We did it! R400,000 raised for Karabus’

ANT KATZ

The campaign launched by Jewish Report and Jane Raphaely to raise the R400,000 to pay off the outstanding loans for the UAE defence team of Prof Cyril Karabus reached its target this week!

At least R180,000 was collected from Jewish Report readers!

Eminent paediatric oncologist Prof Cyril Karabus owed the money for the legal fees used to have him exonerated of all charges during his nine-month incarceration in the UAE. “All of his local legal fees were pro amico,” says Karabus’ friend and local lawyer Michael “Bags” Bagraim who had opened a trust fund for the donations.

“We have finally reached the target,’ Bags told Jewish Report this week, with most of the final contributions being through the efforts of Jane Raphaely and Eliot Osrin in Cape Town.

Community came through

“It ought to be said that throughout the ordeal we had some knights in shining armour who came forward, mostly South African entrepreneurs within our community across the country,” Bags said this week. “They came from Durban, Cape Town, Johannesburg and the Eastern Cape.

“We can be enormously proud of our people who very swiftly came to the help of a family in desperate need.”

“We are overwhelmed,” Jenny Karabus said on hearing the news from Jewish report today. “I have written to each and every one of the donors who we have had the names of,” she said, and the family were as grateful to their small donors as they were to the large ones.

Jane Raphaely, who has just returned to SA from a trip abroad, told Jewish Report today that she had “come back to the wonderful news that we have reached the target and Professor Karabus can rest easy, on this issue at least. Please thank everyone at the Jewish Report for their help and support.”

Sad truth remains…

Jane’s prophetic caveat… “on this issue at least…” is, of course quite true.

The fact is that the R400,000 fund set up to repay their legal fees has been achieved, only brings the embattled family to zero – they now don’t owe any more money.

They do, however, have nothing left.

PICTURED LEFT: Jen & Cyril Karabus still have each other, a wonderful family and many fiends. But they still need our help!

The Karabus’ have spent, and lost, all they owned and are still in need of ongoing community assistance. Thay are hoping to proceed with caourt action to recover some of the monies they spent and the trauma and suffering they experienced for no reason whatsoever. But right now, they still need the help of their community.

The banking details for donations to their trust account is: Bagraims Attorneys Trust Account, ABSA, Heerengracht Branch (Code: 506 009), Account: 407-103-4654. “Please ask donors to put their own name and ‘Karabus’ as a reference so that we are able to pick up the deposits,” says Bags.