
Tessa’s main object is to get her pupils to
their grade level; however once the children
are on the programme and motivated, they
start working above their grade level.
Forty eight per cent of her pupils are working above their grade level. Some are working
3 to 5 years ahead of their grade.
Kumon recognises their diligence through
award ceremonies. However, the school re-
ports are normally proof of how effective the programme is.
Learners range from 2 years old to matric. The
individualised and interactive nature of Kumon
gives pupils a head start to becoming avid learn-
ers and successful students
The starting point for each Kumon learner is
determined individually. They start with the level
where they can attain a perfect score.
The worksheets have been designed in such a
way that it allows them to figure out how to solve
problems on their own.
• To find out more about the benefits that Kumon can offer your child, please call Tessa on
(011) 884-9022 or 082-900-3379.
XVI
SA JEWISH REPORT
15 - 22 January 2010
TOP RESULTS 2009
15 - 22 January 2010
SA JEWISH REPORT
9
TAPESTRY
ART, BOOKS, DANCE, FILM, THEATRE
Shattering grief through
the eyes of a young girl
Goldengrove by Francine Prose (Atlantic
Books, R234)
REVIEWED BY GWEN PODBREY
OF ALL human traumas, few can be as
difficult to explore as grief - not because
of its complexity, but precisely because of
its terrible simplicity: a human being is
here, and is loved, relied upon and inextricably bound up into the realities, needs
and emotions of others. Then, quite suddenly, he or she is not.
How to make sense of - much less,
peace with - an empty space at a dinner
table, a missing voice in a household or
the hideous realisation that the front
door will never again open to admit a
beloved presence?
For youngsters attempting to forge an
identity, the ordeal is often doubly devastating. Which is why Francine Prose’s
novel is remarkable. Not only does it elegantly - and heartbreakingly - convey the
enormity of adolescent grief, but also its
isolation.
When 13-year-old Nico and her adored
elder sister, Margaret, take the family
rowing boat out onto Mirror Lake, from
where they have a clear, tranquil view of
their family home on its shore, it is a
sleepy Sunday afternoon like many others. The girls, as usual, are exchanging
confidences in the endless, feverish
barter of teenage daughters.
Margaret - sexy, self-assured, musically
gifted and remarkably forbearing with
her gawkish, worshipful sibling - patiently answers Nico’s questions on a range of
subjects: clothing, dealing with their parents’ anxieties, and - above all - “what it
feels like” to sleep with her boyfriend,
Aaron.
Dazzled by her sophistication, Nico
begs Margaret to sing her star number,
the 1930s ballad which shows off to perfection her sultry voice: “My Funny
Valentine”. When she has finished her
song, the older girl smiles at her little sister, stubs out her illicit cigarette, waves,
dives off the boat to cool off - and dies
underwater, after suffering cardiac arrest
due to a congenital heart defect.
For Nico, the tragedy marks the end of
life as she has always known it, and the
beginning of life as she cannot hope to
know it: an existence as a suddenly single
child, without her adored role model, in
the company of two grief-stricken parents
and a house whose rooms, associations
and objects can never again evoke anything but dread and despair.
Dealing with the agony of everyday routines is bad enough: but trying to redefine
herself and come to terms with what has
happened is so immense a task, and so
debilitating, that she quickly retreats into
a private, angry, frozen space where she
can gaze upon the world.
Unsurprisingly, her relationship with
her
parents
quickly
deteriorates.
Conversations become tense, loaded
exchanges. Her mother - relying more and
more on antidepressants and frenetic
activities to numb her own grief - tries
unsuccessfully to prod her surviving
child into normal life.
They go on outings, preferably in the
morning, “when Mom was still clear. It
was easier to talk in the car, with no eye
contact required and the changing
scenery constantly wiping away the
gummy residue of whatever we’d just
said”.
Noting his daughter’s recession into
despair, Nico’s father - working in his
bookshop in the town and attempting to
write a history of eschatological cults
around the globe, particularly those who
forfeited their homes and families to follow leaders in the futile hope of rapture offers her a summer job in the store while
he researches his topic. This, however,
drives her even further into herself.
It is only when Aaron,
Margaret’s former boyfriend, suddenly makes contact with Nico that she is
startled out of her depression. He, too, is unable to get
over the calamity, he tells
her. Will she come out with
him? Perhaps they can work
their way out of their
shared grief together.
It is a tempting proposition. Not only can Nico connect to this contemporary of
her dead sister, but there is
also the element of flattery.
Aaron is a good-looking,
creative youngster. Can he
seriously be interested in
her?
When Aaron begins asking her to wear the perfume
her sister liked, accompany
him to the places he used to
frequent with her - and even
dress in Margaret’s favourite clothes - she is unsettled, but acquiescent. Gradually, however, her uneasiness mounts.
It is obvious that the boy is bent on
recreating his deceased girlfriend in her
surviving little sister.
Out of her depth psychologically, but
unintelligent enough to sense that she
has ventured into seriously dangerous
territory, Nico is finally forced to draw
boundaries between the dead, the living,
the past and the present.
Francine Prose’s deft and delicate
handling of her subject is splendid,
using the voice of a family’s youngest
member to relate their collective experience of shattering, separating and,
finally, reuniting - never as they were
before, but sufficiently to surrender
their precarious grip on a grave and
grasp each other instead.
Far more than the coming-of-age story
of an adolescent whose sexual and intellectual emergence is hijacked by bereavement, it traces the wayward trajectory of
a family dynamic in the face of tragedy.
The theme of desperation and redemption, subtly interposed throughout the
narrative by Nico’s father, is complemented by the greater theme: the endless
mourning process of human beings for
their younger, invincible, innocent
selves, before the impact of pain, decay,
time and exhaustion.
As Gerard Manley Hopkins reminds us
in his great lament, whose title the novel
borrows: “Margaret, are you grieving /
Over Goldengrove unleaving?... It is the
blight man was born for, / It is Margaret
you mourn for.”
This vessel contains some beautiful songs
DVD: In the Fiddler’s House - Itzhak
Perlman
Artists: Itzhak Perlman, Red Buttons,
Fyvush Finkel, Leopold Kozlowski,
Kapelye, The Klezmatics, and others
Musical director: Michael Alpert
Film directors: Don Lenzer and Glenn
DuBose.
Catalogue number: EMI Classics 3 68609 9
REVIEWED BY PAUL BOEKKOOI
KLEZMER IS far removed from any singular activity. The word derives from
Hebrew “kley-zemer”, literally meaning
“vessels of song” implying that singers
and performers on musical instruments
are involved.
Klezmer music is in its core celebratory, but over time it encompassed a great
variety of traditions which were held up
by East European Jews.
My personal introduction to it came
through a family member and clarinet
fanatic. In the early 1990s I was introduced to a recording of Giora Feidman,
known as the “King of Klezmer”.
Sometimes music marketing becomes
more important than music itself. Not in
this case.
While listening, one immediately registers that the distinctive klezmer clarinet
becomes a voice. It broods, it muses,
laments, cries, but also bursts out in
intensive laughter. Shivers down my back
couldn’t be controlled. Feidman, born in
Buenos Aires in 1936, had a direct family
line to klezmer musicians in Eastern
European ghettos.
Later I read that Benny Goodman
praised his original sound, Leonard
Bernstein celebrated his perfect artistry,
while the author Isaac Bashevis Singer
noted that Feidman’s clarinet called up
“... all the emotions of the banished soul”.
Watching and listening to “In the
Fiddler’s House”, one realises that tradition is the big survivor here. Violinist
Itzhak Perlman, son of Polish Jews who
grew up in Israel, longs for first-hand
involvement with musicians who were
home-bred in this style.
Any intelligent musician like he is, rapidly assimilates the challenges, feelings
and techniques one needs to perform in a
klezmer ensemble, be it a conservative
one like Brave Old World, or the more
experimental Klezmatics.
Nearly incidentally, this unrestrained
film gives viewers a deep insight into the
history, uses, emotional value, structure
and contemporary standing of this music.
After many sequences of wedding festivities and its rousing music, we are
removed to a dilapidated synagogue in the
heart of present-day Cracow where violence was an everyday occasion during
the Second World War.
In a sombre elegy performed by
Perlman, we are subtly reminded of the
appalling atrocities committed against
Jews during the European pogroms.
Far more hope-giving is that this really
is a celebration of the continued renaissance klezmer is experiencing internationally.
CONTACT
Trevor Stamelman
Cell: 082-608-0168
[email protected]
www.stamelmanproperties.co.za
VIEW BY APPOINTMENT
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10
SA JEWISH REPORT
15 - 22 January 2010
LETTERS
The Editor, Suite 175, Postnet X10039, Randburg, 2125 email: [email protected]
Disclaimer
Guidelines for letters
The letters page is intended to provide opportunity for a range of views on any given topic to be
expressed. Opinions articulated in the letters are those of the writers and do not necessarily
reflect the views of the editor, staff or directors of the Jewish Report
Letters up to 400 words will get preference. Please provide your full first name and surname, place of
residence, and a daytime contact telephone or cell number. We do not publish letters under noms de
plume. Letters should preferably be e-mailed. Letters may be edited or shortened.
A TIMELY TRIBUTE TO REVISIONIST VLADIMIR JABOTINSKY
doing justice to the memory of such a
giant multi-faceted figure within the format of a library booklet, perhaps the
author might have erred in not emphasising sufficiently the horrific background
of pending catastrophe against which the
drama of Jabotinsky’s actions were
played out.
