Isaac Ochberg saved almost 200 Jewish orphans from the pogroms of eastern Europe. With the help of the South African Jewish community, he gave them a chance to rebuild their broken lives.
In December 2026, the SA Jewish Museum will open an exhibition dedicated to Isaac Ochberg and the lives of those he saved. The exhibition, drawn from first-person accounts, will share how acts of courage can shape the future in ways no one could have imagined.
The SA Jewish Museum is proud to tell their story, but we need your help.
Are you a descendant of an Ochberg Orphan? We want to hear from you! Please respond to this short survey.
Popular leader of the Cape Town Progressive Jewish Congregation, Rabbi Greg Alexander, will soon be leaving Cape Town to take up a position at the Alyth Synagogue in London. The Cape Jewish Chronicle spoke to Rabbi Greg about his career in Cape Town over the past 20 years.
Please tell the readers of the Chronicle about yourself: where you grew up and went to school, what you studied, your working career, family, etc.
I grew up in Joburg, a typical Northern Suburbs Jewish boykie. My primary school, HA Jack, was a government school but 50% Jewish and my high school, KES, was the opposite. We had very few Jews in the school, so I was fortunate to have become deeply involved in Netzer, and that became my Jewish lifeline. I moved from being a channie to a maddie to taking over the Cape Town branch when I moved down for varsity at UCT.
Netzer was a place where I felt I could be my authentic self. It challenged me to think religiously, philosophically, politically and spiritually about who I was and what I believed. My maddies were only a few years older than me, and that peer-led system meant that my mentors were going through the same things that I was, only that they just had that little bit more life-wisdom to share.
My first career was in advertising and, even though I am now no longer in that industry, I still use the same skills to inspire people to see their Judaism as something vital and relevant to where they are. I am doing the same job – now I can fully trust the ‘product’.
My life partner, my wife Rabbi Andi, and I met in London, lived there, Israel and in the USA in our first years, and we are now blessed with our children: Immanuel, Yonatan and Yasmin. The first two were born in London, so we are completing a few circles now by moving back there.
How long have you been with the Cape Town Progressive Congregation?
When I first moved to Cape Town, I was 18 years old, and Netzer and Temple Israel became my home away from home. As the mazkir of Netzer Cape Town, I was invited to people’s homes for Shabbos, was involved in planning not just Netzer events but communal events for SJA, SAUJS on campus, Youth Council, for the Board of Deputies and Zionist Federation. I was sitting in the offices of many of the business leaders of our community asking for funding and support for our programmes and was on the shul council as the youth representative. At the age of 18, I was running a movement while my peers at UCT were having a very different experience.
It was beshert that when I received my smicha (rabbinic ordination) and Rabbi Andi and I were looking at where to work, my old friend from Netzer, Greg Flash, was the President of Temple Israel and reached out to us to consider Cape Town.
We began that job exactly 20 years ago and have many highlights to look back on now.
What do you regard as the most significant achievements of your tenure with the Progressive Congregation?
When we arrived, Temple Israel was 60 years old and needed an injection of new energy. It’s funny to think that now, but we were the ‘young family’ then with our first kids just 1 and 3 years old. We launched ourselves into creating a community that was based on care, spirituality and passion, rooted in Jewish tradition and, at the same time, unafraid to boldly try new things.
Perhaps the greatest achievement is moving the style of congregation from authority- to relationship-based leadership. We have seen that shift in all areas, with a bigger base of involved volunteers and a shul service that has moved from bimah-led to communal participation. Just a simple act like shifting the arrangement of chairs from cinema-style to a letter chet meant that people could see each other and daven in community. I have seen this picked up around other congregations and rabbis in Cape Town too, where instead of “Rabbi Alexander”, we are now “Rabbi Greg” – approachable, human and ready to meet people where they are.
Temple Israel is now a 1000-family congregation with a diverse membership that covers the whole of Cape Town, and our services and lifecycle events are ones that members and non-members are always moved by.
Has your experience of Jewish life in Cape Town changed in any significant ways over the years?
Cape Town Jewry has changed a lot in the two decades that we have lived here, and we have too. Our children are now young adults and we have been privileged to see the world through their and their friends’ eyes and that has opened ours to new vistas. We have seen how the impact of emigration and semigration has challenged the community to build stronger structures of support, and the incredible communal bodies have stepped up tremendously. We really are a remarkable community at the foot of Africa.
