click to dowload our latest edition
CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER
It was a normal Shabbos dinner in Johannesburg. The challah bread from Fournos tasted of sugar, and the sesame seeds stuck between my teeth. Predictably, the...
I sit here staring at my suitcase, contemplating whether it’s time to leave the only home I’ve ever known. I imagine my ancestors, in the frigid...
Last month, the Lithuanian ambassador to South Africa, Dainius Junevičius, packed up his official residence, boarded a plane back to Vilnius, and retired from public life,...
It’s a balmy night in Tel Aviv. At 21:00, the temperature hovers above 30 degrees and the humidity clings to you like nylon. Hundreds of thousands...
Few dare to perform Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, the Resurrection. One would almost have to be insane to try. This magnum opus by the Austro...
Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz reminded us that diplomacy was merely war by other means. Last week, a diplomatic war broke out in Pretoria. In...
I’m told that the moment of birth is painful, bloody, and messy. So, too, was the birth of our democracy in South Africa. More than 300...
A few weeks ago, I was sitting at a lavish dinner celebrating a remarkable family who had donated yet another borehole, solar panels, and pumping system...
Johannesburg resonated to the sounds of classical music as some of the giants of the genre gathered at the Linder Auditorium to celebrate Opera’s Greatest Hits....
Last week’s presidential State of the Nation Address (SONA) was once again held in the Cape Town City Hall after Christmas Mafe Guy Fawkes-ed our democracy...
Israeli historian Yuval Harari may be one of the greatest thinkers of his generation. While cloistered away in month-long, silent Vipassana meditation retreats, Harari has conjured...
Before becoming famous for his role as Mr Bean, British comedian Rowan Atkinson commanded the stage as a stand-up comic. During one of his most notorious...
I loved my time in Russia. Floating down the Moskva River with the smell of cooking chocolate swirling from the Red October Chocolate Factory. Meandering through...
My fellow South Africans, I once wrote a speech for President Thabo Mbeki, but when he delivered the address, the only words I recognised were “good...
With the doors of international travel slammed shut on an exhausted nation, and South Africans desperate to escape the monotony of nearly two years of lockdown...
As the year meanders to a close and the Chanukah candles start to flicker out, I can hear Fleetwood Mac’s hit song, “Tell me lies, tell...
The last apartheid leader, FW de Klerk, died peacefully at his home, aged 85, in the luxury suburb of Fresnaye, Cape Town, on 11 November 2021....
I’m cursed with optimism. But as the smouldering cinders of last week burned themselves to charcoal and our president flanked by his podgy unkempt generals wailed...
Herby Rosenberg and I came from different sides of the political tracks. There was a threat, a gun, a raid on my offices as a young...
An associate professor of the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) Family Medicine used a university WhatsApp group with his interns to propagate the following anti-Israel view....
I could write a standard obituary tribute to Rabbi Ben Isaacson. I could praise his Torah knowledge, his love for the biblical prophets, his passion for...
In the days following the Absa Jewish Achiever Awards, I feel like a heroin junkie, coming down after an orgasmic high, at least that’s what I...
This year, Women’s Day falls on Sunday, and by edict of South African law, the following day will be yet another day where people just don’t...
The COVID-19 stats rose by an extra few recently, as Solly and Cynthia Levin both succumbed to the merciless disease a mere week apart. I have...
