The Kindness of Brothers and Strangers

by Amanda Jermyn

I never knew my grandfather’s brother, Julius Katz. He was born in Kassel, Germany, in 1875, the eldest of eight children of Isaac Katz and Mathilde Wertheim. My grandfather, August Katz, was born in 1879, the fourth child and second eldest son. In order to help provide an education for the younger children in the family Julius and August were sent to earn a living in South Africa, each at age fifteen. When the Boer War broke out in 1899 Julius was living in Fauresmith, in the Orange Free State, working in his uncle, August Wertheim’s general store, Wertheim & Co., while my grandfather was a bookkeeper for Saffery & Co. in Humansdorp in the Cape. As Julius was based in Boer territory he fought for the Boers, while August, in British Humansdorp, fought for the British, although this did not in any way diminish their affection for each other.  While serving as a Captain in the Bethlehem Commando[1], Julius was captured by the British at the Battle of Magersfontein and sent to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) for one and a half years. During that time, he and my grandfather wrote to each other regularly, though their letters were heavily censored, and my grandfather sent Julius food parcels through the Red Cross. When the British won the war in 1902, the two defeated Boer republics became British colonies. The British assembled all prisoners of war, including Julius Katz in Ceylon, and asked who wanted to go home. All hands went up. But when they heard they would have to take an oath of allegiance to King Edward VII, some refused. Many of these men settled in Argentina, Paraguay and Angola. Most however, like Julius Katz, went home and became “British Subjects by Conquest.” After the war, in 1904, when their uncle retired, August and Julius Katz bought out his store in Fauresmith and ran it together.

Unlike their uncle who had a mistress, there were no women in the lives of my grandfather and his brother Julius at that time, so they sent for their sister Johanna, who was single and living in Kassel, to keep house for them. She arrived in 1912 at age thirty to cook, run the household and generally see to their welfare. For their amusement they installed a billiard table in their house so they could all three play billiards without having to go to the one in the town bar. Julius and August swam nude in the Riet River, they all three went on picnics in the veld, played with their little white dog, and went on outings to polo games where the women wore long white dresses and hats and carried parasols.

In 1914 my grandfather went to Germany to visit his family and to look for a wife. He sailed up the east coast of Africa on the German East Africa Line’s R.P.D. Tabora, stopping at Zanzibar, Dar es Salaam and Aden. His ship sailed through the Red Sea and the Suez Canal, stopping in Port Said, Egypt, then traversed the Mediterranean, stopping in Naples. The boat’s final destination was Hamburg. This journey took five or six weeks. Shortly after his arrival, World War I broke out, with Germany siding with Austria-Hungary against the Allies. While his brothers David and Willi Katz were called up to fight for the Kaiser, the war forced my grandfather to remain in Kassel, though he did not initially realize what would be in store for him. Though he was born in Germany, he was by then a naturalized British subject. So on January 29th 1915 he was interned as a “Colonial Englishman” in the Ruhleben concentration camp near Kassel. The prisoners were not treated badly, but food was scarce. The Germans had very little food, and what they did have went mainly to the military. With their own civilians starving, one can only imagine how little the prisoners of war received. Just as August had sent his brother Julius food parcels when he was a POW in the Boer War, Julius, in South Africa, sent food parcels to August during World War I.

Meanwhile, their two brothers, Willi and David Katz, who were officers in the German army, fought bravely and greatly contributed to the war effort. Willi, an actuary and mathematician, developed a formula for lobbing shells long distances. The Germans had created some very long range artillery with which they bombarded cities like Paris. Willie calculated the trajectories of missiles (how much to elevate the gun and how much powder to put in the shell) so that they could be fired most advantageously. David, a psychologist, helped soldiers who had been shell-shocked and traumatized by their experiences. For these contributions both were awarded the Iron Cross in 1917. When the commanding officer who pinned the medals to their chests asked if there was any favor they would like granted, they asked that their brother be let out of the prisoner of war camp. As a result, in 1917, my grandfather was released on parole. It was around this time that he met his future wife, Frieda Prager, who was actually related to him. My grandmother Frieda was the first woman admitted to the medical school at Heidelberg University and she had to fight hard for the privilege. Later, because of her efforts, her sister Irene was able to attend too. In 1918 Frieda qualified as a dentist.