Going to the UK in today’s world could be seen as a brave step. Are there particular issues that concern you about the status of Jews in England today?
This is a question I am asked often now – “London, now, are you a meshuggene?” I am excited for the challenge of discovering the community there and finding how I can contribute to its growth. G*d places us in the world for a purpose with skills to bring good into the lives of those we meet, and I am hoping that I will have the chance there to do the same work that I have been doing here.
In conclusion, do you have any other thoughts or comments you would like to share with our readers?
People often think rabbis live in the shul – that’s where they most often encounter them. But I have been privileged in this time to be invited into the lives of people all over this city at their moments of greatest joy and greatest sadness. The Talmud teaches us that every person is a world in itself, and I feel like I have been on a journey of discovery meeting each of them. That voyage that has taught me much and helped me to become a better rabbi and a better person.
For the current edition of the Cape Jewish Chronicle, click here.
Molly as a grandmother (and Ochberg Orphans – background)
Chronicle reader Charlotte Cohen read the article about the ‘Ochberg Orphans’ in our May edition (read it here!), and shared the recollections of her late mother-in-law, Molly Cohen, who was the last surviving Ochberg Orphan in Cape Town. She passed away in 2013 – 9 days before her 100th birthday.
When Molly Cohen recalled her childhood, one figure stood above all others – Isaac Ochberg, the Cape Town businessman and humanitarian who rescued nearly 200 Jewish orphans from the devastation of post-World War I Eastern Europe.
To the children he saved, he was simply “Daddy Ochberg”.
Born in Ukraine in 1913, Molly – then Molly Schapera – was only seven years old when she arrived in Cape Town in 1921 aboard a ship carrying the children who would later become known as the “Ochberg Orphans”. Her memories of Europe were fragmentary and painful. She remembered being “shunted around”, living with different families and knowing nothing but instability and loss. She barely remembered her parents and only later learned she had three brothers and two sisters.
Then came the journey to South Africa.
Molly remembered being placed on a ship with many other children, the voyage delayed after one child contracted mumps. But what stayed with her most vividly was the man who had made their rescue possible.
“’Daddy Ochberg’ – that’s what we called him,” she said. “That’s what he was to us.” She recalled him translating Yiddish letters into English for the children and reading them aloud. To Molly, he was always present, always caring. She described him as “a man of exceptional kindness and great courage”.
Ochberg himself had emigrated from Ukraine to South Africa as a teenager in the 1890s and later established himself as one of Cape Town’s leading entrepreneurs through timber, shipping and property ventures. Yet business success was only part of his legacy. According to his daughter, Bertha Epstein, he believed that success created a moral obligation to help those less fortunate.
That conviction would define one of the great humanitarian missions in South African Jewish history.
As pogroms, famine and disease ravaged Eastern Europe after World War I, Ochberg became president of the Cape Jewish Orphanage. In 1921, he personally travelled through devastated parts of Poland, Galicia and Ukraine to rescue Jewish children left orphaned and destitute. He moved from village to village collecting children who were starving, traumatised and often homeless. Ultimately, 167 children reached South Africa under his care after an arduous journey through Europe and England.
For Molly, arriving in Cape Town marked the beginning of a completely different life.
She grew up at the Jewish Orphanage in Cape Town, predecessor to Oranjia. Far from remembering deprivation, she spoke warmly of a loving and deeply involved Jewish community. The children attended school in Buitenkant Street, went to cheder after classes and spent weekends playing in the grounds of the Home. On Sundays, members of the community would visit constantly, bringing warmth, companionship and support.
“We were adopted by the whole Cape Town community,” Molly said years later. “We were taken into their homes – and more importantly, into their hearts.”
Although she later experienced loneliness as a teenager, aware that she had no close family to rely on, Molly never forgot the kindness that surrounded her formative years in South Africa. She described those early years as happy ones, shaped by generosity, stability and care.
Molly learned later on that two of her brothers managed to get to Palestine, but she did not have a strong relationship with them, living apart from them in her formative years.
Looking back on her life, Molly believed the rescued children had been given something extraordinary – not only safety, but the chance to build families and futures of their own. Through Isaac Ochberg’s courage and compassion, generations were born who otherwise may never have existed.
