Suzanne Belling: storyteller, networker, community connector

For many years, word had it that if journalist and author Suzanne Belling didn’t know you, you weren’t part of the Jewish community. Such was the networking prowess of Belling, who passed away on Friday, 12 November, at the age of 72.

She was the “consummate communicator with her finger on every pulse”, according to journalist Moira Schneider, who Belling mentored. She also came in on the ground floor of Jewish newspapers and, until her last days, was part of the world of Jewish news.

Her only sibling, Barry Barron, who lives in Australia says that her creativity was part of her personality from a young age. “She was five years old when I was born and from the outset, being Suzanne, she naturally assumed that it was her duty to teach me everything about life,” he wrote.

“Spurred on by her vivid imagination, Suzanne used to make me utter a few magic phrases and this would take us off to a faraway, make-believe world. I used to take this very seriously, and my dear parents, Hettie and Hymie, would tell me to stop scrubbing the stoep with a bucket of soapy water and come inside for dinner. I would ignore them because my name wasn’t Barry and I wasn’t scrubbing the stoep. I was mucking out the stable to prepare for the herd of beautiful horses in Suzanne’s make-believe world,” he recalls.

Hilda Stern, now living in Israel, was Belling’s best friend for 67 years. “We met on the first day of Grade 1,” Stern says. “I was a bit shy, and she always drew me in to her wonderful world of imagination and excitement. When we were nine or 10 years old, our school ran a competition to write a new school song. Needless to say, Suzanne was wildly enthusiastic. I, not so much. We were walking home and suddenly she flung her schoolbag down in the road and said, “Let’s write the school song now! And we’ll do it together!” I knew better than to argue and sat down on the side of the road, and added in a word or two. In a short while, she had produced a jolly good song. She insisted on putting both our names down as co-writers. And guess what, ‘our’ song won, and we each got 10 shillings.”

This kind of chutzpah defined Belling as she began to shape her career as a journalist.

“At the age of 16, Suzanne boldly knocked on the door of the editor of The Cape Timesnewspaper with a sample of her work,” recalls Barron. “She said the newspaper had been remiss in ignoring teenagers, and proposed that she write a regular column in the Saturday morning magazine section. To everyone’s amazement, her proposal was accepted, and Suzanne’s 55-year career in journalism began. The column was called Including You, written exclusively for teenagers by teenagers. Suzanne’s career progressed to her becoming an accomplished newspaper editor and the author of a number of books.”

Her first book was written with Rabbi Moshe Silberhaft about his experiences as the “travelling rabbi”. When delivering the hesped (eulogy) at her funeral on Sunday, the rabbi remembered a humorous moment from this period. “She and I undertook a number of road trips when she was writing the book. While she was a delightful and insightful companion on these journeys, she could also be exasperating.

“I recall the time we were in Greyton. As we had a long day ahead, we agreed to leave no later than 07:00 the next morning, and I warned her that if she wasn’t ready, I would be moving on to the next town with the CSO [Community Security Organisation] chap, who was travelling with us. This meant she had to be up at 05:00 to say her prayers, have a bath, do her hair, file her nails, patzke around, and have breakfast within a two-hour period. And all of you who knew Suzanne are aware that this was about as likely as Jacob Zuma pleading guilty to the Zondo Commission.

“Seven o’clock came, but Suzanne didn’t appear, so the CSO chap and I left Greyton as I had threatened to do. Well, you can imagine her reaction at 07:35, when she finally came out to the car, and realised that it – and we – were gone! Her performance was so good that the owner of the hotel agreed to call us to come back and fetch her. Needless to say, from that day on, she was never late again on our trips.”

Schneider recalls, “I first met Suzanne when we found ourselves as mothers in the same nursery school lift scheme. At some point, I told her that although I was a law graduate, I was thinking of changing direction to psychology or journalism. In her inimitable way, she pronounced, ‘You’re too sensitive to be a psychologist – you’ll take everything to heart.’

“And that was that. Remembering this conversation some time later, she commissioned me to write four profiles of very prominent individuals in the community for a magazine that she was editing. Of course, it was terrifying as I had no formal training. In the event, my ‘training’ took place over the course of several Joburg to Cape Town phone calls between us.

“When the Cape Town correspondent for the SA Jewish Times that Suzanne was then editing left unexpectedly, I received a call from her asking if I’d please stand in until they found somebody else. Well, I ‘stood in’ for 16 years, having migrated to the SA Jewish Report when that paper was established. I also started writing for the international Jewish press, and I owe it all to Suzanne. I wouldn’t have interviewed some incredible people, among them the late Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, were it not for her faith in me. I will always be grateful to her for elevating my life.”

Silberhaft says, “She was also a woman who had the courage of her convictions. She stood up and spoke out against injustice, within and without the Jewish community. She took considerable risks during the apartheid era, giving aid and shelter to activists in hiding, attending gatherings which were being watched by the security police, and refusing to ‘kow-tow’ to anyone – either inside or outside the community – who tried to shirk their moral, Jewish responsibility to champion the oppressed.”

Her brother recalls, “When Nelson Mandela met the press at his home in Johannesburg, Suzanne was introduced to him and for the first time in her life, she was at a loss for words. All she could blurt out was, ‘You are so tall, and I am so short!’ Mandela gave an amazing reply, he said, ‘You are wrong my dear, your contribution to this country makes you very tall.’”

Belling leaves her husband, Michael, children Evan and Tarryn, and grandchildren Jaxon, Chase, Piper, and Ruby.