Professor Barry Schoub: protector in chief

“His life’s work has been saving lives.” With these words, Mary Kluk, the national president of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD), summed up the personality that is Professor Barry Schoub, this year’s recipient of the Kia Community Service Award.

The retired expert on vaccinology and virology was among those recognised for his heroic contribution at the Absa Jewish Achiever Awards ceremony held virtually this past Sunday.

Schoub is chairperson of South Africa’s ministerial advisory committee on coronavirus vaccines, one of the many ways he has dedicated his life to improving the lives of others.

“I thought Professor Schoub was retired,” Professor Salim Abdool Karim, chairperson of the South African Ministerial Advisory Committee on COVID-19, said in a video tribute outlining Schoub’s work. “Nothing could be further from the truth.”

Indeed, this emeritus professor in virology at the University of the Witwatersrand and former director of the National Institute for Communicable Diseases, stepped up to ensure that the community was as well-equipped as possible to traverse the unchartered and choppy coronavirus waters.

“Having the responsibility of working with our shuls, rabbis, and chairpersons to be able to devise a plan of when to close our shuls, Professor Schoub was there every step of the way,” said Chief Rabbi Dr Warren Goldstein.

“To have a person with the national and international expertise of Professor Schoub was crucial in getting through this crisis.”

Zev Krengel, the vice-chairperson of the SAJBD, said Schoub heeded the call of a community that desperately needed him in its moment of crisis.

“I said to him, ‘Prof, this is your Queen Ester call. Your community needs you. We need you. You are the one who is going to save us’,” he said.

“In this pandemic, our doctors became our protectors. Professor Schoub was basically our general in understanding this enemy.”

Kluk said that if she had been in admiration of Schoub prior to COVID-19, she was now in awe of his incredible wisdom and empathy.

“COVID-19 has highlighted his capacity in the world of virology and medicine,” she said. “I’m so proud that we have a person of this calibre who is so deeply committed to our community.”

Schoub thanked the committee of the Absa Jewish Achiever Awards and the SA Jewish Report for honouring him. He paid tribute to his wife, Barbara, as well as his children and the rest of his family.

“We are a small family, but I can say with firm conviction that size doesn’t count,” he said.

“I’m deeply honoured, humbled, and gratified to receive this award, dedicated to recognising service to the Jewish community. I’m greatly humbled to accept it. For me, it has been a great honour and an enormous privilege to be able to give something back to this wonderful and very special community during the COVID-19 crisis.”

Schoub believes that there many others in our community who are at least equally – if not more – deserving of recognition for what they have done for the community.

“Many exceptional members of our community have played their indispensable part, providing the statistical and epidemiological data for planning, devising the safety protocols for shuls, functions, and schools,” he said.

“The GPs of our community face what I believe to be the most difficult and demanding task of our profession. The specialist frontline healthcare workers, the pulmonologists, the ICU [intensive-care unit] nursing personnel and others, along with the crown jewel of our community, Hatzolah, have shone so brightly during the COVID-19 challenge.”

“I feel privileged to belong to this very special South African Jewish community. Sometimes, it may take a crisis or a challenge for us to take a step back and reflect on how blessed we are,” he said.

“From the Chevrah Kadisha to the Beth Din and the SA Jewish Report, we are undoubtedly and unequivocally the leaders of the world, Jewish and non-Jewish.”