In 1919, after the war was over, my grandfather returned to Fauresmith, bringing with him his wife Frieda and their baby daughter, Mathilde, known as Tillie. Although fully qualified, Frieda was not allowed to practice dentistry in South Africa. Because Germany did not recognize South African qualifications, South Africa did not accept the German ones. Soon, two more children were born, my Uncle Wally, in 1921 and my father, Robert, in 1923. Together with Julius, my grandparents ran the general store, Wertheim & Co. My grandmother also ran the household, made butter and cheese from milk from the family’s cows, sewed the children’s clothes and cut their hair.

Both August and Julius served as deputy mayors of Fauresmith, and Julius became mayor in 1910, serving for six years. Julius was a city councilor for 12 years, a justice of the peace and chairman of the Chamber of Commerce. During the 1918 flu epidemic Johanna and Julius tended to many of the flu victims but never became ill themselves. They attributed this to the fact that they ate lots of garlic. In 1929 Julius retired to Kassel, and Johanna went with him.

In 1928, before their departure, Johanna was given an autograph book by her friend, Mrs. Board, for her 46th birthday, which we still have today. In it family and friends drew sketches, wrote poems, good wishes and wise sayings. Among them was one from my grandfather, August Katz:  “Something that is great and enduring to aspire towards:  Pleasing one’s fellow man is still the best that one can do in the world.”[2] This quotation from the Austrian poet, Peter Rosegger (1843-1918) sounds just like my grandfather, the sweetest, kindest man one could imagine. Another entry was one from my grandmother, Frieda, which, translated from German, reads: “Memory is the one paradise that can’t be taken away from you.” I thought of this quote when my father, in later life, suffered from Alzheimer’s disease. Unfortunately, sometimes memory can be taken from you. I’m just glad my grandmother never lived to see this happen to her son.

After Julius and Johanna moved to Germany in 1929 my grandparents continued to run the general store, and the children attended school in Fauresmith. Up until 1933 there had been little anti-Semitism in the Orange Free State. Since the earliest times, the Afrikaners and Jews had got on well together. Religious Afrikaners viewed the Jews with respect, as “People of the Book,” and others valued the European culture they brought with them to the wilds of Africa. With the rise of Hitler, however, Nazi propaganda began to spread. My father remembered being beaten up by children at his school for being a Jew. When he complained to the school principal about this, the principal’s response was, “You must have done something to provoke it.” My grandparents had become concerned about the rise in anti-Semitism, but this was the last straw for them. In 1938 they left Fauresmith and move to English-speaking Cape Town where the political climate was more favorable.

Meanwhile, in Kassel Johanna and Julius lived at 112 Koelnische Strasse along with some of their siblings. After Hitler’s rise to power they returned to South Africa in 1936 for good. They settled in Oranjezicht in Cape Town where Julius died of a coronary thrombosis in 1941 at age 66. Johanna later lived with her sister, Sophie Hornthal, in an apartment in Sea Point where I remember visiting them with my family on Sundays for a very proper German afternoon tea, with cream cakes served on good China.

There is a strange coda to the story of Julius Katz. In 2015, I was asked to write an article about the Baumann branch of my family for a South African genealogy journal called Familia. The article was later posted, with permission, on the website of the South African Jewish Special Interest Group, hosted by Eli Rabinowitz, a former South African living in Australia. In August 2024, I received an email from Eli in which he forwarded a message from a man called Pierre Nortje from Durbanville, near Cape Town, who wrote that he had read my article on the website. He said that he had in his possession an old passport and some other documents that had belonged to Julius Katz (mentioned in the article). He attached a few photos of these. He offered to give the documents, free of charge, to any relative of Julius who might be interested in having them, if someone could collect them from his home in Durbanville. I told Eli that I was definitely interested, and subsequently asked my sister-in-law, Lara Jermyn, who lives in Cape Town, if she would be willing to drive out to Durbanville to collect the documents from Pierre. She very kindly agreed to do so and then mailed them to me in the US.

I was, however, curious to know how Pierre had come by the passport and other documents he gave me, so, when I wrote to thank him, I asked him this question. He told me that an acquaintance of his, Nazeth van Greunen, had inherited them, but he didn’t know anything more about the matter. This made me even more curious as I had never heard of either Pierre or Nazeth before this correspondence and wondered if Nazeth might be related to our family in some way. So, when I wrote to thank her, I asked how she came by the documents. Here is her reply:

Dear Amanda,

You are most welcome! I’m so glad that the documents are finally returning to your family. My aunt (Breggie Cloete) was a nurse in Cape Town who cared for sick patients in their homes. Sometimes, when these patients passed away, their family gave my aunt something as a token of appreciation for her work. In this instance she was given a beautiful needlework table. When my aunt passed away in 2005 at the age of 83, my mom inherited the table. When my mom passed away in 2018 the table came to me. While going through the drawers I discovered the documents and have ever since wondered how to find some family member that might be interested in them but didn’t really know where to start.

