April 17 2015 / 28 Nisan 5775 Volume 19 – Number 19 Yom Hazikaron, April 21, Yeshiva College. Yom Ha’atzmaut, south african April 22, Yeshiva College. Some roads will be closed. Jewish Report www.sajr.co.za The living must ensure that this never happens again Israel Zeliger, Yossi Photo: The March of the Living is an annual educational programme which brings students and anyone else, for that matter, from all over the world to Poland to study the history of the Holocaust and examine the roots of prejudice, intolerance and hate. Since the first March of the Living in 1988, over 200 000 participants from 45 countries have marched down the same path leading from Auschwitz to Birkenau on Holocaust Remembrance Day. Many groups then travel on to Israel. The commemoration this year began in Poland on Monday and continues until April 27. The recurring theme is: “Lest we forget...” The killing of six million Jews by the Nazis during the Second World War is not only commemorated at the scene of the various death camps, but at events and marches all over the world. As the death camp survivors – 70 years on – get fewer and fewer each year, the baton has been passed to the younger generation to keep the memory alive and to ensure that such horrors will never happen again. Pictured are March of the Living participants at the Madjanek concentration camp on the outskirts of the Polish city of Lublin this week. See page 4. BDS does its nut over Storm in a kosher coffee Passing on torch of Obama stresses to Jewish ‘Caveat emptor’ sees Woolies’ Pharrell Williams cup remembrance to next leaders, donors how much Ichikowitz losing auction coup generation he cares appeal Questions asked for security BDS-SA reacted with fury and purposes to Rastafarians, infuriate SA contingent of 22 adults and ‘I consider it a moral failure if ‘Vendor bidding’ alright if its stated indignation to announcement the 3 coffee shop patrons in 44 students takes part in 2015 something happened to Israel explicitly by auctioneers, court of Pharrell Williams being Glenhazel. Auschwitz-Birkenau March of the on my watch.’ Also: ‘I feel I’m a rules. Woolworths’ style director. 3 3 Living commemoration. 4 member of the tribe.’ 6 8 ANOTHER FIRST FROM FIRZT! 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It is a Jewish diet to help Jews remain spiritu- clog your spiritual arteries and prevent those Parshat Shemini To those of us in Jewish education, it is a ally sensitive to their innate Jewishness. warm, healthy Jewish feelings from circulating Rabbi Yossy Goldman, continuing source of disappointment that so While the Torah actually records no official through your kishkes and your consciousness. Senior Rav Sydenham- many Jews still believe the kosher laws to be reason for these laws, the rabbis and philoso- It’s very important to have a mezuzah on Highlands North Shul outdated. After all, they reckon, in the desert phers have speculated on their purpose. They your door. It identifies your home as Jewish. our ancestors needed to protect themselves act as a bulwark against assimilation, we are But what really defines your home as a “Jewish An observant Jew was experiencing a crisis of from trichinosis and all sorts of diabolical taught. home” - what your zaida meant when he said faith. He decided to sneak into a non-kosher diseases, so some kind of dietary system was On a simple level, if we keep kosher, inexora- with pride: “My children run a Jewish home” - restaurant and have a fling. He orders “you needed. But today, they argue, in an age of bly, we will remain close to Jewish communal is the kitchen! know what”, and is pumping adrenalin big government inspection and modern hygiene life. We will shop in the Jewish neighbourhood, A kosher kitchen makes a Jewish home time, full of nervous anticipation of what that standards, kashrut is archaic, anachronistic and possibly find it more convenient to live nearby truly Jewish. It also extends a very warm and forbidden “white meat” really tastes like. Unfor- quite dispensable. and generally mix in Jewish company. eloquent invitation to all fellow Jews: Here you tunately for him, his rabbi was walking down How sad. The fact is that the kosher laws A rabbinic friend of mine once asked a very are welcome. Here it is safe to come in and eat. the road behind him and saw him enter the were never given to us for health reasons. If high-profile Jewish businessman why he was Make yourself at home. restaurant. The rabbi was shocked. He waited they happen to be healthy or provide good about to marry a non-Jewish woman. Couldn’t Your favourite diet may build healthy bodies outside to see what the congregant would order hygiene, that is purely a fringe benefit. It may he find a “nice Jewish girl?” His reply was very but a kosher diet builds healthy souls. and when the waiter duly arrived and removed well be one of the perks but it has never been revealing: “I just don’t mix in those circles the tray cover revealing the swine in all its the reason. anymore, Rabbi.” Shabbat Times glory, decorated with the customary apple in its I often joke that if kashrut was for health, There is no doubt that had he still kept Parshat Shemini mouth, the rabbi rushed in and confronted the then all the rabbis should look like Arnold kosher he would have been compelled to mix April 17 / 28 Nisan Jew: “How could you?!” he demanded. Schwarzenegger! And those who don’t keep in Jewish circles and his life choices might well April 18 / 29 Nisan The shamefaced Jew trying desperately to kosher should look sickly. In fact, anecdotal have been very different. explain himself out of a corner replies: “Rabbi, evidence seems to prove the very opposite. Your On a deeper, more spiritual level, keeping 17:32 18:21 Johannesburg this is such a fancy restaurant. You order an average religious type looks rather scrawny (or kosher keeps our Jewish souls sensitive to 18:03 18:53 Cape Town apple and they make such a fuss!” overweight) and the non-kosher guys are the things Jewish. This is clearly a mystical concept 17:17 18:06 Durban This week’s Parsha, Shemini, introduces ones with the big biceps! and completely imperceptible, but according to 17:37 18:26 Bloemfontein the Bible’s dietary laws. Animals must chew So let it be stated categorically: Kashrut is our Sages it is a fact. Just as too much red meat 17:35 18:25 Port Elizabeth their cud and have split hooves, fish need fins not for our physical health but for our spiritual or fatty foods are bad for your cholesterol, non- 17:26 18:17 East London Outrage at the slaughter of Yarmouk Palestinian refugees Time of reflection and celebration SAZF CORRESPONDENT The South African Zionist Federation, Cape Council, has expressed its sadness at the “brutal slaughter of over 1 000 Palestinian residents of It was Mark Twain who said that “all things are mortal but the Yarmouk refugee camp, near Damascus, by an alliance of Islamic State and the Jihadist Al-Nusra Front”. the Jew” and the same can be said of the nation of Israel. The Through its chairman, Ben Levitas, the SAZF, Cape Council, con- commemorations of Yom Hazikaron (Israel’s Memorial Day for demned in a media statement “the perpetuation of the refugee status Fallen Soldiers) and Yom Ha’atzmaut (Israel’s Independence of the Palestinian people that are still, five generations after becoming Day) are the costs we incur to ensure the continuance of Israel’s refugees, being kept in ‘apartheid like’ refugee camps, cut off from be- existence - the land of the “immortal” Jew. ing able to participate in the economies of the countries in which they Every year the South African Jewish community proudly find themselves. unites in both celebration and commemoration for the State of “We call on all the countries housing Palestinian refugees, to close Israel - a cause close to the heart of almost all of its members. these apartheid relics, and to absorb these Palestinians into their The South African Zionist Federation ask that people join societies, and to grant to them all the rights that are afforded to their them at Yeshiva College on April 21 at 18:30 for a moving Yom citizens.” Hazikaron ceremony. Professor Shmuel Eidelman a former Levitas said that the Yarmouk camp which at one time housed over 100 000 descendants of refugees, had during the past five years of the South African whose son was killed in the Lebanon War in 1982 Syrian civil war, been whittled down to only 18 000 souls, as most of and now does amazing work for the Rambam Hospital, will be its residents had fled.