Ask the former generations
and find out what their ancestors learned,
for we were born only yesterday
and know nothing. (Job 8: 8-10)
I would like to thank Prof Adam Mendelsohn, director of the University of Cape Town’s Isaac and Jessie Kaplan Centre for Jewish Studies and Research, for agreeing to publish this history of the Green and Sea Point Hebrew Congregation, an exploration as to how it coped with the changing political and religious realities in Twentieth Century Cape Town. Our memories are fallible and short lived and the Kaplan Centre has done a great deal to preserve our knowledge of the past of our South African Jewish community.
I am also grateful for the help that I have received from Clive Kirkwood and Andrea Walker, Special Collections, UCT Libraries, the librarians at the Sea Point Public Library, Jacqui Rodgers, Jerome de Monk and the staff at the Jacob Gitlin Library and from Dr Jill Lazard who lent me the unpublished typed memoirs of her father, Dr I Waynik.
I must extend my deep gratitude to the following people for allowing me to interview them or for providing me with information: Cantor Max Badash, Michael Bagraim M.P., Dr Veronica Belling, Dr Ute ben Yosef, Aubrey Berman, Zmira Cohen, Judge Dennis Davis, Jos Dickman and the staff at the Green and Sea Point Hebrew Congregation, Gary Eisenberg, Jeff Fine, Dr Sally Frankental, Prof Shirli Gilbert, Stephen Gore, Ann Harris, Karen Kallmann, David King, Rene Kleinman, Philip Krawitz, Prof Solly Leeman, Irwin Manoim, Aubrey Miller, Joe and Esther Sapire, David Saks, Raymond Schkolne and Prof Milton Shain.
Big thanks go to proof reader Janine Blumberg for her patience and eagle eye – not a misplaced comma or incorrect alignment slipped past her. Then to Libby Young, who was able to take a document and turn it into something permanent and attractive, you were great!
And to my family and friends and to everyone who has helped me to find out what the former generations thought or did, a big THANK YOU.
Gwynne Schrire