Rosecourt, on the corner of Breda and Vriende Streets in the Gardens, is in the process of major transformation. The original house is to be restored, as it is a heritage site and has to remain, but the old hall is being demolished at time of going to press.

The property was given to Jewish Sheltered Employment in the 1980s and in 1986 the hall was converted into accommodation for 10 residents with special needs. And so the first group home was established.

Yom Haatzmaut Western Province Maccabi back in the game!

For the first time in a few years, WP Maccabi set up a colourful information stand at Ratanga Junction for the Yom Haatzmaut communal celebrations.

The aim was to publicise the rejuvenation of our organisation and to encourage sports people of all ages, to join the WP Maccabi sporting family.

The launch of Volume 3 of the SA Friends of Beth Hatefutsoths Jewish Life in the South African Country Communities, at the Albow Centre on Thursday 12 June, was yet another of those wonderfully nostalgic and reminiscence- ful evenings that characterised the launches of Volumes 1 and 2.

Volume 3, focusing on the central to Eastern Cape settlements as far as the old Transkei, is dedicated to Phyllis Jowell, who so sadly passed away in August 2006, and whose involvement, commitment and passion played so indelible and significant a part in the success of the project. With Jacob Gitlin Librarys Dr David Scher as chair, speaker after speaker paid warm tribute and extolled the virtues of this fine woman, greatly missed by all. Her husband, Cecil Jowell, described the warm relationship she always shared with the platteland volk.

Ella Blumenthal shares her experiences and deliver s a cogent message
I was born in Warsaw, the youngest in a family of seven children. I had seven nieces and nephews. My father was a chasid, a respected and well-to-do textile merchant. My mother and the entire family were very frum. I was a happy teenager until the invasion of Poland. I will never forget the images in the Warsaw ghetto – of starvation, epidemics, streets lined with corpses, starving children in rags begging for a piece of bread, human hunting, roundups, raids and deportations. In spite of surviving three concentration camps, after the liberation I tried to integrate into a normal society and after getting married, raised and educated my four children. But, I wasn’t able to talk about my suffering and fight for survival because the open wounds were still bleeding.

Now after many years, the tears have dried up and the scars have healed and I am now able to share it with you. It is now a few days after Pesach. At this exact time but in 1943, 65 years ago, the Warsaw ghetto was set alight and I was there.

as M Beinkinstadt of Canterbury Street finally closes its doors

At the end of July one of Cape Town’s oldest existing family businesses, M Beinkinstadt, will be closing its doors — ending not a chapter, but an 105 year old ‘volume’ of service to and association with the Jewish and wider community of this city and far beyond.
Some 5 years ago, on the centenary of the business, I traced the history of the hundred years, beginning thus … “If Moshe Beinkinstadt of Vilna were to take a walk in the now extinct ‘District Six’ today, he would be proud indeed to see that the business he established at number 38 Canterbury Street a hundred years ago, is still in family hands, and being run by his grandson, Michael Padowich.” Today, I would imagine Moshe pausing in contemplation at the front doors of the old building and nodding, with a sigh, “Yes, my beloved grandson, now is the right time for the final chapter … for you to close the doors.” Moshe founded the business in 1903, and ran it for the first 4 decades of the century, after which his son-in-law, Berl Padowich, husband of his only daughter Bertha, took over.

Yom Hashoah Vehagevurah – Holocaust and Heroism Day – Thursday 1 May
The Pesach Hagadah speaks eloquently and powerfully of the historical imperative of transmitting the memory of the Exodus from Egypt from generation to generation: Bechol dor vador chaiav adam lirot et atzmò keillu hu yatzà mimmitzraim – In every generation, every individual must feel as if he personally had come out of Egypt. So it is with the commemoration of the Holocaust and the transmission of its memory. We feel the same imperative to remember and honour the memory of the martyrs of the Holocaust. We are now the fourth generation of South African Jews to commemorate the Shoah. Many here today are of the generation who lived through the Holocaust years; some – dwindling number – directly experienced its horrors, and we pay tribute to them as the living and heroic witnesses to our people’s tragedy; others here today, including myself, are of the post-war generation, the children of the late 1940s and 1950s, born after the Holocaust, and others still are their children and even grandchildren. The memory of the Holocaust, like the memory of the Exodus from Egypt, is one of the crucial bonds between these generations; one of the critical ties that bind us together as a South African Jewish community; one of the principal elements that define us as South African Jews. From the start, from the war years themselves, the Holocaust has played this vital role.

Since this issue has to be completed before Pesach, to ensure that you will be reading it around 1 May and so that we, who are working sooo hard to get the 40 pages done, can have the time to do the requisite shopping and enjoy unpressured pre Pesach preparation (try saying that fast) this article is being written well in advance of Haggadah night. So it is largely speculative on how things turned out, not only on the seder nights, but, in fact, for the entire matzoh-munching period.

Did you enjoy the candle-lit experience, the cold repast (except for the not negotiable hot chicken soup and kneidels) as advised on the front page of our last issue? Or did you simply disregard the UOS appeal? If the former, you were the simple son, if the latter, naturally, the wise one.

Personally, I thought that was our best April Fools joke ever, as so many people, bemusedly, reluctantly and with some annoyance, actually did believe it. I have collected a few of the responses of the simple or perhaps they should be described as confused sons which you can read on page 32.