Reason to be proud

There is no question we have people who despise us. We have people who will skew all sorts of facts to make it look like we, and Jews in Israel, are not just bad people, but people who go out to commit heinous crimes as a matter of course. 

As antisemitism rises around the world, I am continually shocked to find this hatred towards us growing and the stark inability of so many people to see us as people, much like them. If you read Benji Shulman’s opinion piece on the impact of the “menu cost” on antisemitism, you’ll see how hard it is to turn ugly sentiments around once they’ve escalated. 

We also see how the national government has rewritten history in its latest statement in the trumped-up case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Whatever happened to 7 October 2023, the worst day in Jewish history since the Holocaust? 

The SA government simply erased this from its memory, at least for the ICJ case. In truth, if the government feels the need to rewrite history to prove its point, surely it’s time to back down and realise it’s on the wrong side of history. 

While we do need to keep calling out our haters, it is even more important to recognise the value, strength, and warmth within our own community. 

While members of our community are at the forefront of outreach in this country, I am writing now about how this very community look after its own. When I consider how small our community really is, I’m amazed at what we are able to do both for ourselves and others. 

I’m going to use the example of this last Sunday, packing Rosh Hashanah food parcels for Yad Aharon & Michael. Sundays are traditionally relaxing, rejuvenating days in Johannesburg, the calm before the storm of the week begins. It’s often the sleep-in day when there are no pressures or anything on the to-do list, other than perhaps a good braai with friends. 

Having said that, there seemed to be an endless stream of Jozi Jews at the Yad bayit on Sunday morning, all coming to help pack the food bags for 750 families who need this to get through the chaggim. 

I was so impressed by the smooth organisation of the process and the joyful participation of everyone concerned. There were frum and secular people, young kids and elderly folk, who all descended on the bayit to do their bit for the less fortunate in our community. 

The music was blaring, which certainly kept the spirits up and many a foot tapping as people went along the steady production line. The sun was shining and everyone was smiling and chatting to each other as they did their bit. There was such a sense of camaraderie, or perhaps it’s better described as a sense of community. I felt so proud. 

My point isn’t just about the amazing work that Yad Aharon & Michael do because it is just one of our phenomenal communal organisations. The work that the Chevrah Kadisha (Chev) does is beyond anyone’s expectation and few have a concept of the true extent of what it does for our community. For those who’ve fallen on hard times, for the elderly, for children, and I could go on. The reality is the Chev serves nearly 10 000 members of our community, about 25% of Johannesburg’s Jewish population. 

Then we have Hatzolah, which, in the hands of mostly volunteers, deals with around 2 500 medical emergencies a year, seven days a week. Its response time is astonishingly between 30 seconds and five minutes. One of its volunteers might be in a business meeting when the call comes through and he will excuse himself and arrive at the scene while the dispatcher is still on the phone with the caller. 

Hatzolah deals with people who are terrified, at their most vulnerable, and its volunteers bring a kind, gentle, and caring human face to the scene. I will never forget how they came to fetch my then elderly mother who had fallen and broken her hip. I was scared, as was my mom. They calmed both of us and made sure we felt like we were in angels’ hands. And we were. 

Then there is the CSO, which quietly does whatever it has to in order for us to live secure and peaceful lives as Jews. Much of its work is behind the scenes, but it gives us the sense of security we have here in South Africa. CSO has long ensured our Jewish institutions, schools, and shuls are secure so we don’t have to stress about this. 

This brings me to CAP, a non-profit community security organisation that was the brainchild of Chief Rabbi Dr Warren Goldstein in 2006. It was formed as a response to the surge in violent crime and its mission was to shift neighbourhood security to a proactive, intelligence-led crime-prevention infrastructure. 

Astonishingly, in Houghton, it brought down serious criminal incidents from 126 a year before CAP was there to 11 in 2025. In Melrose and Birdhaven, contact crime reportedly fell from 114 incidents to just four. And so it goes on. It appears to me that the South African Police Service has come to trust and rely on the work CAP does to bring down and solve crime. 

Another important communal organisation is the SA Jewish Board of Deputies, which makes sure that nobody messes with us and deals with any antisemitism up front and legally. I could go on about our varied and significant communal organisations. 

We are pretty much self-sustaining, which puts us in a strong position as a community. My understanding is that we are admired by the Jewish world for this. While we dare not rest on our laurels, we can certainly be proud of what this small community has achieved in taking care of each other and ourselves. 

Shabbat Shalom! 

Peta Krost 

Editor