Minister Naledi Pandor sinks to a new low

Six months and tens of thousands of civilian deaths later, we are still waiting for our Department of International Relations & Cooperation (DIRCO) to condemn Russia's barbaric war of aggression against the Ukrainian people. By comparison, within hours of armed clashes breaking out on the Israel-Gaza border, Dirco Minister Naledi Pandor had rushed to issue yet another virulent denunciation of the Jewish state and ignored the indiscriminate firing of more than 600 deadly missiles targeted at Israeli civilian areas.

The SAJBD welcomes apology from Bongani Masuku, Cosatu

The South African Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD) welcomes the apology to the Jewish community from Bongani Masuku and the Congress of South African Trade Unions. In terms of the judgment handed down last week by the Constitutional Court, Mr Masuku and Cosatu were required to apologise for a statement that the court ruled to be hate speech against the Jewish community. The apology received on the 23rd of February reads:

It’s local government election time! Volunteer now to be a member of the SA Jewish Board of Deputies' 'Make us Count' Election Observer Team and witness South Africa's democracy in action.

Don’t miss out on the final voter registration weekend before the local government elections 2021!

Make sure you are registered and check your details by visiting your nearest polling station 18/19 September between 8am & 5pm

Based in part on her own research, this review essay by Veronica Belling looks at a fascinating new biography of an very unusual Jewish woman

We are delighted to publish an extract from Dominique Malherbe's acclaimed new book on a remarkable Jewish woman and her relationship with one of the icons of Afrikaans literature.

Journalist, author, Jewish communal professional, Suzanne Belling was an outstanding, and largely unsung, servant of the community she knew and served so well.

Ivan Kapelus considers the respective histories and complex relationship between of two distinct South African communities

Two distinguished Jewish members of the British establishment find themselves at loggerheads in the early years of the Palestine Mandate.

Idealism, disillusionment and survival - for Joseph Glazer, moving to Stalin's Soviet Union was an adventure that quickly became a nightmare.

True freedom requires being protected by the confines of just and prescribed laws', while retaining our ability to choose. Charlotte Cohen explores this fundamental Jewish concept in the concept of the Pesach festival.

'The curious case of Dr Isaac Newton Levi', as related in this new short story by Clark Zlotchew

Harold Levy, with wife Cynette's crucial support, ran his optometry practice for 65 years until his Covid-enforced retirement.

Please join us on FB on *Friday 9 April at 12 noon* as we commemorate the Six Million Jews who perished in the Holocaust. See Kevin Ritchie’s beautiful article on what you can expect here

Kathy Munro reflects on the life, achievements and lasting influence esteemed architect, architectural historian and heritage activist Clive Chipkin (1929-2021).

Dead Sea Scrolls authority Simon Berg look at the compilation of the Jewish sacred scriptures and considers the accuracy of their transmission down the centuries.

Scion of a scholarly Lithuanian family, J W Behr devoted himself to strengthening the knowledge of Hebrew in South Africa.

As her diaries reveal, Lord Balfour's niece Blanche Dugdale was also a devoted campaigner for a Jewish state

Sorrel Kerbel reviews of The Lithuanian Slaughter of its Jews, a grim record of Lithuanian culpability in the Holocaust based on the testimony of 121 survivors

Leonard Suransky reviews Jack Hoffman's new novel about growing up in Johannesburg in in the 1950s and '60s

Israel's birth as reflected in a teenage girl's correspondence with an Irgun POW in Kenya

'The poet laureate of the Jewish people', Isaiah was both a recorder of and participant in an extraordinary epoch in early Jewish history.

How Andre Ungar became the only rabbi forced to leave South Africa for opposition to Apartheid.

A new book on the SA Progressive movement throws welcome light on a previously neglected aspect of local Jewish history .

How a Jewish family, the Ginsbergs, were instrumental in making rooibos one of the world's most popular herbal teas and an important export item for South Africa

'A drop of milk' by Clark Zlotchew