AboveBoard: Celebrating Yomtov in safety

JEFF KATZ

Celebrating Yomtov in safety

Erev Rosh Hashanah this Sunday evening is the start of the Jewish festival season. It is a time of spiritual and moral stock-taking, when we reflect on how we have conducted ourselves during the year that has passed and through that process find the wisdom and inspiration to go forward into the year that has just begun.

It is also a time of celebration, goodwill and togetherness, both in our interaction with friends and family and at the broader level our embracing of the entire Jewish community. For all of us, for Israel and for the Jewish people everywhere in the world, may we be blessed with a year of success, health, happiness and peace.

While for most of us, Yomtov is an opportunity for rest and relaxation, for the Community Security Organisation, it is an especially busy time. As always the CSO’s professional and volunteer workers, working in conjunction with the police, will be ensuring the safety of our community, maintaining the highest standards of vigilance and professionalism.

We must co-operate with and assist the CSO to the greatest extent that we can, both by complying with the security recommendations they provide and by unquestioningly following their directives, particularly when travelling to and from shul. 

One cannot overestimate the effect good security has in deterring potential attacks on Jewish lives and institutions. We also need to be constantly on the look-out for suspicious activity, particularly over this period, and to be sure to immediately report anything out of the ordinary to the CSO on 086 1800 018. Should you require any advice in improving the security of your installation, please e-mail jhbroutine@cso.org.za.

Special Jewish Affairs issue marks 175 years of Jewish life in SA

The Rosh Hashanah issue of the Board’s journal Jewish Affairs has just been printed and will shortly be accessible on our website (https://www.jewishsa.co.za/category/media/jewish-affairs/).

It is a special bumper issue devoted to looking back on 175 years of Jewish life in South Africa, and provides a valuable addition to the growing literature on our remarkable community. The year 2016 also marks the 75^th anniversary of Jewish Affairs itself.

It first appeared in mid-1941, as a monthly bulletin through which the Board could communicate with its constituency, and has since come to be widely recognised as being the Jewish community’s leading historical, cultural and current affairs journal.

Since 1999, it has been edited by our Associate Director David Saks, and from the beginning of 2009 has also been available electronically.  

We are very proud of our journal, but need our community’s support for it to continue. I invite anyone who is not a subscriber to please consider becoming one. A subscription to Jewish Affairs also makes a meaningful Yomtov gift, whose benefits can be enjoyed long after the giving. For more information, contact Shirley on beagle@sajbd.org.

• Listen to Charisse Zeifert on Jewish Board Talk, 101.9 ChaiFM every Friday 12:00 – 13:00