Category: August 2017

  Saving the lives of tens of thousands of unborn Jewish children   By Ilan Preskovsky Like virtually every other civilised country in the world, the debate about abortion has been raging on in Israel ever since it was legalised in the country in 1977, but for the Efrat Organisation, rather than trying to tackle the question politically as yet another group of “pro-life” activists, they have instead taken the approach of giving mothers who are considering terminating their pregnancy due to financial problems or other outside pressures a wider…

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What I learned about leadership from my father-in-law, Rabbi Azriel Chaim Goldfein   By: Leonard Carr In 1985, just before Rosh Hashana, I made what turned out to be the best decision of my life. I attended a shiur of Rabbi Azriel Chaim Goldfein, ztzl, to whom this Project Shalom series is dedicated. Shalom was the central theme and guiding principle of his life. During that shiur, which I have and continue to revisit, I decided that Rabbi Goldfein would be my Rebbe and that I would follow him for…

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The Jewish women of Joburg prove that they’ve got talent   By Chandrea Serebro No longer the playtime antics of girls dressing up, women’s theatre is becoming more and more popular in the Jewish world as religious women explore their talents for all things related to theatre, including singing, dancing, acting, and production, which would otherwise be out of bounds. It’s popular in Israel, America, and England, and it’s catching on here as well with Linda Zulberg’s production entitled ‘The Fortunate Two’ set to come to stage in early September…

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The volunteers of ZAKA SA, handling the work that few can do   By Chandrea Serebro It is truly humbling to meet people who do what they do with the purest of intentions and for the sheer virtue of it. Leshem shamayim (for the sake of heaven) is altruism at its best and it’s the only way to describe the good work that ZAKA does internationally. ZAKA is an international rescue and recovery organisation based out of Jerusalem in Israel, with branches all over the world, including a South African…

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Remembering Cape Town’s pioneer Rabbi   By Juan-Paul (Paysach) Burke South African Jewry is a relatively young community whose religious and communal infrastructure was built up by several pioneering individuals, be they rabbis, reverends, or laymen. In Johannesburg, there were the likes of Rabbi Joseph Herman Hertz, Rabbi Yehuda Leib Landau, and Rabbi Moishe Friedman. In Cape Town, there was Rev Joel Rabinowitz, Rev Alfred Philipp Bender, Adv Morris Alexander, and Rabbi Moshe Chaim Mirvish, to name but a few. To all of these and more, we owe our acknowledgement…

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  Some of the children of the man known as “Mr Community”, Gerald Leissner – who rose to success as MD of Anglo-American Property Services before moving onto ApexHi, and held numerous communal leadership positions, among them: chairman of Beyachad, national chairman and president of the Board of Deputies, and chairman of Yeshiva College and the Yeshiva College Hebrew Congregation – share with us their memories of growing up in his home   By Wendy Leissner-Machanik I have vivid memories of my father, a”h, always being there throughout my life.…

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