Accused by opponents of promoting
“militarism” (the forerunner of the
Israel Defence Forces?) he fought against
the official policies of keeping a low profile and self-restraint in the face of the
oppression and mortal danger which
characterised Jewish life in Europe.
After all, he was hero worshipped by
millions of facing potential genocide as
he tried to change the mindset of mainstream Jewish leadership - instilling
urgency with his famous declaration:
“Liquidate the Diaspora, otherwise the
Diaspora will liquidate you!”.
Only by reading his dramatic speeches,
can the serious student appreciate the
grandeur of his vision, the nobility of his
spirit and the impact he made in the
upliftment of his fellow Jews in their
darkest hour.
He died heartbroken in New York in
1940 and was buried on Mount Herzl,
Israel in 1964. When he died, the editor of
the London Jewish Chronicle, Ivan
Greenberg wrote: “The first violin in the
Jewish orchestra has been stilled.” G-d
Bless his memory.
AS A Zionist Revisionist activist for just
on 60 years, I am grateful to Abraham
Buchman, former Revisionist chairman
of Bulawayo Jewry, for commissioning
John Simon of Cape Town to tell the
Jabotinsky story and the Gitlin Library
for publishing a 26 page booklet titled
Vladimir Ze’ev Jabotinsky - Fighter,
Visionary, Zionist.
As Simon concludes: “For many, even
in this generation, the spirit of Zion rested upon Herzl, Bialik and Jabotinsky.
For better or worse, he was a great man.”
After Jabotinsky worked hard to form
the first modern Jewish military units the famous Zion Mule Core and later the
Jewish Legion as battalions in the
British Army - against the wishes of
Jewish anti-Zionists and the more hesitant sections of mainstream Zionism, the
author notes that thereafter he was “a
changed man - whether for the better or
worse is still an open question debated in
the Jewish world, but alas with ever
reducing frequency as his memory fades
and other issues prevail”.
Remarkably, 70 years after his death
his name still evokes a strongly negative
emotional response from many veteran
“far-leftists”, while loyal adherents of his
Zionist political philosophy still celebrate his majestic personality and courageous activism. Indeed, John Simon set
out to “explore whether he was, as he has
been described, the most charismatic
fascinating and controversial figure in
the history of Zionism”.
While appreciating the limitations of
David Abel
George
VEGANISM IS ‘MANDATED BY JEWISH LAW’
I WOULD like to thank Sue Randall
for her recent letter (SAJR December
4) in support of compassionate
eating.
I certainly agree with her that the
eating of eggs and milk products need
not, in principle, be unethical, and I
also agree that for many people,
becoming vegan may require “small
but significant steps”.
However, given that the conditions
under which eggs and milk products
would be kosher are rarely if ever
found in current methods of factory
farming, veganism is not only not
extreme, but it is, I argue, mandated
by Jewish law.
The poultry and dairy industries are
in reality extensions of the meat industry, with their own inherent cruelties.
As there are currently no legal requirements regarding “free range” chickens,
many such hens are scarcely better off
than their battery equivalents.
Male
chicks
are
considered
“byproducts” of egg production, and
are killed, often in the most horren-
dous ways (sometimes crushed alive or
thrown into plastic bags to suffocate).
All egg-laying hens end their short
lives in the abattoir, as do milk-producing cows. The milk industry is no better: Baby calves are also considered
“byproducts” and are taken from their
mothers very soon after birth, and
slaughtered for their meat or soft
skins.
Since the horrors of factory farming
clearly violate the injunction of the
Torah not to cause cruelty to animals,
how can such products be kosher?
I would very much like to hear the
response of the Beth Din regarding why,
for instance, they feel that even batteryproduced eggs deserve the kosher
stamp.
For more information on factory
farming, see www.animal-voice.org and
for delicious vegan recipes, see
www.vegansa.com/index.php
Elisa Galgut
Department of Philosophy,
University of Cape Town
LOOKING FOR...
LOOKING FOR INFORMATION ON SYLVIA HERMAN ORNSTEIN
SYLVIA HERMAN (late of Benoni), married
an Abram Ornstein. They were divorced on
December 27 1917. They had a daughter
called Grayce (now 93 years old), who grew
up under her father’s (Abram’s) care.
Merle Kermont of Sydney Australia,
daughter of Grayce and grand-daugther of
Abram and Sylvia, is trying to find out
what happened to her grandmother,
Sylvia Herman Ornstein. She may well
have remarried and had a family, and
so, if anyone knew Sylvia, or anything
about her, and has any information,
please contact Anne Lapedus Brest on
(011) 783-2237, or 082-452-7166 or e-mail
her at [email protected].
LOOKING FOR...
WHO CAN HELP RODNEY FRANKLIN LOCATE HIS FAMILY?
RODNEY FRANKLIN, son of the late
Bram and Esther (nee Berman) Franklin,
is seeking information on his grandfather’s and grandmother’s families.
His grandfather, Solomon Berman,
was born in Pokroi, Lithuania, in 1878
and came to South Africa in 1897. He died
in Johannesburg in 1941. Either father or
brothers’ names were Nathan and Mozes
Berman.
Between 1897-1906 Solomon Berman
lived in the Port Beaufort-Bathurst area.
His wife was Sophie Berman (nee
Levitas) originally from Yoniskis and
they lived many years in Klerksdorp.
Rodney’s grandmother was Sarah
Franklin. Sarah (nee Rosen, originally
Rossiansky), was the daughter of
Lazarus and Mila Rossiansky and wife of
Morris Franklin. She originally came
from London, and the couple lived for
many years in Port Elizabeth.
Sarah had one or two brothers, Rosen,
(Abe Rosen?) who were possibly connected to the antique business in
Johannesburg in the 1950s.
Rodney Franklin can be contacted at
e-mail [email protected]
WE CAN’T IGNORE THE WARNINGS FROM THE GREAT SAGES
MORDECHAI Zlotnick makes a strong case
for himself and thousands of Jews to remain
in exile (the severest punishment) in South
Africa - until Mashiach comes.
One of his reasons is that the Lubavitcher
Rebbe zt’l gave South African Jews a blessing
to remain here (again, until Mashiach
comes.)
This was 18 years ago, and it really made
almost the entire community feel comfortable living in exile. (May I remind readers
that the frierdeker (6th Lubavitcher Rebbe)
and most Hassidic leaders, encouraged their
communities to remain in Europe, even three
months before the outbreak of the Second
World War.
Tragically we all know the horrific results
of their misjudgment.
For those who maintain that we should
only leave when Mashiach comes, let them
recall the words of the Rambam:
“Those who seduce themselves, and say
they will stay in their places (in exile) until
the King Mashiach comes to the Lands of the
West, and then they will depart, and go forth
to Jerusalem - I do not know how the decree
of destruction will be stayed from them.
“Rather they are transgressors, and they
cause others to sin... For there is no set time
for the coming of the Mashiach on which to
depend. The obligation of the commandments (including Yishuv Eretz Yisrael) is not
dependent on the coming of the Mashiach.
“Rather, we are to busy ourselves with the
Torah and its precepts, and strive to fulfil
everything we can. However, if a man will
stay in his place, and he says: ‘I will stay here
until Mashiach comes and survive where I
am’, this is nothing but an evil heart, and a
great loss, and a sickness of reasoning and
this is my opinion, and Hashem knows the
truth” (Rambam Iggeret Teiman).
Harsh words from a great sage?
Nevertheless very prophetic and true.
Also let us heed the words of the Yaavetz
(Rabbi Yaacov Emdin) written more recently
- 18th century:
“A great tragedy results when we make
Jewish life in the exile the goal of our Jewish
existence. When it seems to us in our present
peaceful existence, outside of the Land of
Israel, that we have found another Eretz
Yisrael and Jerusalem, this to me is the
greatest, deepest most obvious, and direct
cause of all the awesome, frightening, monstrous, unimaginable destructions that we
have experienced in the Diaspora.”
Who can deny the prophetic truth of these
words written 250 years before the Holocaust,
and subsequent tragedy of day-to-day assimilation.
Mordechai, after reading the above words
of the Rambam and Yaavetz, how can one justify carrying on a “normal” Jewish existence
in exilic lands.
One can easily brush aside the abrasive
advice of Mr (John) Rustee, but we dare not
ignore the “warnings” of the great sages.
After nearly 2 000 years of exile, it certainly is time to return to our only real home,
especially when Hashem has restored sovereignty of Israel to His people.
The longer we tarry in comfortable exile,
the longer we prolong the final redemption.
Choni Davidowitz
Golden Acres
Johannesburg
IT’S POSSIBLE TO SUPPORT ISRAEL - WARTS AND ALL
THE ARTICLE by Daniel Mackintosh (Jewish
Report, December 4) deserves a reply, even if
only to put to rest the implicit claim that
Jewish youth are spontaneously questioning
the morality of Israel’s existence without the
systematic prompting of a small group of
activists who have set up shop as the moral
voice of South African Jewry.
Rather than an imaginative engagement
with the realities of history, the activist
resorts to simplified partisan rhetoric and
propagandistic distortion, as so evident in
Mackintosh’s article.
He starts with the false apartheid analogy
in order to frame, from the outset, Israel as
the guilty party. He then goes on to reinforce
this propagandistic device with the unqualified use of the word “occupation”.
