Cape Jewish Chronicle

This September, Rosh Hashanah issue is very largely a GREAT BIG, COLOURFUL WISH – to and from all ‘players’ in the Cape Town communal arena.

Individuals and families, organisations, rabbinical leaders, and very notably, local business, have taken this opportunity to express goodwill and share warm wishes for a happy and healthy and peaceful 5771. The greetings vary in expression but the feeling is one.

Yes, the issue does come out earlier than usual, with September yet to grace its threshold. This is to ensure that by the 9th all will have read the greetings and the advertisers will have had fair exposure.

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What can one say?
July – or the first half of it, which is what this issue covers – has been virtually all about the World Cup Soccer.
That applies to the whole of the country, of course, but Cape Town really exceeded expectations – even the ‘half the glass empty’ types fell under the spell of the vuvuzela, with people flooding the fan walks and the games too, if they managed to get a ticket.
And our community were well represented, no matter our size.
Nonetheless the usual communal activity did go ahead apace. The fact that this issue is smaller than usual is because of the need to send it out in great haste. We were thus, with a few exceptions, not able to cover things that happened after deadline date – which was 1 July, believe it or not!

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May’s activities – the action and the pleasures – were dampened somewhat by the deaths of two The Chronicle you are now reading was actually sent off to the print process on Tuesday 15 June, but at time of writing this ‘blurb’ – 24 June – the general scene in Cape Town has charged up amazingly and is likely to get more and more feverish as we move into July.

The FIFA World Cup 2010 excitement is already beyond belief. It’s a ‘once in a lifetime’ thing of ‘Olympian’ dimension, with virtually everyone having caught World Cup fever. Even the most soccer disinterested are being affected by the prevailing atmosphere, as the sounds of the vuvuzelas blast the ear from every quarter, within and far beyond the precincts of the Green Point Stadium. Even on non match days.
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May’s activities – the action and the pleasures – were dampened somewhat by the deaths of two prominent personalities in the community.

David Susman in particular stands out, apart from his exemplary business career, as the ‘doyen’, the leading ‘elder statesman’, who from early days served both Israel and the broad Jewish community and its various bodies at the highest level. So much so, that together with this issue a special 4-page feature highlights the esteem in which this man had been held by those who benefited from his wisdom and input.

Hopefully we will be able to have this feature on this website for all to appreciate the depth and breadth of his imprint and legacy.

Another very sad loss was that of Aaron Searll, a man well known and respected both in the field of retail and within the community, as evidenced in the tribute to him which appears within the paper on page 4.

Beyond the sadness, this June issue highlights a tapestry of energetic, enthusiastic and inspirational activity, enjoyed by a range of people, young and old.

April was the ‘Month of the Yoms’- Yom Hashoah V’Hagevurah, Yom Hazikaron and Yom Ha’atzmaut, but owing to the usual deadline cut off date, the latter two did not make the issue, other than a ‘rushed’ couple of pictures on the front page, with the promise of more to come in June.

Yom Hashoah this year was as ever a most fitting and moving commemoration of a chapter of our history that truly can never – nor should ever – be forgotten. More so, can one never come to terms with the horror, the inhumanity, the suffering of innocents … and the heroism.

The mandate never to forget and the resolve to celebrate our survival – ‘We are here’ – despite this catastrophic attempt to destroy our people, is highlighted, even in our own small way, in this very publication.
Though small in number – some 1800 souls – this Cape Town community is doing its bit! But at the same time, as you will read elsewhere in the paper, there is a commitment to the wider community, the ideal of ‘tikkun olam’ – the healing, or betterment, of the world.

We see this outreach from page one, with our youth movements’ support of the Equal Education march; the UJW’s ‘Baz Bus’ support of the Elundini Home on page 10; SAUJS’s outreach projects as described briefly on page 11, and ORT-Tech’s long- term and highly effective programmes in technological education for the neglected, less privileged in this country. And there is far more.

As to looking after our own, which has to be our lone responsibility, there is hardly a page that does not reflect that this is being done with the greatest effort, sincerity, love – and pleasure.

I’ve edited this publication for over 25 years now, and together with our ‘shoestring’ staff team of secretary Tessa Epstein, Anita Shenker, who handles the advertising, and Desrae Saacks, who as desk top publisher has the crucial role of getting everything well set and ‘print ready’, we notch up over 70 years of service.

So we’ve been around some while, you could say.

What is amazing is that, after all this time, instead of its becoming worn and wearisome – apart from the workload on occasions – the paper itself seems never to lose its energy. Energy in terms of where this Cape Town Jewish community is at, and how it just seems to grow more active and vibrant in the range of its activity.
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