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12 HASHALOM August
2016
August 2016
HASHALOM
13
IN TOWN AND OUT
Congratulated
• Miss Pauline Hackner and Dr. Alan Goldberg, Sylvia “Chippy”
Friedman and Dr. P. Sweidan, and Miss Hanid Lindsay and Mr. Henry
Lipschitz, on their recent marriages.
• Mr. and Mrs. A. Cohen on the Barmitzvah of Percy;
• Mr. and Mrs. R. Goldkorn and Mr. and Mrs. L. Braude (nee Rosa
Kleinman) on the birth of daughters.
• 2
nd
Lieuts. C. Scott and A. Lewin on getting their “wings”;
• Mr. and Mrs. Byala on celebrating their golden wedding anniversary;
• Miss JoanMoshal andMr. SylvesterStein for their creditableperformances
in the Natal University College play “You Never Can Tell”.
• Meyer Meyerowitz on his promotion to Staff Sergeant.
HASHALOM August 1966 - Extracts
ISRAEL AND THE ARAB COUNTRIES
- this Guest Editorial (with
acknowledgements to “Jewish Spectator”) advanced several pieces of
advice to Israel. Firstly, Israel must radically change its Western image.
Secondly Israel “must become integrated into the Arab world and be
accepted by its neighbours”. Thirdly, “the road which will lead Israel
to peace with its Arab neighbours is not the path of ‘coexistence’ but
a cultural symbiosis... Such a symbiosis can be successful only if those
who are joined in it retain their dignity and integrity... I do not advocate
unreasonable Jewish sacrifices and concessions. However, I feel confident
that whole-hearted and intensive efforts towards establishing cultural
dialogue between Jews and Arabs will go very far in creating the kind of
Jewish-Arab climate in which a cultural and political symbiosis can take
root and prosper”.
One knows that hindsight is equivalent to 20/20 vision and that the
article was written before either the Six Day or the Yom Kippur War had
occurred. But now, 50 years later, when Israel has peace treaties with two
of its most powerful Arab neighbours, one finds it hard to believe that
the editor of this August magazine could have thought that there was any
profit for its readers to be fed such impractical propositions which took
no account whatever of Arab attitudes and general intransigence.
SOCIAL ROUND-UP
written by “Your Friendly Reporter” reported the
formation of a new section of the club for those unmarried and over 18
(female) and over 21 (male) promoted by Sue Price and John Nussbaum.
The report was accompanied by photos of “the organisers” and some of
the members who had taken part in its first function – a Scavenger Hunt.
LETTERBOX
- this contained a long letter from Mr. S. Goldberg asking
three separate questions, which boiled down to “why do young people
prefer to eat, drink and be entertained rather than attending People’s
College lectures?” The then Editor of Hashalom offered Wilfred Brewer,
the Chairman of the Youth Section the opportunity to reply, which he did,
very politely and sensibly.
Pundit was a little surprised that Grandpa Goldberg did not demand that
more young people should offer to play chess with him in the foyer.
YOUTH PERSONALITY OF THE MONTH
featured Leigh Tapper
and her tennis and sporting career.
No ITAO again! What a disappointment!!
HASHOLOM August 1941 - Extracts
EDITORIAL
- bemoaned “the antagonism, fostered for political ends”
that had been created by a section of the Afrikaans-speaking population of
South Africa against Jewry. It recorded that “the two sections had much in
common, and above all they shared a common tradition arising from their
daily preoccupation with Biblical precept & practice.”
Written, don’t forget, 75 years ago!
JOSEPH CHAIM BRENNER
- a long biographical piece celebrated
the life of the celebrated author, Hebrew poet and pioneer Zionist, and
mourned his death at the early age of 40, at Jaffa in 1921, during the Arab
riots.
GETTING ON WITH THE BUSINESS
- described the activities of the
Canteen Committee elected at its first General Meeting. As the Canteen
constituted such a notable period of the DJC history it is not inappropriate
to record their names today.
Hon. President:
Mrs. Victor Robinson
Chairman:
Mr. Sol Moshal
Vice-Chairmen:
Mrs. Harry Lipinski and Mr. Max Wolpert
Hon. Treasurers: Mrs. J Goldman and Mr. Harry Brown
Hon. Secretary:
Mrs. Max Cohen (later replaced by her sister, Mrs. A
Stiller)
They weren’t shy in those days. They recorded the names of all who had
made donations to canteen funds since July 1
st
1941 and the amounts of
all such donations which ranged from 10 shillings all the way up to 25
pounds.
LEGAL POSITION OF JEWISH WOMEN
- in a very interesting article
Zelda Moshal set out to establish “the majority of this generation are
under the misapprehension that the Jewish woman in Jewish law was one
of inferiority...”
And “that this misapprehension is in fact due to lack of home instruction
and lack of knowledge of the Jewish religion.”
Pundit believes that at a time when unfortunate and schismatic disputes
are raised on relatively unimportant issues, this article is well worth
studying. How about a re-issue, Mr Editor?
DURBAN KEREN KAYEMETH COMMITTEE 1941
- was afforded
four pages of HASHOLOM’S valuable space to promote the 1941 JNF
campaign, including a large photograph of Dr. Alexander Goldstein of
Tel Aviv, one of the best-known personalities in World Zionism who was
coming to South Africa to launch the campaign.
