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VOL. 68 NO. 3 CHANUKAH 2013 Editor: David Saks SOUTH AFRICAN JEWRY – HISTORICAL AND CONTEMPORARY “Hate Speech”, the SAJBD and the South African Constitution Mervyn Smith ...............................................................................................................................................5 Esme Berman - Doyen of South African Art Criticism Natalie Knight ..............................................................................................................................................8 The John Schlapobersky Affair Dovidi Fachler ...........................................................................................................................................10 The Cape SAJBD, the Silver Salver and Bertha’s Bill Gwynne Schrire..........................................................................................................................................15 DIASPORA ECHOES A Brief Journey through English Jewish History Bernard Katz ..............................................................................................................................................18 In the beginning was a school: The Alliance Israélite Universelle and its Legacy Anny Wynchank ..........................................................................................................................................25 An I.B. Singer Retrospective: The “Family Chronicles”: The Family Moskat (1950) Gloria Sandak-Lewin ...............................................................................................................................33 POST-HOLOCAUST REFLECTIONS ‘Muss I’ Denn’: Curating Jewish Fragments of German Culture in the Cape Town Holocaust Centre’s Permanent Exhibition Michal Singer ............................................................................................................................................37 The Holocaust - Modes of Remembrance and Education Leah Nasson ..............................................................................................................................................41 Who Remembers? Shirli Gilbert ..............................................................................................................................................45 BOOK REVIEWS The Jewish Emigrant from Britain David Saks .................................................................................................................................................47 The Organ and its Music in German-Jewish Culture David Klepper ............................................................................................................................................49 NEW POETRY Charlotte Cohen, Hazel Frankel ................................................................................................................50 READERS’ LETTERS Gwynne Schrire, Gabriel Sivan ..................................................................................................................51 JEWISH AFFAIRS CHANUKAH 2013 “HATE SPEECH”, THE SAJBD AND THE SOUTH AFRICAN CONSTITUTION * Mervyn Smith On a cold Cape winter’s night in May 1998 … International Jewry declared war on Germany. a Muslim community radio station, Radio 786, … threw South Africa unwillingly into the hands broadcast a programme entitled ‘Zionism and of the Jews and thus the Oppenheimers became the State of Israel – an in-depth analysis’. This the real directors of South Africa’s foreign policy. featured an interview with UK academic, Dr Yakub Zaki. Within a few weeks the SA Jewish Board These were some of the extracts from the of Deputies had lodged a complaint with the broadcast: then regulatory authority, the Independent Broadcasting Authority. This set off a series of Speaking about the Holocaust: endless court cases and public hearings that have still not been concluded. In what was to become … the camps … were brutal labour camps effectively a monumental struggle between the and anybody who alleges anything