When I met Pierre I gave him the documents hoping that he might be able to find someone. I was happy and amazed that he was able to find you! Attached is a picture of the table that has pride of place in my home. My sentimental soul can rest now that the documents are back with your family.

I was delighted to receive these documents and so touched by the kindness of strangers, both Nazeth and Pierre, in seeking out a family member who would cherish them.

The documents turned out to be of great interest to me. One of them was a formal letter from the Governor of the Orange River Colony, Sir Hamilton John Goold-Adams, appointing Julius Katz as Justice of the Peace and Mayor of Fauresmith in 1910. It was signed by the Attorney General. Another was the declaration that Julius signed in 1902 in which he pledged allegiance to King Edward VII, thus allowing him to return to South Africa from the POW camp in Ceylon at the end of the Boer War. One side of the declaration was printed in English and the other side in Dutch, the language used for legal matters prior to Afrikaans.

There was also Julius’s Union of South Africa passport with a playing card with the logo of the Union Castle shipping line as a bookmark in it. When I looked at the pages of the passport, I found that some of the stamps and writing were in Cyrillic script which I couldn’t read and some of the writing was in old German cursive script which was hard to decipher. So I enlisted my son Adam to put the transcription and translation tasks to Claude[3], the artificial intelligence model, developed by Anthropic, the company he works for. Claude did an excellent job! The passport was issued in 1928, before Julius moved back to Germany with his sister Johanna in 1929. It states that he was a “British Subject by virtue of having been a burgher of the late Orange Free State Republic.” It shows a photo of him and states that he was a merchant born in Germany in 1875. It lists his height as 5 foot 7 inches. The passport itself is interesting because it shows that Julius traveled quite extensively in Europe. As South Africa was still, at that time, a member of the British Empire, it entitled the holder to travel anywhere within the Empire, as well as to all European countries and the USA. The stamps in it show that he traveled to Romania, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Italy and Switzerland. It also lists letters of credit from the Credit Bank of Kassel to banks in the various countries he visited. Presumably these were to enable him to obtain funds in the local currencies. As far as I know, Julius had retired, prior to leaving for Germany, so he was probably traveling for pleasure, but it’s possible that he was also doing business in some of the countries he visited. Whether his sister Johanna accompanied him on these trips I don’t know but, as they were very close, it seems likely that she did. Another point of historical interest is that the passport includes a “Certificate of Registration” from the British Consulate, dated March 27th, 1933, certifying that Julius was a British Subject and Protected Person. Presumably this was required to exempt him from the anti-Jewish laws being passed after Hitler came to power. An immigration stamp shows that he left Germany for South Africa for good in 1936.

So here ends the tale of the kindness and affection of two brothers whom fate placed on opposite sides in two wars and of the kindness of two strangers who reunited the found documents of one of those brothers with a grateful family member.


[1] Louis Rabinowitz Papers

[2] Translated from German by my cousin Vicki Sussens-Messerer

[3] Anthropic’s Claude 3.5 Sonnet model

Preview

The Last Night

DISCOVER2022 Pakn Treger Digital Translation Issue

By Rikle Glezer, translated by Corbin Allardice and Jay Saper

Written by:Rikle GlezerTranslated by:Corbin Allardice and Jay SaperPublished:Summer 2022 / 5782Part of issue number:Translation 2022

Born in Vilna in 1924, Rikle Glezer was raised in the secular Yiddish schools of the interwar period; she began her poetic career as a student. When the Nazis created the ghetto, Glezer decided initially not to join the partisans, instead staying behind to help care for her mother and younger sister.

“The Last Night” recounts Glezer’s deportation from the ghetto to Ponar. Blending personal and collective speech into a folk ballad, “The Last Night” shows Glezer’s strength as a popular poet. Glezer leaped from the death train and eventually fled to the forest to join the partisans. Her poetry ranges from loud calls for vengeance to quiet scenes of intimacy. In “The Last Night,” we find Glezer moving between these moods, carving out space for the personal and the private within the beating rhythm of the train and its demand for action. To better capture this movement, we have preserved Glezer’s strong rhyme and iambic meter while disrupting it with insertions of white space in certain verses, graphically emphasizing the textual disjunctures.

