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Temple Israel: Bnei Mitzvah


Mazaltov to Lily-Rose Black, Milah Friedman and Daisy Paterson who celebrated at Temple Israel in October.

Temple Israel www.templeisrael.co.za


• Read the November 2024 issue in magazine format here.

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The Broken Mirror

One of the central installations at the Cape Town Oct 7 Commemoration event was ‘The Broken Mirror’.

The broken mirror symbolises the challenges and struggles we face, reflecting our brokenness and the scars of our past. Yet, just as a mirror can be pieced back together, so too can we heal and grow stronger. This resilience is a testament to the Jewish spirit, rooted in history and tradition. Each shard, though fractured, can come together to form a beautiful mosaic, showcasing our strength, unity, and ability to rise above adversity. Through our shared experiences, we find hope and inspiration, proving that even in brokenness, there is beauty and strength.

Together We will Dance Again 

SA Zionist Federation – Cape Council – Facebook | Twitter | Instagram


• Read the November 2024 issue in magazine format here.

• To advertise in the Cape Jewish Chronicle and on this website – kindly contact Lynette Roodt on 021 464 6736 or email advertising@ctjc.co.za. For more information and advertising rate card click here.

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In loving memory of Shoshana Baer

It is with deep sadness that we announce the passing of a dear colleague, Shoshana Baer, who served as Astra Centre’s bookkeeper from 2003 to 2021. She was a dedicated professional, working with precision, care and with a commitment to integrity. 

For nearly two decades, her attention to detail and tireless dedication played a crucial role in helping us serve our community. But beyond the spreadsheets and reports, she was a cherished member of our team – a trusted friend and supportive colleague.

Shoshana touched the lives of all who had the privilege of working with her, and her contributions will never be forgotten. 

As we mourn this tremendous loss, we also honour her life and the lasting impact she had on Astra Centre. Our thoughts and prayers are with her family and loved ones during this difficult time. 

Astra Jewish Sheltered Employment
20 Breda Street, Gardens | 021 461 8414 | Email: coffeetime@jsec.org.za | https://astrajse.com/shop/


• Read the November 2024 issue in magazine format here.

• To advertise in the Cape Jewish Chronicle and on this website – kindly contact Lynette Roodt on 021 464 6736 or email advertising@ctjc.co.za. For more information and advertising rate card click here.

• Email us to sign up for our newsletter and never miss another issue.

• Please support the Cape Jewish Chronicle with a voluntary Subscription for 2024. For payment info click here.

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Small-town Jewish South Africa

Familiar businesses – Bloch’s Motors

With its large, lifelike cutouts of the suburb’s pioneers, the exhibition on the history of the Jews of Parow, Echoes of Parow, now on at the SA Jewish Museum, offers an interesting insight into the development of small-town South Africa. As with so many towns in South Africa, Parow’s history is closely bound up with the history of its Jewish community. Established at the very moment of the mass migration of Jews from Eastern Europe to Southern Africa, the town was founded in 1886 and, by 1901, there were enough Jewish residents to warrant the holding of the first minyan.

The 1930s until the 1960s saw the heyday of Jewish life, and the decline of the town’s Jewish community started in the 1960s. But the impact of the relatively small community cannot be ignored: from large industrialists like the Kaplans of Cape Gate fame, to medical professionals and retailers, Jewish Parow was an industrious and vibrant community. Today, many streets in the area carry the surnames associated with the town in its glory days.

And Parow also gave the world its fair share of academics and businesspeople who made their mark on the country and, in some instances, on the world. Think of names like Yonty Solomon, the international concert pianist; Barney Rogut, the founder of Shoprite supermarkets who became Whitey Basson’s mentor; and David Freedberg, a leading art historian internationally; among others.

The visitor to the exhibition will no doubt recognise many of the names so associated with Parow’s growth and development – in fact, a tour of the exhibition becomes a trip down memory lane. So, don’t miss this wonderful exhibition, sponsored by the Kaplan Kushlick Educational Foundation and Cape Gate. It’s on until February next year.


• Read the November 2024 issue in magazine format here.

• To advertise in the Cape Jewish Chronicle and on this website – kindly contact Lynette Roodt on 021 464 6736 or email advertising@ctjc.co.za. For more information and advertising rate card click here.

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• Please support the Cape Jewish Chronicle with a voluntary Subscription for 2024. For payment info click here.

• Visit our Portal to the Jewish Community to see a list of Jewish organisations in Cape Town with links to their websites.

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The Jewish Leadership Explorer Series

SA Zionist Federation – Cape Council – Facebook | Twitter | Instagram


• Read the November 2024 issue in magazine format here.