Thus, in one fell swoop, Mackintosh tars
Israel and all those who support her, as
apartheid apologists and implicit racists in a
state of denial regarding their complicity in
the oppression and brutalisation of the designated victims in this narrative, the
Palestinians.
I have news for Mackintosh and his associates: there are many Jews who were ardent
opponents of apartheid who are equally
ardent supporters of Israel. The reason is not
because of a sudden failure of intellect or
moral cowardice, but because the two situations are essentially different and each needs
to be treated on its own merits. This clearly
would not suit the agenda of openshehudastreet.
To condense, the real historical narrative
lies between the vulgar reductionism of both
Mackintosh and his friends and those ardent
Zionists who need a pristine myth of moral
absolutism to buttress their loyalties. I have
news for them too. It is quite possible to
strongly support Israel in the current political context while fully aware of moral ambi-
guities and failures. Many indeed do just that
- including myself.
This is not the place for an extended look at
the justifications for the Zionist enterprise
except to note the following. Where openshehudastreet feel only shame, I feel pride and
admiration; where they see only greed and
exploitation, I also see the painful choices of
necessity and acts of remarkable magnanimity; where they see only Palestinian victimhood, I also see a debilitating sense of grievance coupled to apocalyptic visions of total
victory.
One wonders whether the recent economic
growth and stability of the West Bank has not
stirred openshehudastreet into renewed ideological activity. For if they were truly interested in the welfare of all the peoples of the
region, they would be supporting the pragmatic realists of both sides rather than feeding into precisely those attitudes which have
condemned the region to stalemate for so
many decades.
From the abyss of genocide, Jews in general and the Israelis in particular, have shown a
heroic, almost miraculous, creative pragmatism which make them the vanguard of much
of what is hopeful and admirable in the modern world. The occasional sins and excesses
of individuals do not negate that claim. In the
context of the Middle East, Israel could
indeed play the role of a catalyst for democracy and prosperity if allowed to do so.
The Jewish community and its leaders
must unambiguously and with imagination
and the utmost vigour oppose the insidious
agenda of openshehudastreet, which, under
the guise of a higher morality, eagerly
encourages the demonisation of their fellow
Jews.
Mike Berger
Cape Town
Savyon Lodge home for aged says thank you
SO MANY take for granted everyday items,
which you can buy readily, at a reasonable
price, from your local pharmacy or supermarket. What delight and joy we all experienced when the gift of medical supplies and
adult diapers arrived at our home, Lanis
McLarnon, administrator of Savyon Lodge
home for the aged in Bulawayo in
Zimbabwe, writes.
“Through the kindness and generosity of
the Hebrew Order of David and the
Dischem Foundation, as well as the use
of Mr Myles Hodes’ vehicle from Sterling
Furnishers to transport all these goods
to Zimbabwe, our residents have been
assured of another year of comfort and dignity.”
She adds: “With difficult and challenging
times still befalling Zimbabwe, it is so
heartening to know there are people ‘out
there’ who care about our senior citizens
and their well-being.”
15 - 22 January 2010
SA JEWISH REPORT
11
COMMUNITY COLUMNS
Let’s make
most of our
2010 year
ABOVE
BOARD
Zev Krengel,
National Chairman
A column of the SA Jewish Board of Deputies
Conservative Jewish women wear prayer shawls and carry Torah scrolls at the Western
Wall, on December 18, 2009. (PHOTOGRAPH: YOSSI ZAMIR / FLASH 90 / JTA)
Questioning of the
‘Women of the Wall’
leader sparks protests
BEN HARRIS
JERUSALEM
THE CONSERVATIVE synagogue movement is launching a campaign to protest the
recent questioning and possible prosecution of a leader of the group, Women of the
Wall.
For more than two decades, the group has
been organising regular women’s prayer
services at the Western Wall and pressing
for expanded worship rights at Judaism’s
holiest pilgrimage site. Last week its chairwoman, Anat Hoffman, was summoned to a
Jerusalem police station for questioning.
According to Hoffman, also director of
the Reform movement’s Israel Religious
Action Centre and a former member of the
Jerusalem City Council, she was questioned by police about her role in Women of
the Wall, fingerprinted and told that her
case was being referred to the attorney general for prosecution.
“I think it was a meeting of intimidation,”
Hoffman told JTA.
Micky Rosenfeld, a spokesman for the
Israel Police, confirmed the basics of
Hoffman’s account. But Shmulik Ben-Ruby,
a spokesman for the Jerusalem police,
denied that the matter has been referred to
prosecutors. He said that Hoffman and her
group are suspected of having acted to
“hurt the feelings” of worshippers at the
wall. “We are still checking and will see
what will be the end in the investigation,”
Ben-Ruby added.
Hoffman’s questioning threatens to further
exacerbate
tensions
between
American Jewish groups and more conservative elements within the Israel’s
Orthodox-controlled religious establishment.
She told JTA that she hoped to “wake the
American Jewish giant” in an effort to prevent the attorney general from moving
ahead with prosecution. If convicted,
Hoffman said, she faced prison time or a
fine of about $3 000.
The United Synagogue of Conservative
Judaism, the movement’s congregational
arm, issued a statement declaring that
Hoffman’s arrest and fingerprinting,
“opens a new and ominous chapter in intraJewish relations in Israel.”
AROUND
THE
WORLD
NEWS IN
BRIEF
The group urged members to send a letter
to Israel’s ambassador in Washington,
Michael Oren, to inform him of “the gravity
of this issue” and press his government to
“take immediate steps to end the harassment of women seeking to pray with dignity at the Western Wall, Judaism’s most holy
place.”
Hoffman’s questioning comes nearly two
months after another Women of the Wall
member, Nofrat Frenkel, was arrested after
she and other women began reading from a
Torah scroll in the course of the group’s
regular prayer session at the wall, timed to
coincide with the start of the new Hebrew
month.
Frenkel and Hoffman were informed that
they were in violation of an Israeli Supreme
Court ruling that, citing concerns about
public safety, denied women the right to
read from the Torah in the regular women’s
section of the wall. The ruling resulted in
the designation of a nearby site, known as
Robinson’s Arch, as the place for women to
pray as a group with a Torah scroll.
Hoffman scoffs at the solution, calling it
“separate, but it’s not equal”. A Torah scroll
the group uses was damaged by rain at the
site, which lacks a covered space like the
men’s section at the wall.
“It is not a place of prayer,” she said. “It is
a place where we are praying, and a tour
guide is walking with a tour, showing them
the different archaeological artefacts. And
most important, we can’t read Torah there
in safety because it rains on our head.”
Rabbi Avi Shafran, a spokesman for the
fervently Orthodox group Agudath Israel of
America, defended the limitations on
women’s prayer groups.
“People of all faiths, after all, are welcome at the Kotel - as they should be,” he
wrote in an opinion essay distributed via email. “Out of respect, though, for the
Jewish historical and spiritual connection
to the place, public services there should
respect a single standard of decorum. And
that standard should be, as it has been, millennia-old Jewish religious tradition.”
Promoting a “particular view of feminism,” Shafran added, “should not compel
them to act in ways that they know will
offend others, to seek to turn a holy place
into a political arena.” (JTA)
EVER SINCE South Africa was chosen to
host the 2010 Fifa World Cup, the date “2010”
has assumed talismanic status for all South
Africans.
While we have successfully hosted a number of major international sports tournaments in the past, none were of the kind of
scale and prestige that distinguishes football’s premier event. It promises to be a most
exciting six months as the countdown continues, and I hope that our Jewish community will join their fellow citizens in making
the most of it.
We are looking forward to welcoming the
many Jewish visitors expected to be here for
the event. To this end have set up a special
website - www.jewish2010.com - a comprehensive information resource that will
enable them to make use of our Jewish communal facilities during their stay.
The site lists everything a Jewish visitor
from abroad might want to know, including
historical, religious and cultural information, practical guidelines on such day-to-day
requirements as transport to and from airports and details of kosher facilities, accommodation and shul times.
As stressed in previous columns, the site,
while it is being facilitated by the SAJBD,
very much belongs to the Jewish community as a whole. We invite you to consult and
use it as much as possible.
* * *
A second major event that the Board is
involved in is the forthcoming visit by the
leadership of both the Conference of
Presidents of Major American Jewish
Organisations (CPMAJO) and of the Euro-
WIZO
Asian Jewish Congress (EJC).
These will be arriving in February for a
packed week-long programme, including
meetings with government members at the
highest levels. The Board is intrinsically
involved in planning and co-ordinating the
visit, the details of which will be dealt with in
future columns.
* * *
Fortunately, we have not been faced with
the kind of pressing challenges that characterised the start of the last calendar year,
when anger over the war in Gaza spilled over
into open anti-Semitism on our streets.
That being said, the potential for the Middle
East conflict to once again negatively impact
on our community, remains ongoing.
Last December our national director,
Wendy Kahn, participated in the Third Global
Forum for Combating Anti-Semitism, held in
Jerusalem. The sobering message that came
through loud and clear was that global antiSemitism is very much on the rise, and that is
continually being fuelled - often even justified
- by hostility towards Israel.
* * *
We hope and pray that this year will see
genuine progress made towards bringing
about a lasting peace between Israel and its
neighbours, but at the same time we must be
prepared to deal with the fallout should this
not happen.
As in years gone past, the Board will do
everything necessary to ensure that Jewish
civil rights and freedoms are upheld, while
simultaneously striving to lead our community in being a proud, productive and identifying part of the greater South African
nation.