Glezer’s words are a candle of remembrance, and it is our greatest hope that through our translation we can help keep that flame lit.

A gloomy night of terror,
rain cutting through the sky,
a grim procession marches;
women and elders passing by.

They’re packed into the train cars
packed tight as tinned sardines.
And no one needs a compass
to know just where this leads.

The train keeps moving faster
wheels clatter, spin, and click
the music of a steady beat,
to death, 
   quick, quick, quick, quick.

Within the train it’s darker
than the darkest nighttime street,
while distant dogs are barking,
a demon crackles in the heat.

Their hearts are stages now
for sea-deep tragedies
and every soul begs: 
            mercy,
   please save, 
   please     poison me!

And mothers hold to their hearts
dear children one last time.
They kiss and they caress them 
no stop, no end in mind.

I ride in that same death train
and my momma’s in there too.
I cling to her so tightly.
Our final hour’s almost through.

The train will soon be stopping,
the last star will grace the sky.
I haven’t had a moment yet
to think how soon I’ll die.

A thought strikes like a hammer:
   No, 
I will not die this way.
Before our enemy’s hands
this weak woman will not lay.

I feel Momma’s racing tears,
I feel my young blood cry:
   I will not die this way.
   No, 
that death I shall deny.

I leap, I reach the window,
I muster might anew,
and putting fists to iron,
open that window flew.

I leave you   Momma
 to eternity, 
my heart is torn and wrung.
In rhythm with the spinning wheels
off that train, I jump.

I fall upon the dewy ground,
the train chugs on afar.
Through all the sounds of anguish,
Momma’s screams still reach my heart.

Surrounded by night’s solitude,
I ponder what to do.
I wipe away two wounds:
my momma’s tears, 
         my mix     of blood and dew.

~Liquidation of Vilna ghetto, 1943
 

Rikle Glezer (1924–2006) leaped off the train from the Vilna ghetto bound for death at Ponar to take up pen and pistol against the fascists, chronicling her life as a partisan through poetry. Against tropes of passivity and silence, Glezer’s poetry captures the vibrant complexity of Jewish antifascist resistance, nimbly moving between lamentation and protest, grief and rage. Glezer’s spellbinding words, sung by Jews throughout the ghettos, camps, and forests, earned her a Grammy Award Nomination in 1989 for Best Traditional Folk Recording. 

Jay Saper and Corbin Allardice are recipients of a Yiddish Book Center translation fellowship and a Lithuanian Culture Institute translation grant to translate Rikle Glezer’s 1991 book Poems of Life, which will be the first collection of poetry by a Jewish woman partisan to appear in English.

The editors of the forthcoming book with a chapter on Rikle Glezer, including her relationship to Glik, are Lori R. Weintrob and Judy Baumel-Schwartz.

Hirsh-Glik-excerpt-from-Rikle-Glezer-testimony

The Legacy of Julian Fisher

From his son Peter

Jules & Batya Fisher

The true power of art lies in its ability to create connection. The subject or style may evoke a memory, crystallise an experience, prompt self-awareness or ask questions, deepening our understanding of ourselves and others. When art is gifted, it becomes embellished with an additional layer of meaning, a fine lacquering of good energy that forever combine artist, artwork, giver and recipient in a web of positive threads.

At its root, ArtÓ exists because of a specific moment in time when avid appreciation for an artwork by South African painter Julian Fisher resulted in a gift that would start an art collection. ArtÓ Founder Antony Finn visited the home of interior designer Lillian Bond in Johannesburg in 1992, a house awash with art and several pieces by Fisher, when his eye was taken by an oil on board of the New York skyline.

“In the middle of one wall, was a very recognisable Julian Fisher. I later learned that it was from his travels to the USA in the 1980s,” explains Finn. “I was admiring it when Lillian caught me inspecting the style and detail. She asked if I liked that one for some reason and I explained I loved the artist’s impression of New York in such an abstracted way and his use of the pallet knife. Lillian immediately removed the painting and gifted it to me there on the spot.”

That act of generosity, initially refused on the grounds of politeness by Finn, would ignite a love of art in a young mind, a joy of gifting it to others and a desire to inspire emerging artists as a supporter of the arts. “That was a moment in my life where my inextricable connection with art was made,” affirms Finn. “The painting by Julian Fisher was the first piece of art I ever owned and has hung in every home I have ever lived in since. It is the reason I have invested in art over a lifetime.”