• To advertise in the Cape Jewish Chronicle and on this website – kindly contact Lynette Roodt on 021 464 6736 or email advertising@ctjc.co.za. For more information and advertising rate card click here.

• Email us to sign up for our newsletter and never miss another issue.

• Please support the Cape Jewish Chronicle with a voluntary Subscription for 2024. For payment info click here.

• Visit our Portal to the Jewish Community to see a list of Jewish organisations in Cape Town with links to their websites.

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Repair the Sea

Braving the elements to participate in Reverse Tashlich

Repair the Sea is a global organisation that envisions a world where the ocean is clean and every year runs a beach clean-up just before the High Holy Days called Reverse Tashlich. Temple Israel joined 23 other countries on Sunday 29 September to participate in this wonderful initiative. 

Temple Israel www.templeisrael.co.za


• Read the November 2024 issue in magazine format here.

• To advertise in the Cape Jewish Chronicle and on this website – kindly contact Lynette Roodt on 021 464 6736 or email advertising@ctjc.co.za. For more information and advertising rate card click here.

• Email us to sign up for our newsletter and never miss another issue.

• Please support the Cape Jewish Chronicle with a voluntary Subscription for 2024. For payment info click here.

• Visit our Portal to the Jewish Community to see a list of Jewish organisations in Cape Town with links to their websites.

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More than a braai and a beer

For many South Africans, Heritage Day has become just another opportunity to have a braai and drink a few beers. While I’m not averse to the sizzle of a lamb chop and a good potato salad, I’ve always felt that the nation’s heritage must surely amount to something more substantial than braai and beer.

And so it was that, this year, my Heritage Day at the end of September turned out to be a far more meaningful, thought-provoking experience.

Having seen an advert for a tour of a flower farm in Constantia – an advert which mentioned that the tour would include the history of the farm and the family who run it (i.e. the heritage of the area) – I decided to attend. The tour highlighted a significant element of the history of Cape Town – and this means that it brought to our attention a part of our heritage that we should all know, as uncomfortable as the heritage may be.

The farm is run as a family business by people who were classified under the apartheid regime as ‘Coloured’. This is a family with a long history at the Cape: the current generation knows that their origins go back to the time of slavery at the Cape, and they know that their ascendant was given a piece of land and a house in what is today Constantia when slaves were emancipated in the 1830s. That property was passed on to generation after generation, and more recent generations became expert flower farmers.

An idyllic lifestyle in a particularly beautiful part of our city – which included the ability for people to earn a good living – abruptly came to an end in the 1960s when the land and dwellings were expropriated by the State under the Group Areas Act. The land was subsequently sold to private ‘White’ landowners, while the original residents were relocated to accommodation not of their choice in areas
they would never have selected to live in.

The current farming family, the children of a person forced out of the area in the 1960s, could only return to a piece of land in more recent years, but they hold only a lease over the land and are unlikely ever to own it.

As one of the sons told us the story of what had happened, it struck me that there are so many similarities with the Jewish experience. We, too, had our rights as citizens taken away by a totalitarian state; we, too, lost property to other citizens deemed as being racially superior to us; we, too, have since been engaged in efforts to elicit apologies and secure the acknowledgement that what was done to our forebears is wrong. It’s also clear – just as is the case with today’s generation of Germans – that the guilt of the 2nd and 3rd generation of perpetrators is guiding some of them to make good for the sins of the fathers.

I think that a very meaningful gesture would be for us to embark on a project here that is like the Stolpersteine initiative in Germany and other European countries. (A Stolperstein is a concrete cube with a brass plate that lists the name and relevant dates of victims of Nazi extermination or persecution, which is placed outside the former residence of such a victim.) 

An initiative of this sort would surely be a gesture geared to acknowledge a very uncomfortable part of our heritage and to bridge the divide we see in our society.


We’re thrilled to let you know that we are celebrating 40 years of the Cape Jewish Chronicle this month! Started in 1984, the first edition of the publication came out in November of that year and, since then, we’ve continued to bring you news about the Jewish community of Cape Town and the surrounding areas. 

We are planning to highlight lots more about the birthday in our next edition – which is a print one and our big Channukah publication – so keep your eyes out for all the news. You can also celebrate this milestone anniversary with us via social media so look out for news on Facebook and Instagram. 

A big THANK YOU to those of our readers who responded positively to our appeal for the payment of the R450 annual subscription.  As you no doubt are aware, times are really tough for most publications. Gone are the days of advertising revenue covering costs; today, it’s far more of a struggle for any publication to stay afloat. And that’s why we rely so heavily on you, our loyal readers, to do your bit to keep us going. 

