The unforgettable Helen Heldenmuth

SUZANNE BELLING

Helen was larger than life. You could hear her coming, with her loud sonorous voice and ever-present cackle. She had special relationships with such a huge variety of personalities. So many people have Helen Heldenmuth stories that on hearing them, listeners land up guffawing in the aisles (much like their originator would have done).

She had a lasting influence on the thousands of children – now adults – who passed through her hands at various Jewish schools where she taught, not to mention the many who went to her private drama classes over the years.

She was once told by someone she called a “weird woman” in a lift that she had a golden aura, and would spend the rest of her life working with children. She did, but that’s not all.

To her endless friends, she gave of herself unstintingly (and her unrivalled home-baked challahs on Fridays), and always had the ability to keep them in stitches.

Helen taught English and Afrikaans at various schools, and wrote and produced children’s musicals and adult satires to mark Jewish celebrations.

She won a best-actress award for her role as Juliet in Romeo and Juliet in 1958, and enjoyed mainstream theatre until, she said, “I decided I was a nice Jewish girl and didn’t fit the backstage lifestyle”. So she kept her immense talent to working for and within the community, which became her passion.

Helen was also the national chairperson of the board of judges for the Naledi Theatre Awards (having been a judge for many years). She was the prime motivator behind the former Shalom TV, which was on a pay channel M-Net, and she introduced multi-faith programmes for the SABC.

Before she was taken on board by the SABC, she had a call from the director of religious programmes who showed interest in her CV. That was until he asked her age – over 60 at the time.

“Sorry, don’t you think you are too old for the position?” he asked. “Not if you think Madiba is too old to be president!” she said.

Helen was a public and private entertainer. Her meals were a gourmet’s delight, but her own delight was spending time with her grandchildren.

“I wish I could spend more time with my son, Gary’s, children in Miami,” she often said. However, she was a daily visitor to her daughter’s children in Glenhazel.

Helen fought her cancer like a true warrior, even joking about her condition while sunbathing in Cape Town, after having had a cancerous kidney removed. A woman told Helen she shouldn’t be baking in the sun. “Why, do you think I could get cancer? Well, don’t worry, I already have two types,” was her retort.

But there was a serious side to her. During apartheid, Helen would have countless visits from the security police, checking on the young black girls living in her home.

Sizie Modise, who lived with her, called her “mommy” and her biological mother, “mama”. Helen did what was necessary to obtain bursaries for the young girl, for whom she became a legal guardian.

One of her more recent achievements was her ongoing production of the children’s show, Shooby Doob Shloimy, which she adapted prior to various festivals as a fundraiser.

She was a presenter on ChaiFM, excelling in her Yiddish morning Kumsitz show. In spite of all her treatment and suffering, she would go straight from chemotherapy sessions to the studio so the show could go on.

“She was a person you never would – or never could – forget,” Rabbi Avraham Tanzer, rosh yeshiva of Yeshiva College and the rabbi of the Glenhazel Area Hebrew Congregation, told the SA Jewish Report. Tanzer conducted her funeral at West Park Cemetery on Tuesday.

“Highly talented in so many areas, she was an actress who understood the serious side of life, in spite of her sense of humour. She was a true eshet chayil (woman of valour).”