Shalom
chaveroth
South Africa
Benefitting: WIZO; Youth Aliyah;
Keren Hayesod; Friends of the IDF;
Beit Halochem; JNF
A column of WIZO South Africa
YVONNE JAWITZ
I AM enormously proud to assume the role
of president of WIZO South Africa and as I
take the helm I am aware of the many challenges facing women today. Sadly, women’s
rights have not always been prioritised but a
new year heralds with it new opportunities
for change.
A lot has been said about the power of
women and the bonds of sisterhood that
cross cultural boundaries and borders of
countries. WIZO South Africa prides itself in
being part of an international women’s
movement that has and continues to break
barriers in the pursuit of women’s rights
and equality the world over.
With over 52 federations all over the world
(some in countries where we barely hear an
inkling of a Jewish community) WIZO is a
celebration of the diversity, complexities
and spirit of women. We realise the power
and potential that we have as a non-governmental organisation that has the rare privilege of consultative status on United Nations
bodies, UNICEF and ECOSOC at a time of
increased hostilities against Israel.
Part of this is ensuring that we are persistent in our lobbying efforts for the rights
of women and children.
Women share a unique perspective on the
issues confronting us both in our communities and those that are gender driven. It is
with this special understanding that WIZO
South Africa seeks to strengthen our bonds
with our sisters from various women’s
organisations as we link together in commemoration of days that highlight various
issues surrounding women today.
Domestic violence, rape, the plight of
breast cancer, HIV/Aids in South Africa,
the right to education and employment and
equal rights are global issues for women
and WIZO South Africa proudly takes its
place in the pantheon of sister organisations who are dedicated to improving the
status and lives of women in our country as
well as globally.
The year 2010 brings with it not only
great opportunities for South Africa as we
steadily approach hosting the World Cup
Soccer tournament, but renewed enthusiasm and vigour for our members whose
dedication and commitment sets a shining
example. We extend an invitation to you to
join us in making 2010 a year of exceptional
achievement. L’chaim!
The above columns are paid for by the SAJBD and WIZO South Africa
ADL CLAIMS ISLAMIC CONFERENCE WAS ANTI-SEMITIC
NEW YORK - The Anti-Defamation League has
accused two Muslim groups of using an Islamic
summit as a platform for anti-Semitic rhetoric.
After reviewing transcripts of a convocation for
a conference in Chicago in late December, the
ADL said the Muslim American Society and the
Islamic Circle of North America "served as a
forum for religious scholars and political activists
to rail against Jews, call for the eradication of the
state of Israel and accuse the United States government as waging a war against Muslims at
home and abroad," the Washington Times report-
ed.
The ADL said the conference, which was billed
as promoting positive solutions to hate, included
several radical Muslim clerics, including Anwar
al-Awlaki, who has encouraged jihad against the
United States and was tied to Fort Hood shooting
suspect Maj Nidal Hasan. Awlaki also had ties to
Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who was
accused of trying to blow up a Detroit-bound
plane on Christmas Day.
Conference officials called the ADL's claims
"totally inaccurate" and said they had disinvited
two radical Islamic speakers.
"We brought in 700 youth from across the country to refute the views held by al-Awlaki," said
Mahdi Bray, executive director of MAS Freedom.
"The ADL didn't mention our interfaith programme either.
"As for the books and materials, we had a
bazaar with 300 vendors. There was no way we
could police everything that was published there
just as the ADL would not be able to stop groups
at one of their conferences from posting
Islamophobic materials." (JTA)
12
SA JEWISH REPORT
15 - 22 January 2010
WHAT’S ON
NOTE: Deadline for all entries is 12:00 on the Friday
prior to publication.
Key to organisations, venues, contact
details and cost:
• Beyachad Resource Centre/Library, 2 Elray St, Raedene, 2192. Norma Shulman (011) 645-2567. email:[email protected]
• Bikkur Cholim - Jewish Society for Visiting the Sick,
7A Chester Road, Greenside East, Johannesburg.
Joy Gafin (011) 447-6689.
• CAJE - College of Adult Jewish Education, Sydenham Highlands North Shul (011)640-5021.
• CSO - Emergency phone number 086 18 000 18.
• FFHS - Friendship Forum for Holocaust Survivors,
Second Generation and Members of the Community
Affected by the Holocaust. Presentations held at the
Gerald Horwitz Lounge, Golden Acres, 85 George
Ave, Sandringham
• HOD - Hebrew Order of David International. HOD
Centre Oaklands Road, Orchards. Office (011) 640
3017 - [email protected]
• JAFFA - Jewish Accomodation for Fellow Aged.
(012) 346-2007/8.
• KDSF - King David Schools’ Foundation. King David
Alumni [email protected] (011) 480-4723.
• Nechama Bereavement Counselling Centre - Room
A304, 3rd Floor, Hospital Wing, Sandringham Gardens, 85 George Avenue, Sandringham, 2192. Contact (011) 640-1322.
• New Friendship Ladies’ Group - A group for single
women - contact Lucille (011) 791-5226 or 082927-5786.
• ORT and ORTJET South Africa - 44 Central Street,
Cnr 10th Ave, Houghton. Contact (011) 728-7154.
• Preview Theatre - 9 Valerie Crescent, Bagleyston,
(011) 640-1061.
• Rabbi Cyril Harris Community Centre (RCHCC) and
Great Park Shul, Johannesburg. Contact Hazel, (011)
728-8088 or Rene Sidley (011) 728-8378. Cost usually R50, including refreshments.
• SAIJE - Sandton Adult Institute of Jewish Education,
Sandton Shul. E-mail: [email protected].
(011) 883-4210.
• Second Innings, Johannesburg - Jewish Community
Services - Donald Gordon Centre, 85 George Avenue
Sandringham. Their group meets at the Gerald Horwitz Lounge, Golden Acres, 85 George Avenue Sandringham every Sunday morning for tea at 10h00
followed by the meeting at 10h30. Contact Grecia
Gabriel (011) 532-9718 for information.
• Society of Israel Philately (SIP) - [email protected].
Contact Maurice (011) 485-2293.
• South African Jewish Board of Deputies (Johannesburg) - Beyachad, 2 Elray Street, Raedene. Contact
(011) 645-2500 or (011) 645-2523.
• South African Zionist Federation (SAZF), Johannesburg - Beyachad, 2 Elray Street, Raedene. Contact
Froma, (011) 645-2505.
• The Israel Centre. Contact Debbie (011) 645-2560.
• The Jewish National Fund (JNF) Choir, Beyachad, 2
Elray St, Raedene. Contact Crystal Kaplan. 083-3765999.
• The Jewish Outlook Team. Contact Ryan Cane. Support line: 27 76 215 8600; e-mail info@jewishout
look.org.za; website www.jewishoutlook.org.za
• The Jewish Women’s Benevolent Society (JWBS) Sandringham Gardens, 85 George Avenue Sandringham 2192. Contact Carolyn Sabbagh. (011) 485-5232.
• The Simcha Friendship and Cultural Circle (SFCC),
Johannesburg - Sandton Shul. Contact Sylvia Shull,
(011) 783-5600.
• The United Sisterhood, 38 Oxford Road Parktown.
Contact Marian (011) 646-2409. website:
www.unitedsisterhood.co.za
• Tiyulim (Jewish Outdoor Club) - Contact Martin 082965-7419 or Greg 082-959-9026
• Union of Jewish Women (UJW), Johannesburg - 1
Oak Street Houghton. Contact (011) 648-1053. Cost
R15 for the Friendship Luncheon Club and a R20
donation for lectures unless other wise stated.
• Union of Jewish Women (UJW), Cape Town - (021)
434-9555, e-mail: [email protected].
• UJW Cape Town AED Programme - Venue: Stonehaven. Time: 10:00 for 10:30. Entrance: R15.00 (incl
refreshments).
• United Zionist Luncheon Club (UZLC), Johannesburg Our Parents Home. Contact Gloria, (011) 485-4851 or
072-127-9421.
• UOS Union of Orthodox Synagogues (011) 485-4865.
E-mail: [email protected]. Fax 086-610-3442
• WIZO Johannesburg - Beyachad, 2 Elray Street Raedene. Contact Joyce Chodos (011) 645-2548 or Sandy
Kramer (011) 645-2515. wizopublicrelations@
beyachad.co.za
Friday (January 22)
• UZLC presents David Batzofin, well-known radio personality, on “Goodbye ‘09, Hello 2010”.
Sunday (January 24)
• Second Innings presents klezmer music by the Yochi
Ress Band, with singer Len Kay. Cost: R40 per person.
Monday (January 25)
• UJW House & Garden Circle meeting. Peter Goodwin
from Colourful Splendour will talk on “What to plant in
your garden in January”. Time: 09:30 for 10:00.
• UJW - Current Affairs. Gavin Lewis, Member of the
Provincial Legislature in Gauteng, will talk on “President Jacob Zuma - How Are We Doing So Far?” Time:
09:30. Donation: R20.
Tuesday (January 26)
• Second Innings Film Club presents “High Society”
with some Movietone news reels and an introduction
by Selwyn Klass. Time: 18:30 at the Gerald Horwitz
Lounge, Golden Acres. Cost R15.