For the current edition of the Cape Jewish Chronicle, click here.
On Tuesday, 12 May, SAFIM Art Collaborative hosted their 9th Gala & Auction event at The Nines in Sea Point. Whilst outside the skies were cold and grey, inside there was a warm sense of community and generosity.
SAFIM Art Collab was founded as the South African Friends of the Israel Museum in 2014. Since then, the organisation has grown significantly, and now supports local art education initiatives, alongside its work with the Israel Museum, Jerusalem.
During his opening speech at the Gala, Co-Chairperson Marco van Embden highlighted that the Gala event is the cornerstone of the organisation’s fundraising efforts, with a target in surplus of R1 million to be raised on the night. Marco serves alongside Nina Kovensky and Suzanne Ackerman as National Co-Chairs of SAFIM Art Collab. The Johannesburg chapter is led by Della Berkowitz and Dori Weil.
SAFIM Art Collaborative partnered with sponsors for the event, so that funds raised weren’t allocated to event costs, rather going directly to the various initiatives. Stonehage Fleming acted as the headline sponsor for the second year running – providing significant support to the event. Other generous sponsors included Cohesive Capital, the Kaplan Kushlik Foundation, and Blok. Partners supporting the event were Kove Collection (whose restaurant, The Nines, played host to the evening), ORMS (framing), and iToo Art Insure. Additionally, Strauss & Co are annual sponsors to SAFIM Art Collab, and provided significant support on the evening, ensuring that the auction was facilitated to the highest level.
After guests spent time amongst the collection of 27 artworks, set out in an exhibition in the Station House foyer, everyone found their seats up at The Nines, and the auction began. Auctioneer Ariella Kuper opened the auction with a fantastic print by Sam Nhlengethwa, donated by the artist and Goodman Gallery. The print, depicting Steve ‘Kalamazoo’ Mokone kicked off the evening (pun intended ) – a fun work, especially in a FIFA World Cup year!
By the end of the evening, and having reaching a 100% sell-through rate, R1.52 million was raised through the sale of a significant collection of investment quality art. Auctioneer Ariella Kuper has long played an important role in SAFIM Art Collab’s fundraising auctions, which have now raised in excess of R9.5 million in total.
A highlight of the evening was undoubtedly the sale of three artworks by SAFIM Art Collab’s bursary recipients. As Suzanne Ackerman outlined for the audience, since 2023, the organisation has funded students at the Ruth Prowse School of Art studying towards their Fine Arts Diploma. Lona Ndzimande, Celine Ndzana and Zoli Ngxanga were present on the night as their works were each sold after a flurry of competitive bidding. Finally, their three works totalled R126 000 – a sum far greater than they would have imagined. These funds will be shared between the graduates themselves and SAFIM Art Collab’s future bursary recipients. Each of the graduates were overcome with emotion at this affirmation and celebration of their artistic talents. One can only hope that this will bolster and boost their journeys in pursuing their own artistic careers.
Alongside the bursary programme, funds raised will also support:
Curatorial Fellowships at a local institution: SAFIM Art Collab has sponsored 13 internships and fellowships at various institutions to date. Most recently, they have focused on year-long more senior opportunities for aspiring curators, placed at Norval Foundation. The partner institution for the 2026/27 iteration will be announced in due course.
Creating Together at the Israel Museum: SAFIM Art Collab are the sole sponsors of this project which brings Ethiopian-Israeli children to the Israel Museum on a weekly basis to engage in play, to visit the Museum, and to learn, with art as a vehicle. The project’s focus is on cross-cultural learning and understanding.
SAFIM Art Collab also offers a percentage of the auction proceeds back to the contributing artists. In this way, they are able to support and give back to these artists. In some instances, the artists earn more than they ordinarily would from their own sales. This auction earned in excess of R300 000 in commissions payable to artists.
Outside of the Gala event, SAFIM Art Collab runs regular membership programming throughout the year in both Cape Town and Johannesburg. This brings art-interested individuals to varied art and cultural events to meet curators, artists, authors and more, whilst supporting their fundraising efforts.
During June, SAFIM will host a studio visit with artist Janice Codron in Cape Town.
For further information about SAFIM, contact Lisa Truter – lisa@artcollab.co.za.
Celine, Lona and Zoli being introduced by Suzanne Ackerman.Celine Ndzana with her BIC pen drawing which was sold on the eveningCathy Abraham’s Magenta Spectre was a top selling lot.