Julian Fisher, who passed away in 2019, would never know that his painting had such a profound impact nor that it would be the catalyst for an art gallery, ArtÓ in Stow-on-the-Wold, 30 years after it was gifted. An art gallery with a difference, where all art is ‘owned not loaned’ and artists are supported financially upfront in an echo of the philanthropic attitude to the visual arts inspired in Finn by Lillian Bond.

A year after opening ArtÓ, Finn was able to contact Fisher’s son Peter through filmmaker Eli Rabinowitz, a friend of Julian and his wife Batya. Peter moved to Perth, Australia in 1986 with his parents and sisters joining him in the following years. Peter divulged that his father’s legacy lives on in one of his granddaughters, an architect like Julian, and one of his great granddaughters “who has not only inherited my father’s talent but a talent far beyond that” says Peter encouragingly.

Discovering the catalytic effect of his father’s art has offered the opportunity for a closer link to his work for Peter. “I think with the benefit of hindsight that my father was quite gifted,” he explains. “Probably growing up with his art studio right outside my bedroom for a large period of my teenage years I don’t think I appreciated it enough or gave him credit enough. It is only in your mature years that you can reflect objectively.”

Connecting with Peter has also shed light on Julian’s creative collaboration with wife Batya, an insight gracefully shared. “She was a very big supporter and encourager of his art and she took great interest particularly when it came to naming the art pieces,” reveals Peter. “My father would debate the naming with her at length and she really helped him in this area as well. They used to put great emphasis on getting the ‘naming aspect’ right.”

Fisher’s talents have held a fascination for Antony Finn since he first observed the painter’s impression of the Big Apple. “How a man of precision, an architect, was also a renowned award-winning abstract artist, leaving a legacy of fine art across the globe that has had an impact on people like me, is worthy of celebrating,” he says warmly. “Julian Fisher’s artwork started my journey in the art world and it’s because of him that the idea for ArtÓ was formed.”

https://kehilalinks.jewishgen.org/johannesburg/Fisher.html

A Letter From Natie – Beaufort West

A letter to Gail Lustig and Eli Rabinowitz

November 2022

Dear Gail & Eli,

Many thanks for your e-mail the contents of which were read with much interest.  I was made aware of your contribution and the website by Gavin Morris, Director of the Jewish Museum in Cape Town.  I visited him recently and took him some interesting artefacts that I wanted to donate to his museum, inter alia a Siddur translated into Afrikaans by  Rabbi Dr Romm.

I did grow up in the Karoo town of Beaufort West where I was born in 1939 and delivered by a Jewish doctor practising as the doctor for the S A Railways & Harbours in the town, the late Dr Harold Lee.  I was schooled there and matriculated in 1956 from the Central High School.  My late mother, Annie, (née Dubowitz) also matriculated from the precursor to that school, Beaufort West Boys High School, and was the Matric Dux in 1922.  She had to get special permission to do her Matric at a Boys’ school, as the Girls’ school only offered tuition to Junior Certificate level (Standard 8).

I was very excited to read that you were interested in Zelda Myburg, as her late father, Rev. Aaron Myburg, my Hebrew teacher and mentor, was her father.  My parents were married in the Beaufort West Synagogue in 1934 and Rev. Gulis was the spiritual leader of the Beaufort West Congregation then.  After he left the town, Mr father was instrumental in convincing Rev. Myburg to leave Middelburg Cape and come to Beaufort West, where he would do the ritual slaughtering, conduct services in the shul and teach children in cheder.

My parents were great friends of the Myburgs and on Sunday evenings would play cards with them and others (Moishe Horowitz and the Goldenbaums).  My mother was an ardent Zionist and worked tirelessly for WIZO and other Jewish charities. I knew Rev and Mrs Myburg had three daughters, who sometimes spent the High Holydays with their parents.  Hettie was the eldest and married a fellow from Johannesburg and if my addled memory does not leave me in the lurch, had the surname of Hurwitz.  The middle daughter, Golda, was an academic. obtained her BA degree at Pretoria University.  To the best of my knowledge, she never married during my sojourn in Beaufort West.  The youngest daughter, Zelda, the prettiest of the daughters, married a young brilliant academic Yaacov Newman, who later was known as Rabbi Dr Jacob Newman.  Rev. Myburg was so proud of his son-in-law and used to tell us with much enthusiasm of his many achievements.  When I first heard of him from my dear teacher, I think he was the resident Rabbi at the Oxford Synagogue in Johannesburg.