Wednesday (January 27)
• WIZO Meir Szold branch invites mature beauties to
THE BRIDGE LOUNGE by Jeff Sapire
The hold-up play is pretty standard stuff
for most players, but to execute it properly,
one has to have a look at the situation in the
context of the entire hand.
West dealer, both vul
NORTH
K965
Q5
J974
A53
WEST
EAST
QJ84
103
K10643
J972
K6
8
J9
KQ8742
SOUTH
A72
A8
AQ10532
106
East
South
Pass
1NT
Dbl
3D
All pass
West
Pass
Pass
Pass
North
Pass
2C
3NT
Opening lead: CJ
South decided to upgrade his excellent
fourteen count with a six card suit and
opened a 15-17 NT. Over North’s Stayman
response, East grabbed the opportunity to
make a lead-directing double. The idea is that
whenever opponents make an artificial bid, a
double shows that suit. South tried an innovative 3D, denying a major and showing good,
long diamonds, over which North settled for
3NT.
On the jack of clubs lead declarer had to
decide when to take the ace. The danger on
this hand is what will happen if the diamond
finesse loses - because if the king is onside
there are never any problems.
Clearly it was correct to duck the first
trick, because a losing diamond finesse
would have allowed West to return a club,
but when the latter continued with the nine
it was time to think again, because another
danger had presented itself.
A second duck would allow East to win
with the queen, and with his hand devoid of
entries, to switch to a heart. Now, whichever heart declarer played, presumably low,
the defence would continue hearts, establishing the suit for West while he still had
the king of diamonds as an entry. The
defenders would then come to seven tricks,
for three down.
Declarer, however, got it right and put up
the ace of clubs at trick two. When the diamond finesse lost, West was out of clubs and
there were nine tricks. Declarer’s key decision was based on West’s lead of the jack followed by the nine, surely showing a doubleton.
With say, J94, the correct lead would have
been low from an honour. Note, however,
that East could have had his name in lights
for a sparkling defence. It’s not easy, but if
he had overtaken the jack of clubs’ lead at
trick one with the queen, declarer would
have been in an impossible position - winning the first club would lead to disaster, but
ducking would allow East to switch to a
heart, also leading to defeat.
Every Tuesday (semi-beginners) and
Wednesday (intermediate) at 10:00 I run
bridge workshops at the Great Park Shul,
off Glenhove Road. For more information,
call me on 082-551-2526 or e-mail me at
[email protected]
Barry Bilewitz [email protected]
attend a skincare demonstration by one of South
Africa’s best-known beauty providers. Time 10:00 for
10:30. R50 donation includes a scrumptious tea. For
more information, contact Cecily on (011) 882-9996.
for the bus. Time: 13:30 at the bus, 15:00 at Pieter
Toerien’s Theatre at Montecasino. Meet the bus at the
Oxford Shul parking.
Tuesday (March 9)
Sunday (January 31)
• WIZO Fortnightly Forum presents The Story of Two
Presidents: Anna Trapido - Hunger for Freedom - a
story on Nelson Mandela and journalist Jeremy Gordin
- Zuma, a biography. Time: 09:30 at Beyachad. Cost:
Monday (February 1)
R30. To book, contact Joyce/Sandy on (011) 645• UJW presents Lael Bethlehem, CEO Johannesburg 2515.
Development Agency, on “New Public Art Works And
Sunday (March 21)
Spaces In The Inner City”. Time: 09:30. Donation:
• Second Innings presents Mandy Wiener on “Life as a
R20.
News Reporter - Behind the Political & Judicial
• Registration at 18:30 for the Morris Rutstein/SAZF Scenes”.
Hebrew ulpan course. The weekly course runs from
Wednesday (March 24)
February 2 until June 8 on Tuesday evenings from
19:00 to 21:15. Venue: Yeshiva College, Glenhazel.
• Second Innings has an outing to the Sammy Marks
• Second Innings presents Reeva Forman on “Overcoming Adversity and Learning to Dream Again”.
Museum. Meet the bus at 08:30 at Oxford Shul parking. Cost: R160 per person, includes entrance, guided
tour, lunch and the bus.
Tuesday (February 2)
• UJW presents Estelle Sher on “Music on Jewish
themes: Shostakovich and others.” Time: 09:45 12:00. Venue: 301 Eton Place, Kernick Avenue, Mel- • Second Innings presents Ann Cluver Weinberg on
“Looking For Goodness”.
rose North. Donation: R30 per session.
Sunday (February 7)
• Stellenbosch Hebrew Congregation has a Friday
evening service every week in shul, starting at 18:45.
• Second Innings presents Michael Judin on “Jewish Contact (021) 886-5257.
Giving After the Madoff Scandal”.
• UJW urgently needs donations of good quality warm
Tuesday (February 9)
clothing, blankets and basic foodstuffs for our Kosher
• Second Innings Men’s Group presents Colin Datnow Mobile Meals recipients and for our outreach projects
on “History of the Chevrah Kadisha” at 14:15 for in Soweto, Tembisa and Alexandra. Deliver if possible
14:30. Venue: Our Parents Home, Orchards.
to UJW offices, 1 Oak Street, Houghton or phone
(011) 648-1053.
Sunday (February 14)
• Second Innings presents Scully Levine on “A Day In • The Yiddish Academy offers weekly basic, intermediate and advanced classes on Monday evenings at
The Life Of An Airline Pilot”.
19:30, Tuesday mornings at 10:30 and Thursday
Tuesday (February 23)
evenings at 19:30 at the RCHCC, Glenhove Road,
• WIZO Fortnightly Forum presents “Jozi 2010 - What Houghton. Conversational groups. For details: e-mail
is Happening”, with Lael Bethlehem and Nechama [email protected] or call Hazel Cohen on
Brodie at 09:30 at Beyachad. Cost: R30. To book con- (011) 728-8088.
tact Joyce/Snadyon (011) 645-2515.
• Supervised bridge with Jeff Sapire Tuesday morning 10:00 - 12:00 (intermediate) and Wednesday
Wednesday (February 24)
morning 10:00 - 12:00 (advanced). At the Clive M
• Second Innings has an outing to Bush Babies MonBeck Auditorium. Booking: Hazel or Renée (011)
key Sanctuary near Hartebeespoort Dam. Meet the
728-8088/8378. E-mail: [email protected] or
bus promptly at 08:30 at the Oxford Shul parking.
[email protected]
Cost: R250 per person includes entrance to the park,
the guided tour, lunch and the bus.
• Beis Midrash Chofetz Chaim is offering a second
Ma’ariv minyan every weekday evening (Monday Sunday (February 28)
Friday) at 21:00, cnr Elray and Michel
• Second Innings presents Nick Hulett on saxophone.
Streets, Raedene. Open to broader community.
Don’t fret if you need a later minyan. Secure parkSunday (March 7)
ing provided.
• Second Innings presents Naomi Schutte on “Living
• Sunday Scrabble Club meets every Sunday at
Naturally”.
10:00 at Zahava’s, Grant Avenue, Norwood, off 9th
Street. Cost R5. Players of all strengths welcome.
• Second Innings outing to see “Fully Committied”
Larry 082-888-5355.
with Alan Committie. Cost: R90 for the theatre, R50
CROSSWORD NO 146
BY LEAH SIMON
ACROSS:
1. A stable company (4)
3. Set about avail to drool (8)
8. Country for yours truly - ditto! (4)
9. Kit was as upset by Nazi emblem (8)
11. Not a very realistic choice of dwelling
(7, 5)
13. Nothing for a selection of fruit (6)
14. Yearn for hesitation is continued (6)
17. Being me worst chaos - there’s bad
weather coming (5, 7)
20. The end of the execution - and the
result of a binge the night before (8)
21. Breeding horse kicks up the dust (4)
22. Penetrate hairstyle which Easterner
consumed (8)
23. We French are upset by 1
2
the burden (4)
DOWN:
1. Not a leisurely meal, by
any means (4, 4)
2. Old city returns to madness in the country (7)
4. Sal is upset and conceals
the route - constantly (6)
5. ...Until the fat lady sings,
they say (3, 3, 4)
6. How far I elaborated,
hiding a Shakespearean
character (5)
7. Use flair to ruin lane (4)
10. None grazed around
high-risk area (6, 4)
12. New
wives
hide
Georgia - and army
units (8)
15. Gang leader to hearken
- and shine (7)
16. Complain about the item (6)
18. Haste normally surrounds male
singer (5)
19. Find vessel in the southern joint (4)
SOLUTION TO CROSSWORD NO 145
ACROSS: 1. Sara; 3. Tomorrow; 8. Viva; 9.
Educated; 11. Frosted glass; 13. Climbs;
14. Aghast; 17. The last straw; 20.
Ravished; 21. Dior; 22. Validate; 23. Lets.
DOWN: 1. Save face; 2. Ravioli; 4. Old Eds;
5. Oncologist; 6. Rites; 7. Weds; 10.
Stabilised; 12. Stewards; 15. Airline; 16.
Ascent; 18. Hovel; 19. Erev.
3
8
6
5
4
7
9
10
11
12
14
13
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
15 - 22 January 2010
SA JEWISH REPORT
13
S Africans have seamlessly become part of Oz
ROBYN SASSEN
“I’M PROUD of my South African connections,” Robert Schneider, an Australian environmentalist who left South Africa in 1998,
says. He draws an analogy between himself
and a tree: “Like most Jews, my roots are in
Israel. My trunk is my formative South
African years; my branches have taken me to
Australia.”
