The loss of a tiny giant

This week, we lost a giant in our community. Ann Harris was the tiniest giant I have ever come across. In her latter days, she looked every bit the granny you wanted to cuddle, but she was tough as nails and made sure she was heard and her immense wisdom, integrity and morality shared.

There’s not a soul she touched who didn’t learn from her. And nobody messed with her. She may have been the wife of the late, great Chief Rabbi Cyril Harris, but she wasn’t happy to be referred to as a “rebbetzin”. I totally understand why, but I’m sure there are many who may not.

She was an extraordinary human being in her own right. Though she was the wife of a great man, there was greatness in everything she did too. It didn’t always apply to her role as his wife, but to Ann Harris herself.

When we were both younger, and I was a newly graduated journalist working on a Jewish newspaper, the South African Union of Jewish Student (SAUJS) asked me to have a debate with a deeply observant woman about women’s rights and feminism.

I thought it would be easy because I embodied an educated and independent woman who wouldn’t let anyone mess with my rights. When my so-called opponent turned out to be Ann Harris, I soon realised the debate wouldn’t be so simple.

I learnt a great deal from her that day, as I did whenever our paths crossed.

She made so many of us women understand that nothing need get in the way of our personal and professional success. She also showed us that we didn’t have to give up our spiritual, religious, or familial obligations to follow our paths.

She was proof that, while it isn’t easy, it’s possible to be a great leader and set an example to so many, as well as to be a loving mother and wife.

She was truly a role model to so many of us women in this community.

Although she made aliya last year and was no longer living among us, her presence will be missed. I hope the lessons she taught us will live on forever, and will continue to be shared over generations.

I see her spark in a number of young women in our community.

I look at the young Hannah Katz (page 13), who took so many phenomenal lessons from a time when she was fighting to live. She was just a child, but has come out of her illness with energy and determination to help other people. This feisty teen is packing her days with bettering herself and being a beacon of hope to others.

What an example she sets! I look forward to watching what she does with her life. I’ve no doubt she’ll do great things.

Then, at the University of Pretoria, or Tuks as it’s commonly known, there’s a student called Sasha Said, who may look extraordinarily young, but is doing huge things for her fellow students. As Tuks SAUJS chairperson, she’s doing her best to ensure that the university is a safe space for Jewish and other students.

As is made clear on our front page, that’s despite the re-emergence of anti-Jewish hatred badly masked as anti-Israel sentiment.

Though she managed to persuade the Student Representative Council to work with SAUJS, she still faces haters – who are fortunately not large in number – who are going to try and make things tough for her. She’s clearly having none of it, and is going all out to make her university a good place for Jewish students.

She, too, has the Ann Harris spark.

And then there’s Emily Schrader, who is visiting from Israel to support Jewish students in the annual hate fest known as Israeli Apartheid Week. She has taken on the plight of Iranian men and women being persecuted by their own government. Those persecuted in Iran aren’t able to make their voices heard. They have no way of fighting for their own rights, so it takes someone like Emily to do so.

Why would she take this on as it clearly isn’t her fight? She does it because she can, and human rights are that important to her. “The more I see what goes on in repressive regimes, the more I find myself unable to be silent,” she said this week. (See page 9)

Now in South Africa, she wants to tell our government why it’s abominable that it allies itself to the Iranian regime. For many, it seem to be a laughable cause, because members of government aren’t waiting for her to visit them.

However, the guts displayed by this woman makes me question whether she’ll let anything get in her way. Let’s see what happens.

I cannot sign off this week without reiterating my concern about what’s happening in Israel. I know we have our own problems here, and they aren’t small, but I have never in my lifetime witnessed the kind of battle going on in the Jewish state.

I’m grateful to Rolene Marks for writing the opinion piece on page 7, in which she so clearly explains that what’s happening there isn’t about a left-wing versus right-wing situation, it’s the population fighting to maintain democracy.

It’s hard to watch what seems to me to be the government’s apparent disregard of what the protesters – who include heads of the army and legal experts – are saying. There has to be another way!

I cannot help going back in my mind to a chilling point that Biko Arran made a while back, long before these protests began, about how Israel has never before lasted more than 70 years as a Jewish state. This is, for me, the most frightening thought.

It’s time for us to locate our Ann Harris backbone and integrity, and find a solution to the problems at hand.

Shabbat Shalom!

Peta Krost

Editor