For the current edition of the Cape Jewish Chronicle, click here.
The Cape SAJBD embarked on a visit to the Hermanus Jewish community for an event-filled Shabbat over the weekend of the 15th of May.
Coinciding with Yom Yerushalayim, the weekend featured a Friday night shul service followed by a delectable communal dinner, as well as a Shabbat morning service followed by a communal Kiddush Bracha sponsored by the Cape SAJBD.
Cape SAJBD Executive Director Daniel Bloch and Chairperson Simone Sulcas addressed the approximately 50 community members in attendance, alongside Hermanus Shul Chairman Seymour Abrahams and Vice-Chair Victor Fish. Rabbi Ruben Suiza officiated over the Shabbat and delivered engaging drashot throughout the Shabbat.
The visit provided an important opportunity to engage directly with the community. Daniel and Simone’s joint address included updates on recent Cape SAJBD activities, and sketched a vibrant and in-depth picture of what Jewish life is like in the Western Cape. Poignantly, when compared to other Jewish communities around the world, Jewish life in South Africa as a whole continues unabated and with fervour.
While relatively small in size, the Hermanus Jewish Community is an active pocket of Jewish vibrancy in the Overberg. The quaint coastal town, situated just an hour and a half from Cape Town, has rapidly become a popular destination for both visitors and permanent residents – many of whom are retirees enjoying the quaint lifestyle in Hermanus. Many Cape Town Jewish families who own holiday homes in the area are active members and supporters of the shul and broader community.
The Hermanus Hebrew Congregation dates back to 1906, when the congregation was founded by Rev. Warshawsky. In its early years, services were held in private homes before a synagogue was built in Main Road in the late 1920s. Although the community experienced periods of decline and the synagogue closed for nearly two decades, the shul was revived in the late 1990s by a dedicated group of Capetonians with holiday homes in Hermanus. A new synagogue and Jewish Centre was ultimately consecrated in 2008, ensuring a welcoming space for Jewish life in the town. For information about services, find the contact details here.
The visit formed part of the Cape SAJBD’s ongoing commitment to supporting and maintaining close ties with Jewish communities throughout the Western Cape.
We often say, somewhat glibly, that “young people are our future”. But what does that mean in practice? What responsibility does it place on us as a society?
In June 1976, young South Africans rose up against apartheid policies that directly affected their futures. Today, many young people are looking beyond our borders because they are sceptical about the future South Africa can offer them. This is something we in the Cape Town Jewish community should also reflect on. Will enough young people choose to stay and sustain a meaningful community here in the years ahead?
For most South Africans, the future they are likely to have depends largely on what the state and civil society provide during their formative years. And too often, what is available falls far short of what is needed.
As part of the Mensch Volunteer Programme, I recently visited Hangberg in Hout Bay – a fishing community facing extreme poverty, worsened by failed government interventions that left many fishermen without licences and livelihoods.
Our group spent time at an Early Childhood Development Centre established by a local woman with limited resources but immense compassion. Across South Africa, many ECDs exist because ordinary people, often women without wealth, training, or infrastructure, step in where the state has failed.
We should be deeply grateful to these individuals because the work they do shapes all our futures. Every child who gains access to meaningful early childhood education is more likely to become an adult who contributes positively to society rather than one vulnerable to crime, addiction, or homelessness.
Research consistently shows that the first five years of life are critical in shaping learning, behaviour, and health outcomes. As the Director of Ikamva Labantu – the remarkable organisation founded by our own Helen Lieberman – has said: “The first five years of life lay the foundations for learning, behaviour and health. If those years are missing support, the gap begins to widen before a child even enters Grade 1.”
There is ample evidence that children with strong early foundations are far more likely to thrive at school and beyond. That means the child growing up in Hangberg, whose future might otherwise have been defined by hardship, can instead have the opportunity to realise their potential and become a contributing member of society.
The support organisations like Mensch provide may not transform the country overnight, but it can transform individual lives – and that matters enormously. If we want a better future for South Africa, we must invest in the lives of young children today.
For the current edition of the Cape Jewish Chronicle, click here.