The exhibition “It’s not all Black and
White: The South African Jewish Story” at
the Sydney Jewish Museum, focuses on the
60-year-old history of South African Jews in
Australia. It’s curated by Roslyn Sugarman,
former curator of Johannesburg’s Standard
Bank Gallery, who holds SJM’s John
Saunders curatorial chair.
A fine art graduate from Wits University in
the ‘80s, Sugarman became a flight attendant.
By chance, she one day noticed Professor
Alan Crump, at that time chairman of the
National Arts Festival, which fell under the
Standard Bank’s sponsorship portfolio, travelling on a flight she was attending.
She plucked up the courage to ask him to
put in a good employment word for her... one
thing led to another, she was appointed the
first curator of the Standard Bank Gallery,
which was then being built. Sugarman filled
this role for a decade.
“He held my hand metaphorically throughout,” Sugarman recalled, remembering
Crump at the time of his death, in May last
year. Sugarman left for Australia with her
family in 2000; the curatorial lessons she
learnt with the bank and under Crump’s
mentorship were unforgettable.
Curating the show with Barbara Linz (who
The Slender family ride in a rickshaw on
their trip to Durban 2003. (PHOTOGRAPH
COURTESY DANA SLENDER)
left South Africa in 1981), Sugarman
acknowledges the exhibiting space as “small
and bland”; their challenge became to create
a mood incorporating “the beauty and cruelty of life in apartheid South Africa”.
They wanted to make the exhibition appeal
to more than the Jewish community, more
than former South Africans, and aimed to
show that despite being a cohesive community, Jewish immigrants aren’t monolithic.
“Offering a glimpse into South African
Jewish life from its beginnings around the
1840s through its development and onto the
cataclysmic events that led to waves of
migration, this exhibition is punctuated by
voices of former South Africans, now living
in Sydney, giving expression to a range of
views and experiences.
“Jewish life in South Africa was characterised by a strong sense of community and
an enduring connection with Israel. Jewish
responses to apartheid are revealed as multifaceted; motivations for emigration are similarly diverse,” Sugarman writes.
Cherry Shneider, who left in 1979, comments: “It was very difficult to make
Australian friends. When the South Africans
kept to one another - we shared the same difficulties and were able to help one another we were accused of having a ghetto-like mentality, and sticking to our own. Emotionally
and psychologically it affected many of us
and took many years for us to settle.”
“South Africans have been migrating to
Australia since 1948, when the National
Party came to power,” Sugarman observes.
“Subsequent migration occurred in waves
triggered by the Sharpeville Massacre of 1960
and the 1976 Soweto Uprising.
“For some, the fear of living under a black
government following the first democratic
elections in 1994, precipitated migration.
More recently, many emigrated to escape
increasing crime and violence, witnessed by
many first hand, not abstractly.
“Between the ‘70s and 2006, almost a million whites left South Africa: 47 000 were
Jews. The 2006 census showed that 104 000
Three young
South African
Jews with
their nannies,
ca 1936.
(PHOTOGRAPH
COURTESY JOY
BLOCH)
persons born in South Africa now live in
Australia; about 15 000 are Jews. For South
Africans, the similar lifestyle, climate and
language make Australia a destination of
choice.
The impact of emigration, loss of identity,
massive internal adjustment, psychological
and financial hardships for many, is negated
or not taken seriously: South African Jews
are perceived as privileged and educated.
The voices, photographs and memorabilia of
former South Africans, now living in Sydney
give expression to a wide range of views and
experiences of assimilation Down Under.
The curators endeavoured to represent
the seductive power of South African sights,
sounds and smells different from that of
Australia. Then they added the next layer:
that of fear, discrimination and ugliness.
“This exhibition is their story,” Sugarman,
presents an understanding of the project that
aimed to be neither too contentious nor too
light; not too prosaic nor too romantic. The
exhibition has been extremely popular.
“We’ve estimated that around 3 500 new visitors - who have never before visited the museum - have been,” Sugarman added, tolling up
close to 1 000 names in the visitors’ book.
“Overwhelmingly, the comments are full of
praise from local and international visitors,
including David and Linda Shapiro from
South Africa who reminded readers that
Linda’s mother, Esther Barsel was in prison
in South Africa for her anti-apartheid beliefs.”
Another, whose signature was illegible,
commented that the exhibition brought a
“lump to the throat of a Boere Jood”; Robyn
Garrun (Johannesburg) added: “Enjoyed the
Nathan and
Miriam Shur and
their daughters,
Vivian (left) and
Rachel on a
Europeans only
bench, Durban
1958. (PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY
VIVIAN WOLFF)
history, but overwhelmingly Afro-pessimistic!”
“I guess this is to be expected,” Sugarman
concludes, “since the exhibition is based on
the experiences and perspectives of Jews
who have left South Africa.
“It’s probably unlikely that we would host
another South African exhibition unless it
had a completely different angle,” Sugarman
adds. “I’d imagine that we would more likely
curate an exhibition about another minority
group, such as the Russian or Egyptian
Jewish in Australia.” The museum has hosted exhibitions about the Hungarian Jews and
Jews of Shanghai in the past.
• “It’s Not All Black and White” had been
scheduled to close on December 12 but due to
popular demand, it has been extended until
the end of January.
14
SA JEWISH REPORT
SAZF slams
govt’s stance on
terror attacks
THE SOUTH African Zionist Federation has
expressed its disappointment at the most recent
statement by the South African government following the rocket attacks into Israel by Hamas and
Israel’s retaliation in order to safeguard Israeli citizens.
An SAZF media release on behalf of Avrom
Krengel, chairman of the organisation, states:
“Once again the government has failed to comment on the reason for Israel’s attack, choosing
instead to imply that it was carried out without
provocation, and that the Palestinians had no role
to play in it.
“The South African government cannot claim to
play any meaningful role in peace negotiations in
the Middle East when it so blatantly expresses its
bias towards the Palestinians and against Israel,
and fails to acknowledge the very hostile actions of
the Palestinians which are aimed at destroying
any chance of a peaceful resolution to this ongoing
conflict.”
AROUND THE
WORLD
15 - 22 January 2010
Concourt is in good hands,
says Justice Albie Sachs
STORY AND PHOTOGRAPH BY
MOIRA SCHNEIDER
CAPE TOWN
MR JUSTICE Albie Sachs has described
his 15 years on the Constitutional Court
as “amazing and wonderful. It’s absolutely thrilling work, the most intellectual
work you can get in the modern world.
“I tell you, I’m suffering withdrawal
symptoms,” said the recently-retired
judge, addressing a session of The Living
Newspaper.
He pronounced himself “so amazed
and proud of what we’ve achieved in
South Africa - so many things are not
good at all, some things are spectacularly
wonderful.”
Justice Sachs described his neighbour
at the Court, newly-appointed Chief
Justice Sandile Ngcobo, as having “an
absolutely brilliant legal mind” and
Deputy Chief Justice Dikgang Moseneke
as a “great warm person, deeply thoughtful, very modern and progressive.
“I think the Court’s in good hands,” he
said, referring to the “alarm some people
had some months ago that the character
of the Court was going to be disturbed.”
Asked at question time whether the
practice of affirmative action was not
“somewhat hypocritical” in a democratic
society, Justice Sachs said he felt the state
and private sector were obliged to take
specific measures to overcome the disadvantages of the past. The key issue, he
stressed, was whether discrimination
was fair or unfair.
“So, if you’re simply giving jobs to people because they are women or black,
irrespective of their capacity or potential, that is unfair. If you completely
exclude those from an advantaged background, that is unfair.
“The question is not if you’re going to
have affirmative action, but how you’re
going to have it in a fair way.”
While humour was essential for a
democracy, the right to satire did not
trump everything else, he continued. In
the case of Holocaust denial, Justice
Sachs said he’d be inclined to say that
freedom of speech gave way to an individual’s right to dignity, adding that it was
the Court’s role to balance out competing
claims.
NEWS IN BRIEF
POPE CALLS FOR A TWO-STATE SOLUTION
AJWS LAUNCHES FUND TO BACK UGANDAN
GAYS
WASHINGTON - A major US Jewish relief service has launched a fund to support opposition to
a proposed Ugandan law that targets gays.
The American Jewish World Service, already
active in relief activities in the east African
nation, announced last Friday the Urgent LGBT
Uganda Fund, using the acronym for LesbianGay-Transgender-Bisexual.
Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Bill would
expand penalties for gay activity up to the death
penalty.
"The passage of this bill would severely
impede human rights and development groups'
efforts to ensure the safety and security of the
Ugandan LGBT community," an AJWS statement said.
"It would also make it extremely difficult for
groups to implement effective prevention and
treatment of HIV/Aids. Moreover, the bill violates the freedom of every person to live a safe
and dignified life - a core value that unifies all of
AJWS's work and is central to the Jewish experience."
AJWS has circulated letters among lawmakers in Congress and elsewhere calling on
President Barack Obama and Ugandan
President Yoweri Museveni to push back against
the legislation. (JTA)
Mr Justice Albie Sachs, former justice of the Constitutional Court (left) talks to a
member of the audience after addressing a session of The Living Newspaper.
New spider species discovered in Israel
HAIFA - A new and previously
unknown species of spider has been discovered in the dune of the Sands of
Samar in the southern Arava region by
a team of scientists from the
Department of
Biology in the
University of Haifa-Oranim. Unfortunately, however, its habitat is endangered.
