SA
Jews and Greeks party in Parliament
Jews and Greeks sang, networked, and broke bread in Parliament last week, but the event had little to do with local politics, and everything to do with communal bonding between the two South African minority groups. So says Michael Bagraim, the Shadow Minister of Labour and DA Member of Parliament.
OWN CORRESPONDENT
“We decided to arrange a cultural evening of fun in Parliament to bring together our communities, sing some of our traditional songs, and be addressed by Anroux Marais, the provincial Minister of Cultural Affairs, says Bagraim, who arranged the event with businessman Nassos Martalas.
“When I met Nassos at a dinner in May 2018, we discussed the close relationship between the Greek and the Jewish communities of Cape Town. Both communities are well organised, and there are enormous similarities. Many of us arrived in South Africa as refugees, and today the relationship between Greece and Israel is strong,” says Bagraim.
“There is a history of more than 2 000 years of Jewish life in Greece, and we still have a few Jews in Cape Town who came from Greece.”
After days of preparation and “jumping through the many hoops of Parliamentary protocol’, they secured The Old Assembly, which is the Parliamentary debating chamber that was used from the early 1900s to 1987.
Greek and Jewish choirs practiced separately and together, and the Jewish/Greek parliamentary caucus planned the unique event.
There were enough seats for 250 people. Bookings were taken by the Hellenic Club and the Zionist Federation. The response was immediate and tremendous. “We stopped booking at 250, but on the evening, 257 people arrived,” says Bagraim. “This is the first event of such a nature that has taken place in the Old Assembly Room.”
The communities ate, chatted, made new friends, and reignited old friendships. Included in the festivities were MPs George Michalakis, Darren Bergman, Glynnis Breytenbach, and John Steenhuisen.
“Many who were there from the Jewish community have asked that we pursue similar events with other minority communities,” says Bagraim. “This will be done in due course.”