Lifestyle/Community
Ronald Mink, superb teacher and historian, passes on
ISAAC REZNIK
Mink was born in Vryheid, Natal to Barney and Cecelia Mink (née Reichenberg, one of six daughters of the late Rabbi Moshe and Rebbetzen Sima Lieba Reichenberg.
Rabbi Mink was the rabbi of the Jeppestown Hebrew Congregation. After matriculating at Vryheid High School, Ronnie completed a BA degree at the University of the Witwatersrand, before pending a year at the Johannnesburg College of Education where he obtained a higher education diploma. He also obtained a postgraduate B Ed degree and did research into the history of education in Swaziland for his thesis.
In 1974 Mink was appointed vice-principal of the Yeshiva College in Johannesburg and after three years he joined the staff of King David High School Linksfield, where he served with dedication and loyalty for 34 years as head of the Jewish studies department. He was also a vice-principal of the school, until his retirement, He did his profession proud.
In the words of Barbara Rigden, a close friend, he was a superb teacher to the thousands of learners who had the privilege of sharing in his great knowledge. But not only the young benefited from his knowledge. He was an absolute expert of Holocaust history and knowledge.
Ronnie will be remembered not only as an educator par excellence, but also as a kind and compassionate person who was warmly devoted to his family.
He is survived by his wife Marla, daughters Melissa and Daniella, sons-in-law, grandchildren, his brother Dr Jackie Mink and all his colleagues and friends.
May his memory be for a blessing.
Samuel Shalom
November 6, 2014 at 1:26 pm
‘In Memory and Honor of Ronnie Mink
Ronnie Mink was a pioneering visionary without perhaps even knowing it. Already in the 1960s he was teaching Jewish pupils and at Jewish day schools in Johannesburg at a time when almost every Jewish man his age had chosen other career paths. And the thing is that he stuck with it and became a success story all the way through!
Teaching as a career path, and certainly teaching Jewish History which was his passion and specialty, was not the way young Jewish men from his era chose to make a living. But for Ronnie his mission was not to make a living it was to do something real for the Jewish people in a special way of fostering greater knowledge and teachings about Judaism, Torah and Jewish History to the young.
Ronnie Mink had a greater vision that grew out of his own Jewish and Torah-observant religious background that he was proud of and never rejected. While most young Jewish men his age chose to become doctors, lawyers, accountants or go into business and the commercial world and in most cases become wealthy beyond their wildest dreams, this never interested Ronnie.
Ronnie Mink had higher visions and nobler ambitions, to help the Jewish people and in particular The Jews of South Africa in Johannesburg learn about their own Jewish heritage and history. He loved to add more Torah content to everything he did, and to the best of his abilities he incorporated Judaism and his love of Israel and a passionate Zionism into his over-all teachings and classes.
It was hard to make Ronnie angry. He was never really cross at even the most badly-behaved students and he had a high threshold of tolerance and compassion for the failings of his charges. Ronnie was a very caring and loving person. A true \”mush-ball\” as they say for someone who is in essence all heart and very sweet and kind. He did not have a bad bone in his body and it is hard to believe that he ever had any enemies because he was so well-beloved by all who met him.
If you ever met and spoke with Ronnie he would show you his most earnest interest and take you very seriously. He listened carefully to what you had to say and nothing was trivial in his eyes especially if it meant that another person should be respected and that a pupil should be built up.
Over the years Ronnie developed a very deep and profound interest in the Holocaust. In that way too he was not typical of South African Jewry who for the most part did not experience the Holocaust themselves and did not have to face its horrors and hardly anyone studied it, let alone teach about it the way he did. But Ronnie bravely delved into this horrifying and scary tragic chapter in Jewish history when millions of Jews were persecuted and murdered for no other reason than they were born Jewish.
In some ways it was something of a mystery to figure out why Ronnie was so fixated on the Holocaust while his contemporaries worried about other more mundane things, like the stock exchange, profits from their companies and how the bottom line in their businesses and professional careers were shaping up. Not so Ronnie, he was literally worried and obsessed about what happened to the Jews in the Holocaust as if it was happening today in the here and now. He would get that very serious look on his face and become overcome with pain and angst as he would think about, discuss and describe various events and facts about the Holocaust. Anyone who met him knows this.
It was that kind of concern for others, that innate empathy and fulfilling the mitzah of \”ve’ahavta lerei’acha kamocha\” — love your neighbor/friend as you love yourself as applied to all Jews and even to all human beings who Ronnie sincerely believed were all the Children of God made in His Image.
Ronnie was a sweet and special man, unique in his generation, who worked to instill Jewish pride and work with Jewish children when with his credentials he could have easily gotten a job working in high-paying private school or college or even gone on to become a world-class university lecturer. Or he could have moved away and taught overseas in some far off Jewish day school or work with some Holocaust museum and project of which there are plenty in America and Canada, but Ronnie never left South Africa, he felt it was his life’s mission to stay and teach in Johannesburg at King David, and so he did.
Ronnie chose to educate children at Yeshiva College and for the majority of time at King David School in Linksfield, where he felt he would have the greatest impact on the Jewish people that way and mainly have the joy of working with the wonderful young Jewish teens who could benefit from his knowledge and above all else bask in his warmth, passion and love of each every human being that came into his orbit, no matter how great or small, everyone was important in Ronnie’s eyes, he never discriminated against anyone at any time!
May his family and his students and disciples be comforted among all the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem, may they know of no more pain, may they be granted a long and happy life, and may Ronnie be a meilitz yasher a good emissary before the Kisei HaKavod the Throne of Glory upon which Hakadosh Baruch Hu the Holy One Blessed Be He rests beseeching on behalf of our welfare and safety and for all of Israel and the Jewish People, as Ronnie surely will be doing given his constant greater vision of caring for his fellow-Jews and all of Israel, with his deep love and respect for Judaism and Torah and may he remain as a source of inspiration to the to all who knew him and to the Jewish People, Amen! He will be greatly missed!’