“The discovery of this new spider
illustrates our obligation to preserve
the dune,” says Dr Uri Shanas of the
University of Haifa, who headed the
team of scientists.
The Sands of Samar are the last
remaining sand dune in Israeli territory
in the southern Arava region. In the
past, the sands stretched across some
seven square kilometres, but due to the
rezoning of areas for agriculture and
sand quarries, the sands have been
reduced to fewer than three square kilometres.
During a course of studies that Dr
Shanas’ research team has carried out
in the region, they discovered this new
spider, a member of the Cerbalus genus.
Since it has been found in the Arava, it
has been given the name Cerbalus
aravensis.
The researchers say that this spider’s
leg-span can reach up to 14 cm, which
makes it the largest spider of its type in
the Middle East. Even though details
are still lacking to enable a full analysis
of its biology and of its population in
the sands, the scientists know that this
is a nocturnal spider, mostly active in
the hottest months of the year, and that
PHOTO: YAEL OLEK
ROME - Pope Benedict XVI has called for "universal recognition" of both Israel's right to exist
and the rights of Palestinians to an independent
state.
In his traditional New Year's address on
Monday, to world diplomats accredited to the
Vatican, the pope recalled that during his trip to
Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority last
May, he had "urgently appealed" for dialogue
and respect between Israelis and the
Palestinians.
"Once again I call for a universal recognition
of the right of the State of Israel to exist and to
enjoy peace and security within internationally
recognised borders," he said. "Likewise, the
right of the Palestinian people to a sovereign
and independent homeland, to live in dignity
and to enjoy freedom of movement, ought to be
recognised."
The pope also called for "the protection of the
identity and sacred character of Jerusalem, and
of its cultural and religious heritage, which is of
universal value".
In another development, the Vatican issued a
statement over the weekend saying that the latest meeting of representatives of Israel and the
Vatican had been "useful" in moving toward an
agreement on unresolved financial issues clouding relations between the two states.
Members of the Bilateral Permanent Working
Commission between the Holy See and Israel
met last week in Jerusalem. (JTA)
Commenting on the “bickering” that
characterises the public discourse,
Justice Sachs said we were “in a way all
responsible because we read the newspapers with these headlines. There are people who love to hate - the newspapers promote this because it is exciting; they follow politician X around and he becomes a
big, prominent personality.
“The way it trivialises politics, is my
concern. The big issues get lost and I
think that’s very sad.”
Justice Sachs stressed that civility was
an important element of a democratic
society, with rules of discourse being necessary. “The exchange of insults and the
way this gets carried, introduces levels of
incivility that can be quite threatening to
democracy when it’s backed up by force,”
he said, adding, however, that we were
“nowhere near there”.
Earlier he remarked that, although
there had been “very authoritarian”
groupings inside the ANC in exile, “anything to do with (ANC President) Oliver
Tambo was as democratic as you can get.
There’s no justification for any authoritarianism today by people who claim to
be carrying forward the struggle,” he
maintained.
Reminiscing on his time in detention in
the 1960s, Justice Sachs treated the audience to a rendition of what he termed his
theme song, “Always”, complete with
substituted lyrics appropriate to his situation. “I’ll be living here always...”
He had vowed then that “if ever I’m in
a position of authority, I will never allow
this to be done to another human being”.
Then “suddenly that day arrived”, he
said, referring to his influence on the
Constitution and its express inclusion of
the words “No detention without trial”.
Professor Robert Schrire, chairman of
the department of political studies at the
University of Cape Town, noted that “30
or 40 years ago, a lot of you would have
regarded Albie and Joe Slovo as the worst
sort of Jewish life, an embarrassment to
the community. When we look back, we
should get on our knees and thank them
that we have so little racism in public
life”.
At the start of the meeting, Justice
Sachs called for a minute’s silence in
honour of the late Mendel Kaplan.
it constructs an underground den which
is closed with a “lifting door” made of
sand particles that are glued together to
camouflage the den.
The scientists’ excitement is indeed
mixed with apprehension. According to
Dr
Shanas,
the
Israel
Land
Administration intends to renew mining projects in the Sands of Samar in
the near future, which will endanger the
existence of the newly discovered spider. He adds that it is possible that there
are additional unknown animal species
living in the sands, and therefore efforts
should be made to preserve this unique
region in the Arava.
“The new discovery shows how much
we still have to investigate, and that
there are likely to be many more species
that are unknown to us. If we do not
preserve the few habitats that remain
for these species, they will become
extinct before we can even discover
them,” Dr Shanas concludes.
15 - 22 January 2010
SA JEWISH REPORT 15
AROUND
THE WORLD
NEWS IN BRIEF
SACRAMENTO SYNAGOGUE HIT WITH
ANTI-SEMITIC VANDALISM
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the next edition. Our banking details: SA Jewish Report, Nedbank Randburg, Account Number: 1984 514 865, Branch Code: 198405
NOTICES
THE JEWISH REPORT
RUNS ADVERTS IN THE
CLASSIFIED SECTION IN
GOOD FAITH, HOWEVER
WE WOULD LIKE OUR
READERS TO KNOW WE
CANNOT BE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE QUALITY
OF SERVICES OFFERED
AND CLAIMS MADE.
SERVICES
HOME SERVICES
TIMESHARE FOR SALE
HEALTH & BEAUTY
GENERAL
MABALINGWE NATURE
RESERVE & HOLIDAY
RESORT
1 wk – early May for sale, a
most peaceful period when the
animals are seen in abundance.
6-sleeper chalet.
Self-catering & serviced.
26 km from Bela Bela.
20 min to Warm Baths Spa.
R20 500 neg (onco).
Call (011) 640-5350
HANDY GRAMPS
Household, general repairs and
maintenance.
MITCH 072-196-1939
CONSECRATIONS
LAW
WANT TO RENOVATE
YOUR HOME BUT AFRAID
OF COMPROMISING
SECURITY?
• Over 30 years of experience
• On site supervision
• Only reliable, skilled &
trustworthy labour used
• Bathrooms, kitchens, lighting,
cupboards
• Renovations & additions
• General repairs undertaken
Call Max Swartz
on 082-443-7310
PERSONAL
SOULMATES
COUNTRYWIDE - MANY
GAUTENG AND CAPE MEMBERS!
RESULTS: 181 COUPLES
MARRIED! 261 COUPLES
MATCHED!
MAZELTOV TO ANN (CAPE) &
STAN (JHB), JEFF & RIA ON
YOUR ENGAGEMENTS
BEAUTIFUL/HANDSOME SINGLES SEEK MATCHES
Handsome doctor 27yr; stunning blonde air hostess 29yr;
beautiful slim psychologist 24yr;
stunning blonde pharmacist
60yr; good looking attorney
65yr; pretty chic pharmacist
32yr; advocates 31, 45, 58yrs;
handsome liquidator (own bus)
56yr; good looking charismatic
engineer 46; handsome pilots
62, 36yr; handsome surgeon
59yr; pretty hairdressers 26, 34,
58; pretty filmmaker 37yr; handsome estate agent (own bus)
60yr; handsome plumber (own
bus) 42yr; good looking engineer 45yr; pretty financial consultant 48yr; handsome CA
(SA) Masters 31yr; good-looking BSc (Phar) 53yr; handsome
grad (owner 3 bus) 52yr; good
looking grad 36yr; pretty vet
43yr; charismatic handsome co
owner 67yr; beautiful model 46;
pretty grad 40yr; stunning doctors 28, 30, 35, 43, 49, 58 62yr;
handsome attorneys 29, 33,38,
46, 56 68yr ETC, ETC, ETC.
MANY OTHER
PRETTY/HANDSOME
PROF/EXEC/BUSINESS/
TRADE SINGLES ARE
WAITING TO MEET YOU!
SANDY (011) 4854034/082-357-3616
PLUMBER
BRIAN K
Will schlep and carry mom, dad
& kids 24/7 anywhere in comfort
at competitive rates.
Call 073 438 0563
CAPE TOWN
SHUTTLE
COMING TO
CAPE TOWN?
AFFORDABLE
RATES.
AIRPORT
TRANSFERS
FROM R160
NEW
COMFORTABLE
VEHICLE
PHONE ANDY
082-336-9780
EX ISRAELI SERVICEMAN
offers safe and secure lifts. 24
hrs. Airport lifts from R180 also
schools, malls, courier etc
from R50.
Call Neil 072-050-9927
TUITION & EDUCATION
SUPERVISED
HOMEWORK
Qualified teacher offering
homework supervision
after school.
All primary school
grades, all subjects.
Call 082-795-3284
AVAILABLE
PART/FULL-TIME DOMESTIC WORKER WANTED
Domestic worker with good references, knowledge of kashrut
& experience with young children. Required for part or fulltime position in Sandhurst.
Please call Michelle on
(011) 507-0011
LIVE-IN DOMESTIC
WORKER REQ. FOR
KOSHER HOME.
MORNINGSIDE
Must be able to cook & understand Kashrut. SA citizen - contactable ref’s. Btw 35 – 45 yrs
only. Good with kids.
083-443-9503
LIFTS
AIRPORT SHUTTLE
----- R150 ---From Glenhazel / Senderwood /
Lyndhurst areas.
Reasonable rates from all other
areas.
SAM (011) 728-5219
083-627-8516
VACANCIES
PROPERTY TO LET
ACCOMMODATION TO LET/SHARE
SAVOY
North-facing, 3 bedroom duplex
in small complex, in quiet road,
near Chabad Savoy.