If you haven’t got round to paying the subscription amount, please do so soonest (see payment options here). Help the Cape Jewish Chronicle celebrate 40 years of bringing you the news about our community – and may we continue to celebrate many more birthdays!


• Read the November 2024 issue in magazine format here.

• To advertise in the Cape Jewish Chronicle and on this website – kindly contact Lynette Roodt on 021 464 6736 or email advertising@ctjc.co.za. For more information and advertising rate card click here.

• Email us to sign up for our newsletter and never miss another issue.

• Please support the Cape Jewish Chronicle with a voluntary Subscription for 2024. For payment info click here.

• Visit our Portal to the Jewish Community to see a list of Jewish organisations in Cape Town with links to their websites.

Follow the Cape Jewish Chronicle: Facebook | Instagram | LinkedIn

ORT SA CAPE Tech & Connect breakfast

Lisa Wingham (3rd from R) and Bev Da Costa, CEO of ORT SA CAPE, (2nd from R) with other delegates at the event

– elevating early learning through innovation

In response to the rapidly evolving educational landscape, ORT SA CAPE, a local organisation which offers training to teachers and practitioners in the education space, hosted a Tech & Connect Breakfast on 8 October 2024 at the Century City Conference Centre.

The event allowed educational leaders and stakeholders to explore how new ways of thinking and teaching can transform early learning.

Centred around the theme Elevating Early Learning Through Innovation, the breakfast addressed key topics including the opportunities AI, coding, and robotics present in early education; learning coding through play; fostering a growth mindset; and technology hacks for the classroom.

One of the speakers at the event congratulated ORT SA CAPE on this initiative, saying, “We need to inspire teachers to be passionate about tech. It is this passion that will flow into learners and our education system.”

Lisa Wingham, Head of Education and Training at ORT SA CAPE, concluded, “ORT SA CAPE has successfully integrated technology into its training programmes, equipping teachers to navigate the new Coding and Robotics curriculum. As education evolves, our mission is to ensure teachers are empowered to prepare students for the future.”


• Read the November 2024 issue in magazine format here.

• To advertise in the Cape Jewish Chronicle and on this website – kindly contact Lynette Roodt on 021 464 6736 or email advertising@ctjc.co.za. For more information and advertising rate card click here.

• Email us to sign up for our newsletter and never miss another issue.

• Please support the Cape Jewish Chronicle with a voluntary Subscription for 2024. For payment info click here.

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From our trauma, we can grow

By Rabbi Emma Gottlieb

I think most of us would agree that the past year has been traumatic for Jews all over the world. We have experienced the intense combination of secondary, collective and generational traumas brought about by October 7th and the resulting war. While many of us have heard of PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder), there is also something called Post-Traumatic Growth (PTG), which is when there are positive changes resulting from a life crisis or traumatic event. I spoke about this on Yom Kippur and, since many folks mentioned that it resonated with them, I wanted to share it more broadly.

PTG is built on the idea that adversity can, unintentionally, yield positive changes in our understanding of ourselves and the world around us. With PTG, we open up to transformation, as a way of not only coping with, but adapting to, trauma, especially when our experience has challenged personal or world views. Consider someone who has been assaulted and might feel that their sense of safety has been challenged. While they can eventually regain their sense of security, PTG encourages them to notice what positive results might stem from a lack of certainty and safety. Perhaps they end up learning self-defence, resulting in a boost of overall confidence in protecting themselves and others.

Through this approach, the damage of trauma is not erased, but redirected into positive changes in how we live, or think about ourselves, our world, and even the visible or invisible scars of trauma. Now, having passed the one-year anniversary, let us start bringing the intention to grow through the traumas we have and continue to experience, so that something good might come from the loss and terror. And so that we and our world might find our way from brokenness to betterment.


October 7th commemoration

Temple Israel www.templeisrael.co.za


• Read the November 2024 issue in magazine format here.

• To advertise in the Cape Jewish Chronicle and on this website – kindly contact Lynette Roodt on 021 464 6736 or email advertising@ctjc.co.za. For more information and advertising rate card click here.

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• Please support the Cape Jewish Chronicle with a voluntary Subscription for 2024. For payment info click here.

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Opportunities to learn more about the Jewish religion

Moves to create awareness and increase religious observance among Cape Town’s Jewish community have seen the introduction of two new initiatives: the establishment of the Cape Town Kollel and the arrival of two American bochurim who have joined our community under the auspices of the Gardens Shul.

