Arnie Z Katz, Port Elizabeth
Quite frankly, a personality of such stature and huge lifetime achievement as Dr Levy, does not deserve to have a tribute of 100 years’ service to be conflated with another issue with which his late father was vitally involved, however important that may have been.
The Greyshirts trial in the 1930s was a huge and significant one in Jewish history, yet a report on Dr Levy’s 100th birthday and his extensive achievements in Jewish and non-Jewish affairs, does not deserve to be relegated to about 20 per cent of the full-page article in your newspaper.
If this was so important, why did your correspondent not feel it appropriate to remind the public of the Greyshirts trial, by publishing a separate article entirely on this?
Dr Levy’s record of communal achievement and reaching his century, has been widely acknowledged in the Jewish and non-Jewish world and did not deserve a relatively minor acknowledgement in a full-page article.
No mention is made of the Lexus Lifetime Achiever award which he received in 2007 at the age of 90. When he addressed the audience of over 500 in Johannesburg, there was an audible gasp when he told them of his age and that he had a message for them.
You make scant mention of his achievements, which include being vice president of the Union of Orthodox Synagogues for many years, nor of the Ivan Sackheim Memorial award he received in 1997 for 60 years’ distinguished service to the Jewish community. Dr Levy is an absolute model of personal dedication and an example to South African Jewry and the comments reflected in the article unfortunately do no justice to this.
May I suggest that your article reflects inadequately on the incredible life achievement of Dr Levy, an individual of unimpeachable integrity, dignified and articulate in the extreme.
It was at my insistence that we put the Greyshirts and the 100th birthday stories in one, not the writer who initially wrote it as two stories. – Editor