Rev. Myburg was a wonderful Hebrew teacher with amazing patience.  I attribute my Hebrew education to his tutelage, and I had my bar mitzvah in the synagogue in 1952.  On 7 May this year, I celebrated my second bar mitzvah in the Gardens shul.  I read the same portion in the Torah and did the Haftorah Kedoshim in the same trop as I was taught, including the old-fashioned Ashkenazi pronunciation.  That was a moving experience, but also quite intimidating, as the Garden shul is massive compared to the tiny shul of my youth.

Rev. Myburg also taught me to blow the shofar and when he became too frail in his older years, I blew the shofar for him.  That experience stood me in good stead, as I did the same ritual in the Grahamstown synagogue when I was a Senior Lecturer at Rhodes University. I left Beaufort West in 1957 to pursue my studies in Cape Town, but when I was visiting the old Transvaal in 1963, I went to see my former teacher, who was living his retirement in an aged home in Johannesburg.  Suffice it to say it was a moving reunion.  Thereafter I lost touch with Rev. Myburg and his family.  Without a spiritual head, Beaufort West’s Jewish community dwindled and not a single Jew is left in the town.

When I turned 70 years of age, I was made an Honorary Citizen of Beaufort West.  I visit the town regularly, as I still possess some property in the town (my inheritance).  During my youth we had a thriving community, and I am hoping to write an account of those unforgettable characters who made such a great contribution to the town.  The cornerstone of the synagogue was laid by Mr I Bakst, a great friend of my late grandfather, in March 1922; so this is the centenary year of the shul there.  The original building is a storeroom these days, but Rev. Myburg’s house next door is now occupied by the sister of the owner, Mr Botha, a son of the original purchaser, Mr Gert Botha.  The square pit in the back yard is still there where Rev. Myburg slaughtered the chickens, and we watched the ritual in awe as children.  The bimah landed up in the Milnerton synagogue and the torahs were donated to a young community, Moshav Manof, a South African formed Settlement in the Galilee in Israel.  I recall going to the old Schoonder Street Synagogue (since demolished) in Cape Town with my father to witness the handing over ceremony of the torahs.

When my wife and I attended a bar mitzvah at the Milnerton synagogue, I looked at the bimah and remarked to my wife that I recognise the bimah. She scoffed and thought I was losing it. Why would I remember a bimah?  Let me explain.  Each pillar of the bimah had a large wooden ball which was attached to the supporting pillar with a wooden dowel.  As mischievous kids, we pulled out the dowels and balanced the ball on their pillars.  When the gabbaim leaned against the pillar, the ball would come tumbling down with a thunderous bang on the wooden floor startling everyone at shul.  Perhaps it even woke up a few congregants who had nodded off.  What a childhood memory J!!  When I told my wife how I had remembered, she remained unconvinced, but a fellow pharmacist and member at that shul confirmed my identification and my wife, like Queen Victoria, was not amused by the pranks practised in our capricious youth.

Once I got writing, so many memories came flooding back.  I am pleased that I could add something to Eli’s query about Zelda Myburg.  I hope to start writing about the Jewish characters of Beaufort West and my own family.  The Finkelstein (my late Dad and I) and Dubowitz families (three uncles and six male cousins) could muster a minyan without the participation of any other congregants.  My grandparents and two uncles are buried in the Jewish cemetery in Beaufort West.

Warm greetings and best regards,

Sincerely

Natie

—————————————————————————————————————————————————-

Nathan (Natie) Finkelstein  Dip Pharm  DCC  Hons-BSc (Med Sci)  MSc  PhD  FPS(SA)  FRPharmS   FIPharmM  MSAChemI

FORMER VISITING PROFESSOR: FACULTY OF PHARMACY, RHODES UNIVERSITY, GRAHAMSTOWN/MAKHANDA

COMMISSIONER OF OATHS: REPUBLIC OF SOUTH AFRICA

CONSTANTIA               

Cape Town, South Africa

Update from Natie

9 November

Hi Eli

You requested pictures and I decided to send you one which marked a significant milestone in my life, viz. my second barmitzvah.  The picture was taken by Rabbi Osher Feldman when I did a “dress rehearsal” at the Gardens Synagogue in Cape Town (now 181 years old) three days before the actual Shabbat “performance” on 7 May 2022.  This was rather a far cry from the original barmitzvah celebrated in 1952 in the small shul of Beaufort West.  It was a memorable occasion being surrounded by family, friends, and the Gardens community at a brocha after the service.