Call Monica
(011) 481-3400
ACCOMMODATION WANTED
First year male university student, seeking accom in Jhb
from Jan/Feb 2010.
Kindly contact Debbie (after
12pm daily)
Cell: 082-294-2508
PROPERTY FOR SALE
COMPLEX, CLUSTERS, DUPLEXES,
SIMPLEXES & TOWNHOUSES
COMPANION/HOUSE
MANAGER RQD
For elderly, retired professional couple living in a wellsecured retirement complex
in Highlands North, Jhb.
Wife is suffering dementia.
Suitable for a recently
retired teacher, nurse, social
worker or other graduate,
male or female. Hrs 9.301.30, 3-5 days p/week neg.
Duties include: ordering and
managing medication, managing carers/domestic staff
and overall housekeeping,
weekly shopping, overseeing lunch, driving to doctors'
appointments and shops (a
car is available), helping to
occupy the elderly gentleman e.g. reading the newspaper and walking in the
grounds. Must be energetic,
patient, honest and reliable.
Valid driver's licence and
recent references rqd.
Salary neg. dependent on
experience.
Please email CV and
any queries to Debbie
dstbidoli@
webafrica.org.za
by 21 January 2010.
VEHICLES
WANTED
ARE YOU
IMMIGRATING
OVERSEAS AND
WANT TO SELL
YOUR VEHICLE?
“ON SHOW”
SUNDAY 17th JANUARY.
UNIT 52 ROYAL LINKSFIELD
22, Edward Avenue,
Sandringham – follow
boards from George
Avenue
Please Contact
Solly Kramer
082-922-3597
anytime
SACRAMENTO - A Sacramento synagogue has been the target of anti-Semitic
vandalism.
Members of the Orthodox synagogue
Kenesset Israel Torah Centre in the
California capital, discovered spraypainted swastikas and other graffiti,
including demonic symbols and hate
rhetoric, on the morning of January 1,
Jweekly reported. It is the second act of
vandalism on a Sacramento-area synagogue in two months.
Four cars parked near the synagogue
also were vandalised.
The spray-painted epithets were
removed by the end of the day by a member of a neighbouring church who specialises in removing graffiti. (JTA)
MEXICAN TYCOON KILLED IN COPTER
CRASH
MEXICO CITY - Mexican Jewish tycoon
Moises Saba Masri was killed early
Monday morning in a helicopter crash
near Mexico City.
Masri, 47, died when one of the rotors
of the helicopter in which he was riding
struck a building due to heavy fog,
according to reports. Five others, including Masri's wife, son and daughter-in-law,
and the pilot, were killed in the crash.
Masri owned real estate and medical
companies, and had extensive holdings in
the Mexican telecom company Unefon
and broadcaster TV Azteca. He also
owned two hotels in Acapulco.
Israel's Zaka rescue organisation sent a
delegation to Mexico on Monday afternoon to assist in identifying the dead.
(JTA)
16
SA JEWISH REPORT
15 - 22 January 2010
Israeli tennis player Harel Levy
will be in action at the SA Tennis
Open to be played at Montecasino
from February 1 to 7.
Harel Levy set to
contest SA Open
JACK MILNER
ONE OF the heroes of the Israeli Davis Cup
team, Harel Levy, will be in action at the
South African Open Tennis tournament to
be played at Montecasino in Sandton from
February 1 to 7.
Levy made his first trip to South Africa in
April last year when he played in the Soweto
Open, which was a Challenger event. He
obviously had a good time and has decided
to return this year for the big one, which carries prize money of R3,5-million.
The Israeli, who is currently ranked 119,
will face some stiff competition at
Montecasino. Heading the list of entries is
world No 13, Gael Monfils of France, as well
as Spain’s David Ferrer, who reached the
semifinals last year. It was Ferrer who put
out Israel’s Dudi Sela in the first round last
year. Sela led 2-0 in the opening set but failed
to win another game.
While Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga will
not be here to defend his title, runner-up
Jeremy Chardy will be back, hoping to go
one better. He put out Ferrer in the semifinals and in this last year has seen his world
ranking climb to No 32.
Two highly regarded left-handers will be
making their first appearance at the SA
Open in Spaniard Feliciano Lopez and
Finland’s Jarkko Nieminen. Also on the list
are Germany’s Nicolas Kiefer and former
Wimbledon semifinalist, Xavier Malisse of
Belgium.
Lopez is currently ranked 47 but he has
been ranked in the top 20. Nieminen has
been as high as 13 in 2006 but this year
missed out on three months due to a wrist
injury and dropped to No 88.
Malisse has had his ups and downs over
the year but had his huge breakthrough at
Wimbledon in 2002 when beating both Greg
Rusedski and Richard Krajicek in five sets
and then going down in a rain-delayed semifinal to David Nalbandian, also in five sets.
He reached his career-high ranking of 19
after that, but is currently at 94.
Kiefer was the hero of the German Davis
Cup team when they played South Africa in
Johannesburg. He and Wesley Moodie were
involved in a tough five-setter, and a victory
to Moodie would have given South Africa the
tie. Unfortunately Moodie had also been in a
five-set thriller in which he beat Tommy
Haas and played the doubles rubber and
tired at the end of his match against Kiefer.
A brilliant player in his day, Kiefer has
been ranked as high as No 4 in the world. But
injury has taken its toll over the years.
However, the conditions in Johannesburg
will be ideal for a player who still serves and
volleys with great effectiveness.
Last year proved to be the most outstanding year ever in Israeli tennis history when
against all odds they reached the semifinals
of the Davis Cup World Group. They went
down to eventual winners Spain, who had
home ground advantage, but on the way they
beat Sweden in a tie that was played behind
closed doors in Malmö after protests against
the Israeli presence in Sweden.
Levy himself won the final tie in five sets
against Andreas Vinciguerra to hand Israel
the victory.
“That has to be the greatest moment of my
tennis career. My win over (Pete) Sampras
and reaching the final of the Tennis Masters
in Toronto were also great, but this was a fantastic moment,’’ Levy said.
But the win against Russia was even more
spectacular as Levy and Sela took the first
two rubbers against Igor Andreev and Mikael
Youzhny respectively at the Nokia Sports
Palace in Tel Aviv and then Jonathan Erlich
and Andy Ram closed out the tie with a fiveset victory in the doubles over Igor Kuznitsyn
and Marat Safin.
Compatriot Noam Okun has also entered
the SA Open but he will need to qualify if he
is to make the main draw.
In other tennis news, Israel’s Shahar Peer
had to shrug off a protest at her presence and
a security scare that forced the evacuation of
the venue in order to advance to the second
round of the Auckland Classic last week. .
A small group of people carrying placards
and chanting against Israel’s treatment of
Palestinians mingled outside the Auckland
Tennis Centre before Peer took to Court Four
for her first round match against Slovenia’s
Polona Hercog.
Prior to play starting, however, an unattended bag by a spectator provoked a fullblown security scare forcing the evacuation
of the venue before police and security staff
discovered there was no threat.
Police later said there was no link between
the protest and the security scare.
Peer, who faced similar protests at last
year’s tournament, wasted little time in
advancing to the second round with a 7-5 6-3
victory over Hercog and said while she had
seen the protest when she arrived, would not
Maccabi SA plan Oz trip
MACCABI SOUTH Africa would like to
select a squad of sportsmen for a possible
self-funding overseas tour in December of
this year. The tour will be to participate in
the Maccabi Australia International
Games (MAIGS) in Sydney from December
16 until January 2, 2011.
For more details regarding the sports,
travel, accommodation and costs, contact
Maccabi on [email protected]
or Desmond Hyman on [email protected]
Pacquiao rejects Foreman fight
ISRAELI BOXING sensation Yuri
height. We’ll go through the entire
Foreman’s chance of fighting
welterweight and junior welterworld pound for pound champion
weight categories and see what we
Manny Pacquiao was ended last
can come up with.”
week Thursday after Pacquiao’s
However, the Israeli, who lived
camp rejected Foreman as a potenin Haifa from the ages of 10 to 19
tial opponent to replace Floyd
and now resides in New York, was
Mayweather Jr.
still proud to have been turned
Foreman, the 29-year-old who
down.
won the WBA super welterweight
“It’s a real honour the greatest
title in November, is represented
pound-for-pound fighter in the
by Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum
world doesn’t want to fight me,”
and had been considered a poten- Israeli boxing
Foreman said. “Aside from winning
tial opponent for the March 13 slot, sensation, Yuri
the world title, this is the greatest
vacated
when
negotiations Foreman.
compliment I’ve got in boxing.”
between Pacquiao and May“We would have liked Pacquiao
weather broke down last week Wednesday.
but it didn’t work out,” Foreman spokesman
The LA Times reported that Pacquiao’s
Dovid Efune told The Jerusalem Post. “But
US business manager Michael Koncz said:
we know that everything that G-d does has a
“Manny’s concerned about Foreman’s
purpose.”
be dissuaded.
“As you can see, I’ve come back again. I
really like this tournament,” she told
reporters. “It’s a shame that somebody
thinks it’s my fault that there are problems
in the world.
“For me, the most important thing was
that even though I was hearing those things,
which were not nice, I still won.”
Peer won through to the quarter-finals
where she lost 6-4 7-5 to Yanina Wickmayer
of Belgium.