According to Steven Liptz, the driving force behind the establishment of the Cape Town Kollel, “The establishment of the Kollel is crucial in helping to build a Jewish Cape Town for the next generation.”

Steven explains that, “After a few months of living in Cape Town since moving here from Johannesburg, it struck me that the future of Jewish life in Cape Town could be under threat. With pressures on our numbers – because of emigration, assimilation and intermarriage –
I began to wonder whether we will be able to sustain the elements of Jewish life important in a community in the future: things like Kosher restaurants, a supply of Kosher food products, and attracting religious leadership. This concern led me to realise that an institution like a Kollel could be a good way to support and grow our community. While this is an institution well established in many cities around the world – including Johannesburg – Cape Town has not previously hosted a Kollel of this nature for an extended period of time.” (In fact, Johannesburg hosts more than one Kollel, and the backbone of Jewish leadership in Johannesburg can be traced to the Kollelim.)

The concept of the Kollel is similar to a yeshiva, but it’s also significantly different. In the case of a yeshiva, the students (the yeshiva bocherim) are young, unmarried men, and they pay a fee to be part of the institution. The Kollel is different in that it takes in married men, and they are paid by the Kollel. “In fact,” Steven explains, “this income is their livelihood. And, in addition to their own Torah study, they reach out to community members to involve them in learning and assist wherever there is a need for more learning and guidance.”

The Cape Town Kollel has been launched in stages, with the planning for it taking place over a number of years. “When it became known that Rabbi Kotler of the famous Lakewood Yeshiva in America would be visiting Johannesburg, I invited him to come to Cape Town, too,” Steven explains. This happened in late 2022; although planning had already begun earlier that year, following the visit, the necessary steps were taken to progress the establishment of the Kollel.

Starting with one Avreich (student), Rafi Sackstein, there are plans to grow the Kollel by inviting suitable candidates from other parts of
South Africa and from other countries to join. 

While the Kollel is not affiliated with any one congregation in Cape Town, it is recognised by the local Rabbinical Association. 

“We offer a range of programmes,” Steven says, highlighting the opportunity for local Rabbis to learn and to engage in discussions with others. “Any individual who wants to explore Jewish learning may study with Rafi, and we have been running a Meaningful Mondays programme for many weeks,” Steven explains. “So far, this initiative has been well supported with about 40 people attending every session. We invite particular speakers for these sessions, and it’s a wonderful opportunity for members of our community to engage in thinking and learning about Jewish concepts.” Programmes targeting women will also be launched in the future.

The Kollel is a place of learning that is open to everyone from morning to night. So, if you’re interested in deepening your understanding of the concepts of Judaism, you may well want to join in for one of the programmes on offer.


Bobba Ada and the Bochurim

The Gardens Shul is currently hosting two bochurim, whose visit to Cape Town was set in motion by Rabbi Osher Feldman. Mendel Scheiner and Tzvi Stolik, who both hail from Florida, are 20 years old and have completed a stint at the Yeshiva Oholei Torah in Brooklyn. They also spent some time learning at the Beth Shemesh Yeshiva near Jerusalem.

The ‘Bochurim’ are part of the Gardens Youth Outreach Programme, generously supported by the Eric Samson Legacy Fund, and dedicated in loving memory of the late beloved Eric Samson, Ezriel Ben David z’l, who was a pillar of the Cape Town Jewish community. 

Their year in Cape Town will be spent promoting Judaism and Jewish identity, strengthening community, and conducting various learning and outreach initiatives with young (and young at heart!) people in Cape Town. 

Soon after arriving here in September, they embarked on organising a host of exciting and meaningful activities for children and teens at the Gardens Shul for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, and they will also run special youth programmes and activities for Sukkot and Simchat Torah. 

Commenting on their reception by the local community, Tzvi and Mendel say that, “People here have been very kind and supportive.” They mention in particular the friendliness and kindness of stalwarts of the Gardens Shul women’s group, Hazel Kosviner and Ada Sher, humorously describing Ada as “our Bobba here in Cape Town!”


• Read the November 2024 issue in magazine format here.

• To advertise in the Cape Jewish Chronicle and on this website – kindly contact Lynette Roodt on 021 464 6736 or email advertising@ctjc.co.za. For more information and advertising rate card click here.

• Email us to sign up for our newsletter and never miss another issue.

• Please support the Cape Jewish Chronicle with a voluntary Subscription for 2024. For payment info click here.

• Visit our Portal to the Jewish Community to see a list of Jewish organisations in Cape Town with links to their websites.

Follow the Cape Jewish Chronicle: Facebook | Instagram | LinkedIn

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