Student alert – make sure to check timetables

MARY KLUK

As recorded in previous columns, the Board’s mandate to uphold Jewish civil rights, includes ensuring that our university students are not discriminated against due to their religious commitments. To this end, we engage with all South African universities where problems of students being faced with an exam clashing with Yomtov or Shabbat arise.

To date, we have been consistently successfully in finding ways to ensure that our students are not compromised due to their religious practice, not just at universities like Wits, Unisa and UCT which have large numbers of Jewish students, but even on campuses where there are relatively few Jewish students and where the number of those affected by exam clashes is small.   

While we will always do our utmost to ensure that religious students are not disadvantaged, it is vital that we be timeously informed of any problems that might arise. It is therefore incumbent on the students themselves to be alert to the situation and not approach us at the last minute when our assistance is required. If there are, then the students concerned are requested to contact the Board on sajbd@sajbd.org at the earliest opportunity.

African Jewish Congress – making every Jew count

Over the weekend, Ann Harris presided over her first meeting as acting president of the African Jewish Congress (AJC), the co-ordinating representative body for the Jewish communities of the various sub-Saharan African countries.

We are most fortunate to have someone of Ann’s calibre to step into the formidable shoes of the previous president, Mervyn Smith, who filled that position for more than 20 years before his passing in November last year.

Like Mervyn, Ann is someone who feels a strong bond with all Jewish communities, no matter how small or far-flung they might be. This, indeed, is the raison d’être of the AJC itself, as well as of the SAJBD’s Country Communities Department. Both operate on the basis that no matter how few and far away they might be, all Jews are important, and should be helped as much as possible to maintain their connection to their heritage.

In addition, Jews living in areas far from the main Jewish population centres, effectively become ambassadors for Judaism, and also for Israel, to those who otherwise would have no contact with Jewish people. Here, the AJC performs an important role, since it provides a representative vehicle through which southern African Jewry regularly engage with their respective governments.

An additional function of the AJC is to help preserve and record the history of Jewish life in the various countries affiliated to it. Recent such projects include the establishment of the Beau Bassin Jewish Detainees Memorial and Information Centre in Mauritius and the publication of a copiously detailed history of the Jews of Namibia.

The latter will be launched in Johannesburg and Cape Town, where many former members of the community now live, on March 10.

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