SUZANNE BELLING
Sternberg and his wife Hermoine relocated to Cape Town several years ago but travelled to Harare frequently, where he used to live and still played an active part in the dwindling Jewish community of Zimbabwe.
Before moving to Harare, he was a former long-term resident of Kadoma (previously Gatooma), where his father Robert Sternberg had been mayor.
Sternberg succeeded Robert as president of the Kadoma Hebrew Congregation.
He personally spearheaded the fundraising effort to restore the Jewish cemetery in Kadoma and arranged for that cemetery and the one in Kwe Kwe to be tended and cleaned on a regular basis.
Friends of Sternberg, both gentiles, one a Muslim, took over the function of overseeing the cemeteries as Jews no longer lived in those areas.
Ann Harris, president of the AJC, paid tribute to Sternberg, saying he “really loved the Jews and, whatever community he was part of, took a great interest in their well-being”.
In 2002 at the biennial conference of the Zimbabwe Jewish Board of Deputies, Sternberg referred to the lack of higher educational facilities and business prospects for the younger people of Zimbabwe and that many of them had left. Those who stayed were not inclined to hold office in the remaining Jewish organisations of an ageing community.
His well-known quote was: “The old soldiers simply have to soldier on.”
Rabbi Moshe Silberhaft, CEO and spiritual leader of the AJC, referred to Sternberg’s hard work and efforts on behalf of Zimbabwean Jewry.
An accountant by profession, “he was a man of great integrity”, Rabbi Silberhaft said.
Peter Sternberg is survived by his wife, Hermoine, and children, Jonathan, Tamara and Ron, and four grandchildren, Robert, Gabriella, Eli and Levi.
Benny Leon
Feb 7, 2017 at 10:31 am
‘Peter Sternberg was my teenage friend when we lived in Gatooma in the 1950s. His father Robert Sternberg fled Nazi Germany with his family and settled in Gatooma in 1939, where he was employed as an accountant at the Italian Internment Camp. Peter was educated at Jameson Primary School and at Prince Edward School in Salisbury.He was a member of the Gatooma Public Library for 40 years of which he was chairman for 30 years. To his credit he raised funds to refurbish the Que Que and Gatooma cemeteries. He had a passion for model airplanes and had his collection on permanent display at the library. WE had a common interest in the cinema and later in the library established a collection of photographs of Old Gatooma and arranged an exhibition. Peter served on many committees in Gatooma. Another of his many projects was to conserve Fitt’s Building which was one of the first buildings when Gatooma was established in 1906.’