Everything, including the proverbial kitchen sink…

SUZANNE BELLLING

PHOTO SUBMITTED

Andy and Saul Behr, founders of JJCF.

The brainchild of former Gautengers Saul and Andy Behr, they hit upon this idea before their aliyah to Ramat Beit Shemesh in 2002.  

“These services are all on offer in Israel and we found them very helpful,” said Saul, a former prefect and Maths Olympiad winner at King David Linksfield. He is a software architect, who put his talents to good use.

The couple have five children.

Andy attended Pretoria Girls’ High School and is a financial analyst. “We set up the list in Johannesburg before we left – as a service to people, a kind of brains trust.”

They both handle JJCF in addition to their regular work and, although it doesn’t bring in much of an income, it is a satisfying occupation that keeps the Behrs’ fingers on the pulse of the Jewish community they know so well.

They have a number of monitors (on a voluntary basis) who keep tabs on the postings and check for offensive or unsuitable requests.

But the “funnies” as Andy calls them, slip through, as do some spellings – usual errors like accommodation with one “m” or one “c”; mechanic spelled mekanik; programme (without the second “m” and “e” – not counting computers – and other American spellings); Alsatian dogs (spelled Alsation) and mix-ups between stationary (still) and stationery (pens etc).

There are warnings of electricity outages, water cuts, “beware the potholes in Oaklands Road”, pleas for help with noisy neighbours, requests for information where noise is coming from in the middle of the night, where to report blaring music.

There are requests for domestic workers, gardeners, drivers and white collar job opportunities, as well as offers of free lifts to Cape Town in exchange for driving cars, urgent pleas for people travelling overseas to take medicines left behind in error and to transport gifts for weddings in Cape Town and abroad, always with the addendum “the package is small and light”.

There are offers to stand in queues at passport offices, lifts to and from work, numerous requests for au pairs, holiday properties, permanent properties – homes to let, homes for rent (houses, flats and cottages).

Parents require tutors for extra lessons, tutors looking to give extra lessons. There are those seeking doctors, lawyers, kosher restaurants, caterers, help with emigration, ancestral visas, pets to give away to good homes and people downsizing or emigrating, who sell up their entire households.

Andy sent a couple of her “funnies”:

• Looking for a reliable and trustworthy currier service to take passport renewal documents from Johannesburg to the Israeli consulate in Pretoria and back ASAP.

  Thanks in advance!

  Andy’s assumption was: “I guess she likes curry.”

• Email 1:  ​​Looking for solid cardboard boxes to move houses. Contact  (Name withheld)
• The reply was: I’ve never seen a cardboard box that can fit a house in! 

One JJCF subscriber told Jewish Report that she had hired her domestic staff from the postings; while another, a strict grammarian, said while the spellings, lack of punctuation and literacy drove her crazy, she nevertheless found JJCF very useful.

“They helped me get rid of my ants,” said another. “Although there were so many solutions, I didn’t know where to start.”

Then there are requests for davening and tehillim for the sick, postings which bring out the best in people. One subscriber regretted, however, that the people putting up the notice often forgot to inform JJCF when the patients recovered or, sadly, died.

One JJCF member provided a bittere gelechte: “I lost the name of the person who asked for the prayers for a gentleman, so I continued davening until I came across his tombstone in the cemetery.

“Nevertheless the more people praying, the better,” she said.

Between 100 and 150 e-mails go out every day – some as individual e-mails several times a day, some as a digest with a collection of emails per day and a shorter form sent to subscribers on mobile phones.

* To find out more, contact moderators@jjf.info