From courtroom to concert hall, a lifelong devotion finds its fullest expression
KAREN MILLER
There are public figures whose reputations arrive fully formed: robe, title, and the steady cadence of authority. Dennis Davis is one such figure: a High Court judge, formidable legal mind, law professor at many universities including UCT, Wits, Cambridge, Harvard and NYU, and a familiar television presence from Future Imperfect and You Be the Judge. Yet this well-known profile includes a more private, persistent devotion: a lifelong immersion in music that has now found institutional expression in his appointment as interim chair of the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra.
(credit: CT Press Club)
Beginnings in the living room
The roots of that devotion lie not in concert halls but in a family living room. Dennis’s father filled the house with the sound of great cantors, playing recordings of Richard Tucker and Jan Peerce singing Kol Nidrei. This was no incidental soundtrack. It was an early education in emotional expression, in the peculiar intensity of Jewish liturgical music, chazones, that binds history, longing, and faith into a single vocal line. Cape Town itself, in those years, provided formidable live examples: Koussevitsky at Schoonder Street and Philip Badash in Sea Point, voices that, as Davis recalls, sang with both magnitude and feeling.
A love affair begins
Like many enthusiasts, his early practical ambitions did not quite match his enthusiasm. He attempted the piano but describes himself, with characteristic bluntness, as “hopeless”. Music would not be something he produced so much as something he pursued, intellectually and emotionally.
A decisive moment came in 1967 at the Alhambra Theatre, where he encountered opera for the first time in a performance of Carmen. That same year, in a gesture both charming and revealing, he and schoolfriend, Gilad Stern, bought batons and took to conducting along with recordings. It was also the year he heard pianist Hans Richter-Haaser perform Beethoven’s Third and Fifth Piano Concertos at Cape Town City Hall. “I fell in love with classical music,” he recalls, a statement that, in its simplicity, masks a lifetime’s accumulation of listening, learning, and reflection.
The pattern was set. Records borrowed from the municipal library, Sunday evening concerts, and an ever-expanding auditory world. Even singing, despite his professed lack of talent, found its way in: he remains proud to have sung in the choir for Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, that great choral affirmation.
Along the way, he has heard many of the greats: Daniel Barenboim, Arthur Rubinstein, Pinchas Zuckerman, Itzhak Perlman, and conductors from Solti to Karajan to Rattle. These are not merely names to be dropped but markers of a life attentively lived in music.
Tradition, music, and continuity
Yet it is impossible to disentangle Dennis’s musical life from his Jewish one. From Grade 4 at Herzlia, he learned davening under the late Cantor Immerman. He later ran student services at the Old Shul in Gardens and assisted Rabbi Steinhorn during the High Holy Days in Sea Point. To this day, he continues to play a role in the Egalitarian Shul’s High Holy Day services. The continuity is striking: from childhood liturgy to adult responsibility, from inherited tradition to chosen participation.
Music, for Dennis, is not merely aesthetic. It is reflective. Driving to work, he plays chazones in the car, using it as a space to contemplate “the joys and sorrows of Jewish life and history”. This is not background noise. It is a form of thinking.
Lockdown and a global classroom
His engagement has, in recent years, taken on a more public dimension through Lockdown University, the global online initiative founded by Wendy Fisher during the Covid-19 pandemic. Initially contributing lectures on politics and law, Dennis soon extended his repertoire to music. Inspired by performances he had attended in the United States, most notably at Carnegie Hall, where Leonard Slatkin presented Beethoven’s Ninth with an explanatory first half. This has inspired him to adopt a similar format.
The result has been remarkably prolific: over 130 lectures since 2020, including detailed explorations of Mahler’s symphonies, jazz, and the broader classical canon.
His study at home, he admits is a dense landscape of CDs, as he compares interpretations and refines his understanding. There is an infectious enthusiasm in this work, though he admits to finding the scale of his audience, now numbering in the thousands worldwide, somewhat daunting. The intimacy of early Zoom sessions has given way to a more impersonal, if far-reaching, exchange.
Now, as he approaches his 75th birthday, Davis has chosen a fitting gift for himself. He will travel with his wife, Claudette, to Berlin to hear the Berlin Philharmonic under the baton of the 98-year-old Herbert Blomstedt, conducting Bruckner’s 7th Symphony, one of Davis’s particular favourites. It is hard to imagine a more appropriate celebration: a convergence of longevity, mastery, and emotional depth.
