JEWISH MEMORIES OF MANDELA
All pictures published by courtesy of SAJBD.
RIGHT: Some of our "rogues"
BELOW: Sseveral more pics from book below story
The South African Jewish Board of Deputies and the Umoja Foundation will publish the most amazing book next month to coincide with their bi-annual conference, themed Global Jewish Citizen, next month.
The 252-page large-format coffee table book will be sold throughout the country at a recommended retail price of R450. [SEE PRE-LAUNCH OFFER BELOW]. It includes 200 photos, sketches and maps, many of them previously unpublished images.
The new book was researched and written by accomplished journalist David Saks, SAJBD associate director and the de facto historian-in-chief of SA Jewry. Steven Gruzd, senior researcher and diplomatic liaison at the SAJBD, has played a major role in the publication of the book.
MyShtetl last week published some views by ZEV KRENGEL - chair of the Board – on the forthcoming book. Zev referred to it as being about the relationship between Mandela and the Jewish community, much of which directly related to the Liliesleaf story. “It is a remarkable fact that of nearly all the white activists involved with Liliesleaf, from the lawyers who clandestinely purchased it, to the family living on it and those who attended meetings there, nearly all were Jews,” said Krengel.
Nat Bregman, who MADIBA CALLED HIS FIRST WHITE FRIEND in his biography “Long Walk to Freedom,” Was laid to rest last Sunday. He, too features in the new book.
CELEBRATING THE JEWISH ROLE IN THE ANTI-APARTHEID STRUGGLE
The book “celebrates the Jewish role in the struggle,” the Board’s national director, Wendy Khan told MyShtetl in an extensive interview this week. Wendy is extremely excited about this project.
While the book records the big and well-documented stories, says Wendy, she particularly likes the fact that author David Saks has included the stories of those who made a small contribution as well.
The book is full of anecdotal and previously untold stories as well as a host of previously unpublished images.
One anecdote from the book is about the Rivonia Treason Trial having been very lengthy and at times very boring. The sheer volume of documents that had to be read into the record - over 10,000 in all - and the many lengthy challenges from defence council took ages. And the records were all taken by hand.
"Some of the accused found ways to occupy themselves," writes David Saks. "Ike Horvitch made sketches of his fellow accused and various courtroom officials." [SEE PICTURES BELOW]
Saks adds that "Mandela himself would bring a book to read or a legal brief to work on to pass the dreary hours."
THIS LARGE-FORMAT COFFEE TABLE BOOK MAKES A GREAT GIFT TOO!
• Unique, fresh perspective of the story of Nelson Mandela and the anti-apartheid struggle as seen through the lives and recollections of Jewish South Africans who were a part of it
• New insights into such well-known personalities as Helen Suzman, Ali Bacher, Joe Slovo, Sol Kerzner, Tony Leon and Arthur Chaskalson and their role in South Africa’s democratic transformation
• Colour and black-and -white photographs throughout, many of them being published for the first time
The book will retail for R450 a copy. Pre-orders are being taken at a cost of R400. The book will be published to coincide with the Board’s bi-annual conference on 27 August.
GET IT NOW! To order your copy or copies at a saving of R50 each and to ensure that you are the first one on your block to have it, simply CLICK HERE >> beagle@beyachad.co.za to send an e-mail to Shirley Beagle. She’ll respond to you and do everything for you.
Synopsis of the book: Our struggle heroes speak
Nelson Mandela’s legal and political work brought him into contact with a vast array of Jewish people across the spectrum: lawyers and legal clerks, communists and communal leaders, business leaders and bankers, physicians and philanthropists, rabbis and rabble-rousers.
Jewish Memories of Mandela – a new book published in August 2011 under the joint auspices of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies and the Umoja Foundation – chronicles for the first time the extent to which individual Jewish men and women were involved in the life and career of Nelson Mandela. It also records the remarkable extent to which Jewish South Africans participated in the anti-apartheid struggle, as well as in the post-apartheid era of nation building, reconstruction and reconciliation.
CLICK FOR PDF WITH MORE INFO ON BOOK
Jews, notwithstanding that they constituted small minority within the population, have been involved to a remarkably disproportionate extent in Mandela’s life history, and indeed in the broader struggle for democracy in South Africa. Whether as lawyers, political activists, trade unionists, journalists, parliamentarians or business leaders, Jews have been intricately involved in the Mandela story, from his arrival in Johannesburg as a young man onwards. Many have themselves become famous names in the annals of South African history.
They include Helen Suzman, Joe Slovo, Ali Bacher, Tony Leon, Rusty Bernstein, Arthur Goldreich, Sol Kerzner, Ruth First, Gill Marcus, Albie Sachs and Arthur Chaskalson. The book also tells the stories of Mandela’s remarkable interaction with ordinary people, from the boy in 1996 who insisted on inviting the President to his Barmitzvah (he came, and danced) and a conversation with a ten-year-old yeshiva bocher with presidential ambitions.
Jewish Memories of Mandela interweaves into the central narrative the personal recollections of these Jewish South Africans of their association with Mandela. These throw interesting new light on some of the most significant episodes in modern South African history, such as the Treason Trial, the establishment of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the Liliesleaf Farm police raid and ensuing Rivonia Trial and the long imprisonment of Mandela and other political activists. It further shows how the Jewish communal leadership, including the SA Jewish Board of Deputies and Chief Rabbi Cyril Harris, went about leading the Jewish community in being an active part in the process of transition to multiracial democracy after 1990.
Featured here is Jewish participation in such areas as the transformation of South African cricket, the inaugural democratic elections of 27 April 1994, the relationship between the ANC government and the opposition in parliament and South Africa’s successful bid to host the 2010 FIFA World Cup. The role of Jewish business leaders in post-apartheid reconstruction initiatives is also examined.
The book is a noteworthy addition to the historiography of anti-apartheid activism from within the white community, of which Jews formed a part. It further documents an inspiring chapter in the history of the South African Jewish community and of the contribution its members have made to the country.
Jewish Memories of Mandela is a copiously illustrated hardback coffee-table book with a linen cover. It contains over 200 colour and black-and-white photographs – many not previously published – and with the highest design and production values.
Madiba book - Ike Horvitch sketches.jpg
