Achiever Awards showcase vibrancy of Jewish community

MARK KLUK

I was especially delighted to see my colleague Tali Nates being honoured for the outstanding work she is doing in Holocaust and tolerance education. Together with Richard Friedman, Director of the SA Holocaust and Genocide Foundation in Cape Town, I work closely with Tali in this field, and can thus attest not just to her passion and expertise, but to the remarkable empathy and sensitivity that she unfailingly brings to her work. 

The Board is currently collaborating with the Russian Embassy in planning an event to commemorate the role of the Soviet army in liberating the death camps in the closing months of the Second World War. Also involved is Paula Slier, who received the Women in Leadership Award at the Jewish Achievers function. Paula has for many years been employed as an international correspondent for Russian TV, and has further been involved in documenting the experiences of her own family in the Holocaust.

Expanding on the theme of identifying with and contributing to South Africa, the Board is working with Chabad Director Rabbi Dovid Masinter, the schools and others in the community in organising the Jewish community float at the forthcoming Heritage Day carnival in Tshwane/Pretoria.

The theme of the carnival is the celebration of South Africa’s cultural diversity through each community having its own float to showcase itself. The procession begins in the Pretoria Showgrounds and concludes at the Union Buildings grounds.

Our float will feature a model of an ark, containing a library to be donated to Tshwane/Pretoria for a school in the city. Jewish learners are being approached to donate books to the library.

The project combines the central Jewish values of education and learning with the importance of contributing to society. We hope very much to see our community turning out in their numbers to take part in what should be a very proud and enjoyable family occasion.

We are arranging bus transport for those who require it (contact Jenni at sajbd@sajbd.org).

On Sunday, National Director Wendy Kahn spoke at the departure of this year’s Cycalive team, led by Rabbi Dovid Hazdan and involving grade 11 learners from Torah Academy, Pace College and Moletsane High in Soweto and Israeli learners.

We look forward to welcoming them in Durban later this week and meeting them at the traditional welcoming braai organised by the Durban Jewish community.

Cycalive is a wonderful initiative, which over the years has brought together many young people from across the social and ethnic spectrum in celebrating their diversity and shared humanity.

It was particularly inspiring on this occasion to note Tokyo Sexwale’s comments at the send-off, where he pledged to take the Cycalive example back to the Fifa committee he heads up which has been tasked with monitoring the mending of relations between the Israeli and Palestinian football federations.

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