In a world inclined to compartmentalise, to separate the rational from the artistic, the judicial from the lyrical, Dennis Davis offers a more integrated model. The law may be his profession, but music, unmistakably, is a profound source of joy and inspiration. He has served this muse in many ways and he does so now in public contribution to the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra.
For the current edition of the Cape Jewish Chronicle, click here.
Many years ago, a friend and I were approached by a senior team member of Makom, an innovative education initiative within the Jewish Agency for Israel to put together a unique day for a group of people from the Jewish Federations of North America, people with a strong commitment to Israel. These were people who really cared about Israel, worked on behalf of Israel, raised money for Israel, lobbied for Israel.
They had all been to Israel many times before, had visited all the major sites, and beyond, but this was to be a special day, one I had never imagined putting together before this request came my way, and one never repeated since. The idea was to show them the dark underbelly of Tel Aviv: the things we are not proud of, that have not worked in Israeli society; the folks who got left behind; the underclass. We put together a day, which, I have to admit, I found incredibly challenging to experience, as did the group we took around for the day. This was not the Israel of the Start Up Nation; of those who give their everything in the service of the State; of beautiful works of art; of nobility of spirit; of self-sacrifice for a cause larger than oneself.
This was poverty, illegal immigrants (refugees) who had been smuggled in via the Sinai Peninsula, homeless people, drug addicts and prostitutes; a soup kitchen; a kindergarten adjoining a brothel.
Two moments from that day have stayed with me over the years. One, when an illegal immigrant passed out and I began to call Magen David Adom for help, only to be stopped by another refugee, who told me not to, as the moment an intervention like this happened, the person who had passed out would be in the system and easier to deport. (Deportation meant in effect being sent back to a war zone, to a harsh refugee camp in Southern Sudan or Eritrea, possibly to be sentenced as an opponent of the regime and, therefore, likely not to reach old age.)
The second moment which has stayed with me was when we sat down to have lunch in the soup kitchen with the local folks. To my great embarrassment, I could not bring myself to eat the food. Something very deeply embedded in me made this an impossibility for me.
The discussion we had afterwards came back to me recently. We talked about what one does when the country one loves, that one is committed to, that one would fight for, possibly even die for, has these terrible blemishes, awful imperfections. It came back to me as I watched our Minister of Internal Security, Itamar Ben Gvir, behaving in a way that recalled, in my very South African memory bank, the way I was treated in Caledon Square after having been arrested by the South African Police way back in 1974. And, there were worse associations floating through my mind as well, from before the year I was born – and Jews were on the receiving end in those associations. As we say in Hebrew: המבין יבין
What are we to do when a member of the Government of Israel behaves in the way Itamar Ben Gvir behaved towards the members of the Gaza-bound flotilla on 20 May? For me, the answer is clear: We have to condemn him in the strongest possible terms, as Jews who believe that we have a heritage to be proud of which includes an ethos, a value system, which we never toss aside to wreak revenge. As Jews who care for the safety and security of our People, throughout the world. As Jews who care about the defence of our homeland, of Israel.
We have to say, in unequivocal terms, “Itamar Ben Gvir, you are a disgrace to the Jewish People, a disgrace to the State of Israel. Your behaviour puts our People at risk, both in Israel and in Cape Town. Your behaviour diminishes the careful and totally appropriate way our soldiers of the IDF conducted this interception of the flotilla.”
If you really care about Israel and the Jewish People, when something like this happens, speak up, as proud Zionists and Jews. Do not fall into the trap of ‘closing ranks’. Speaking up is what the Jewish People and Israel need right now.
Itamar Ben Gvir, you disgrace both the memory of our martyrs, and you put our children at risk. Shame on you.
For the current edition of the Cape Jewish Chronicle, click here.
With June being Youth Month, we bring you stories about young Jewish people who are doing incredible things to impact our society and our world in positive ways. See more here.
Continuing with the theme of young people, the Cape Jewish Chronicle took a look at the attitudes of those in their 20s regarding whether to stay in South Africa or to move elsewhere. Go to pages 6 and 7, or here, to read more.
A well-known figure in Cape Town, Rabbi Greg Alexander will soon relocate to London with his family. We spoke to him prior to his departure to discuss the many years he has spent in Cape Town. Read more here.
If you’re a descendant of an Ochberg Orphan, see page 18 (and here), and help the SA Jewish Museum collect information about this period of history.