Warm regards

Sincerely

Natie


The visit of the Yosef Shlomo Kahaneman, the Ponevezh’s Rav to Cape Town in 1953

Links:

Western Cape, BEAUFORT-WEST, Jewish cemetery

https://graves-at-eggsa.org/main.php?g2_itemId=925556

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaufort_West

https://www.beaufortwest.net/

 

8 November 1922

Dr Christiaan Barnard Born

Christiaan Neethling Barnard, 1922 – 2001 (Image: Wikimedia Commons)

Christiaan Barnard was born in Beaufort West, Western Cape, on this day in 1922. Dr. Barnard studied medicine at the University of Cape Town. His first practice was at Ceres, also in the Western Cape. Dr. Barnard became famous in 1967 for leading a team that successfully performed the first heart transplant on a human being.

Eli Rabinowitz

Kristallnacht Commemoration Perth 2022

Sunday 6 November 2022 – 2:30pm

Council of Christians and Jews Western Australia Inc.

The Perth Hebrew Congregation

The highlights of this sombre annual Kristallnacht commemoration included the beautiful and meaningful songs sung by Carmel School Choir, and the cello pieces played by James Maley, with accompanist David Hicks.

Carmel School Choir Clip

The Program

Kristallnacht Perth 22

Eli Rabinowitz

Jewish Museum Kaliningrad Opening 2

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen

We introduce 8 children to the visitors of the museum. The museum is not only in a living synagogue on the site of a historical synagogue, it was also the site of a Jewish school during Nazi time. It united the Jews in this difficult time, it was an island of Nazi free ideology, it was a place where parents could come at Fridays to enjoy Shabbat activities during this terrible times where Jews were rejected everywhere else in town. The children learned languages and were fit for leaving to other countries (and support their parents in foreign languages). A place of Jewish empowerment.

So we wanted to make it very special and invented a special machine. We created the “glowing wheel”, it works like a computer mouse. First an introduction with children paintings of heart strings, that were connecting them all around the world. Than you can choose between 4 languages Russian, English, German and Hebrew. Than you can look at the 8 Stories, videoclips with photos, interviews and animated elements, sounds, music, voices….

We developed it from the scratch with our very good creative company in Leipzig (Germany) and a media company.

 
  
Sincerely
Michael Leiserowitz
Member of Board (now Warsaw, Poland)
 

https://jmkaliningrad.org/en/

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Eintrag Nr. 24883 Nz

Wir sind wegen Förderung gemeinnütziger Zwecke insbesondere der Förderung kultureller Zwecke durch Bescheinigung des Finanzamtes für Körperschaften I Berlin, Steuernummer 27/669/53052, nach § 5 Abs- 1 Nr. 9 des Körperschaftssteuergesetzes von der Körperschaftssteuer befreit.

Wir sind berechtigt für Spenden Zuwendungsbestätigungen auszustellen.

Jewish Museum Kaliningrad Opening

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,
 
In the three-minute report you can get an insight into the new museum in the active synagogue of Kaliningrad (Koenigsberg). You can set the subtitles in English, German and Hebrew.
On the occasion of the opening of the museum in the Kaliningrad Synagogue on October 9, 2022, journalists from the Kaskad TV channel summarize impressions and opinions of the organizers and guests from the cultural and tourism industry.
 
We thank all our supporters and of course the German Foreign Office.
 
 
Sincerely
Michael Leiserowitz
Member of Board (now Warsaw, Poland)
 

https://jmkaliningrad.org/en/

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Juden in Ostpreussen e.V.

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info@judeninostpreussen.de

www.judeninostpreussen.de

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Vereinsregister Amtsgericht Charlottenburg

Eintrag Nr. 24883 Nz

Wir sind wegen Förderung gemeinnütziger Zwecke insbesondere der Förderung kultureller Zwecke durch Bescheinigung des Finanzamtes für Körperschaften I Berlin, Steuernummer 27/669/53052, nach § 5 Abs- 1 Nr. 9 des Körperschaftssteuergesetzes von der Körperschaftssteuer befreit.

Wir sind berechtigt für Spenden Zuwendungsbestätigungen auszustellen.