IN THE FOYER
“Bellboy’s” contribution contained what was called “Stein Song.”
“There’s a notable family named Stein
There’s Gert and there’s Ep and there’s Ein,
Gert’s verses are punk
Ep’s statues are junk,
And no one can understand Ein”
Pundit’s comment:
E
= mc
2
PAST TENSE
by Pundit
PAST TENSE
This may sound a little morbid, but I love listening to eulogies.
They pay homage to a person’s higher self, focusing on his or
her best qualities and achievements. I find them comforting and
inspirational.
A dear family friend of ours sadly passed away this week, and my
seven-year-old asked me in that conversational way kids have,
‘Why must people die?’
I um’d and ah’d and grappled for meaning in that awkward way
adults have, and couldn’t come up with anything to tell him. So I
made him a sandwich. But as I was spreading the peanut butter
and the jam and the Marmite (yes, all together. I know. It’s gross),
my mind was racing. I thought about our friend, and about the
upcoming funeral, and about what would be said in her memory.
Nomatter what faults and foibles the deceased had, people always
find nice things to say about them at their funeral. I mean, really,
who wants to be the person who talks badly of a dead guy? (“Oy,
was he a
gonif, olovasholom
”; “That
mamzer! Zachur latov
…”)
The word eulogy comes from the Greek eulogia, meaning praise.
However, as so often happens in translation, much is lost from
the original Hebrew
hesped
. The
Shulchan
Aruch
calls it a “great
” to eulogize
(l’haspid)
the dead. One should mention the
deceased’s good deeds (i.e. praise them),
says the text, but the crux of the mitzvah is
to say “things that break the heart, so there is much crying”.
There’s precedent for this in our scriptures. Abraham “mourned
and wept” for his wife Sarah (Bereishit 23:2). Joseph “mourned
with a great and sore lamentation” for his father Jacob (Bereishit
50:10). King David “rent his clothes… mourned, wept and fasted”
when he heard the news of the deaths of Saul and Jonathan
(Shmuel B 1:11-27). In his inevitably elegant manner, David may
have been the first to add the praise aspect to the act of
hesped,
paying tribute to how “lovely and pleasant” the men were in life.
I had two questions, though. Firstly: what’s with the crying? Why
are we commanded to break our hearts?
Secondly, just as most of us have undesirable qualities that
understandably don’t make it into the
hesped,
so we all have good
qualities that are all too often overlooked in this cruel, curt, short
and short-tempered world. My second question was this: why wait
until it’s too late to expound people’s virtues?
The
Chafetz Chaim
, author of the seminal work
Sefer Shmirat
Ha’Lashon
(literally the Book of Guarding the Tongue, i.e. observing
the
mitzvot
of speech) raises concerns about praising living people.
He worried that chances are someone around will have something
negative to contribute (“yeah, he might be successful and
charitable, but have you seen the way he treats his mother?”; “She
may make the best
kugel
in town but oy can she talk the treif leg off
a cow”). Public praise is deemed particularly problematic because
it’s more likely that it will set off
lashon hara
(evil speech) from an
enemy somewhere among the crowd (and don’t we all have ’em!).
I see his point, but I wish we could overlook the negatives and
focus on the good in people every day, not just at their funerals.
My husband is a member of the
Chevra Kadisha
(burial society),
and he once attended a funeral of a man he didn’t know, simply to
make up a
minyan
. He relates the story of one of the most beautiful
eulogies I’ve ever heard of. The eulogizer – who had also never met
the deceased – began by stating that the late man had obviously
done his
mitzvot
quietly, out of the limelight.
I still get goose bumps when I think about that
hesped
. I love the
assumption that the departed soul had obviously done
mitzvot,
but
in a quiet and understated way. I love that, even though nobody
knew anything about the man, his life, his preferences, or his
values, they found something lovely to say about him. That is the
Jewish way.
And then it struck me that maybe that’s
the reason. Maybe that’s the answer to my
son’s question about why people must die.
I’d considered arguments involving degenerative diseases and
population control and all that, but they didn’t hit spiritual home.
This did. Maybe people only realize the value of things when they
are transient, and death is a constant reminder to appreciate our
nearest and dearest while they are still with us.
I found some answers to my own questions as well. So maybe we
don’t need to stand on rooftops and call out people’s praises, but
we can – and should – focus on their positive qualities in life, not
just in death. It’s literally the challenge of a lifetime, but I’m up for
it if you are (or, quite frankly, even if you’re not).
As for the crying? After lengthy discussion, the Talmud (Sanhedrin
46b-47a) rules that eulogies are given primarily out of respect for
the deceased, but it’s undeniable that they also have a positive
impact on the living left behind. In honouring the departed, we
uplift our own souls with theirs. In focusing on the good they did
in their lives, we bring ourselves one little step closer to heaven
on earth. We’re compelled to say things that “break the heart”, to
break it open, open to give and receive love more freely.
Isn’t it funny. Death sometimes seems like the worst thing in the
world, yet it can bring about the best in people. Until next time.
By Lauren Shapiro
BUBKES
Good mourning