From top left clockwise: Bonny Feldman, Alix Epstein, Maxine Boyd and Sheryl Schkolne
The Cape Jewish Chronicle has invited some of our readers who are book lovers to share their recommendations about books they have read – and loved! Please share your recommendations by contacting editor@ctjc.co.za.
Fiction
This Story Might Save Your Life by Tiffany Crum
Recommended by ALIX EPSTEIN. Alix is a teacher by day (at Herzlia Highlands Primary School); bookstagrammer by night; a lover of cats, sneakers, ice cream in any weather; and an avid reader in her spare time. See her Instagram page about books called @alix_in_wonderlnd.
Best friends, Benny and Joy, who run a very popular and lucrative survival podcast, are thrown into their own tale of survival. One morning, Benny goes to Joy’s house, only to find their window smashed in, and Joy and her husband, Xander, are nowhere to be found. All signs point to Benny being the police’s main suspect; Benny must solve the mystery of his friend’s disappearance using the only clue that he has at his disposal: Joy’s unseen, incomplete memoir.
A genre-bending debut novel like no other. I devoured this cleverly written, exciting novel in one sitting. It is such a fascinating look at love and survival, and stopping at nothing to protect the people we love most. This book is written for the screen; it’s quick-witted, easy to read, and thrilling from beginning to end. If this is her debut, I am eagerly awaiting what comes next for this shiny new author.
The book is available on Kindle, as an audiobook, and is currently available online on Amazon.
Queen Esther by John Irving
Recommended by SHERYL SCHKOLNE, a voracious reader of fiction, a painter and ceramicist, and someone who has had the opportunity to travel widely. The travel provides inspiration for subjects to paint. See more about Sheryl’s art on her Instagram page: artbysheryl
The writer John Irving has written many books of which The World According to Garp and Cider House Rules are the most well-known. In 1999 he won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for Cider House Rules.
Queen Esther, published in 2025, deals with the recurring theme of avoiding enlistment during the Vietnam War, a theme that has appeared in previous novels and that Irving himself grappled with. The book highlights the importance of family and the influence of history and reading in determining your life path. The role of anti-Semitism in small-town America is discussed, as is the idea of surrogacy in the 1960s.
After making Aliyah, Esther is often absent, yet her role in the development of the novel is crucial to understanding the complexity of human relationships. From Germany to America and finally Israel, it is a novel on a grand scale. Who is a Jew? How to navigate cultures different from your own, while remaining true to yourself.
I found Queen Esther an absorbing and worthwhile choice of book.
The book is available for lending from the Jacob Gitlin Library or can be purchased on Loot.
Non-Fiction
Kutchinsky’s Egg by Serena Kutchinsky
Recommended by MAXINE BOYD, a prolific reader, especially of Jewish non-fiction and history, as well as of Jewish historical novels, memoirs, and Holocaust literature. Maxine is a seasoned volunteer in Cape Town’s Jewish community.
Kutchinsky’s Egg is the story of an emigrant family from Russia who become one of the biggest jewellers in London. It tells of the family’s rise to high society, and how the author’s father became obsessed with making the world’s largest jewelled egg, a treasure to rival the Fabergé masterpieces. The obsession with the jewelled egg results in the loss of all his family’s money and the collapse of the House of Kutchinsky. During this time, his marriage fails, and he becomes estranged from his daughters. After his death, his daughter decides to search for the jewelled egg that ruined his life and changed all their lives completely.
This memoir – a true-life rags-to-riches story which takes one to numerous locations across the globe – is fascinating. I could not put it down as it was so riveting and took me into a world of jewellery, bad business decisions, deceit, and family faribles that eventually split a family up.
The book is available for downloading on Kindle and for purchase on Takealot.
PODCAST
Dame Vera Stephanie (‘Steve’) Shirley on BBC Witness History: The Kindertransport children who fled the Nazis
EDITOR’S recommendation.
This tells the story of the flight of children from Germany to the UK in the late 1930s and provides insight into one person’s story. While the history of the Kindertransport is well-known, the story of an individual’s unique experience makes it far more meaningful. One would think that the fact that the child’s parents survived the War and were reunited with her would mean a happy ending, but it was difficult for the child to pick up the relationship with her parents after having been separated from them for so long.
