Newsletter No. 15
2009
Mendel Kaplan z l
T
he Kaplan Centre was established
in 1980 under the terms of a gift to
the University of Cape Town by
the Kaplan Kushlick Foundation and is
named in honour of the parents of Mendel
and Robert Kaplan.
The Centre, the only one of its kind in
South Africa, seeks to stimulate and
promote the whole field of Jewish studies
and research at the University with a
special focus on the South African Jewish
Community. The Centre is multidisciplinary in scope and encourages the
participation of scholars in a range of
fields including history, political science,
education, sociology, comparative
literature and the broad spectrum of
Hebrew and Judaic studies.
The Centre is engaged in both research
and teaching and functions as a coordinating unit in the university. Its
resources are used to invite distinguished
scholars to teach Jewish-content courses
within established University departments, to initiate and sponsor research
projects, and to strengthen the university’s library holding of books, microfilms and archival sources. These
research materials are made available to
members of the University and to
accredited visitors from the wider
academic community.
The Centre awards a limited number of
undergraduate and graduate scholarships
as well as a limited number of research
grants.
The Centre has a publications
programme which brings out monographs
and occasional papers. Lectures symposia
and conferences are arranged under the
auspices of the Centre. In some cases
these are organised with the University’s
Department of Adult Education and Extra
Mural Studies, thereby serving the wider
community.
Milton Shain
M
endel Kaplan once told me that the
key to success was focus. I
witnessed it in all his efforts.
Details concerned him greatly,
but he never lost sight of the big
picture. Indeed, he created the big
picture.
Mendel, who recently passed
away after suffering a stroke,
initiated, led and funded
numerous Jewish, Zionist and
other projects in South Africa and
throughout the Jewish world. He
was honorary president of Keren
Hayesod and a former chairman
of the Jewish Agency’s Board of
Governors. I know little about
Cape Gate, the family business Mendel’s
father Isaac founded 80 years ago. We were
meant to attend an anniversary gala
celebrating eight decades. Instead we should
celebrate Mendel’s life.
There is much to celebrate in his 73 years:
Cape Gate has been transformed from a
modest business selling products like wrought
iron and garden benches into a vast
conglomerate producing its own steel; it
became one of the largest privately owned
companies in South Africa. The expansion
was largely orchestrated by Mendel and his
brother Robert.
Cape Gate is a family concern. Family was
Mendel’s passion. Contact was maintained
across continents. Newsletters found their
way to every relative. Mendel and his loving
wife Jill loved reunions. Everyone’s progress
was followed and appreciated. Mendel
encouraged their efforts.
Board meetings at the Isaac and Jessie
Kaplan Centre for Jewish Studies and
Research at the University of Cape Town,
founded in honour of Mendel’s parents, were
always exciting. Mendel knew balance sheets
were not my strongest suit. But he would
leave that alone.
Projects, conferences and research
interested him. There were no formalities. It
GOVERNING BODY
Chair: Prof Henning Snyman
Director: Prof Milton Shain
Management Committee:
Mr M Kaplan
Dr A Reisenberger
Mr R Kaplan
Assoc Prof R Mendelsohn
Mr E Osrin
Prof S B Burman
Mr J Simon
Ms Romi Kaplan
Prof C Wanamaker
Prof T Leiman
Dr J Wanderer
was down to business. Mendel laughed at the
stuffiness of university mores. With uncanny
business acumen and total recall, he was able
to juggle myriad activities and
projects with mesmerizing
precision. He cut to the quick.
Mendel’s law degree from the
University of Cape Town and his
master’s in business
administration from Columbia
University in New York no doubt
stood him in great stead. But it
was his creativity, vision and
focus that set him apart. A
working lunch on his lovely patio
overlooking False Bay in Cape
To w n w o u l d a l w a y s b e
interrupted by calls from abroad – the
Jerusalem Zoo, an Israeli cabinet minister, or
an old friend from school.
Mendel was always three steps ahead. He
provided direction and ideas. But he also
appreciated contestation. Exchanges were
often tense but always underpinned by
loyalty. Mendel teased me for many years
about a rather strong letter a colleague and I
wrote to him on the vexed question of
representing Jews and apartheid in the South
African Jewish Museum, which he
established.
When Mendel set his mind to something, he
was unstoppable. He had a passion for matters
Jewish. A deeply spiritual man, he was always
reading, learning and writing. His most recent
book recorded his travels as a young man in
East Africa. It was written for his
grandchildren.
Mendel was immersed in SouthAfrican and
international Jewish affairs. His was a
household name in the Jewish world.
Although he moved in hallowed circles,
Mendel always had time for lesser mortals.
More than that, he cared for them. On one
occasion he was hugely embarrassed when a
suburban tabloid innocently published a list of
donations following a request for funds to
repair the Church roof in St. James, a seaside
suburb where Mendel enjoyed his southern
summers. Mendel’s contribution dwarfed the
others. I’m sure this was always the case.
But he preferred the Maimonidean way.
The Kaplan Centre too has appreciated his
generosity. I know the Centre meant much to
him, although it was only one of many
flourishing ventures he created in a life
dedicated to the Jewish people, to Israel, to
family and to the less fortunate, Jewish and
non-Jewish.
Annual Helen Suzman Memorial Lecture
(in association with the Helen Suzman Foundation, the Friedrich Naumann Foundation and Iziko Museums of Cape Town)
South African National Art Gallery, Cape Town, November 2009
Integrity in Public Life
W
e are here to honour Helen Suzman’s
memory whose life was the embodiment
of integrity in all respects. Hers was a
tough time in the life of our nation. But she did not
shy away from making those tough calls that leaders
who leave a deep imprint on society are called to
make.
For Nelson Mandela, her contemporary, it was a
matter of commitment to ideals of freedom for
which he was prepared to die. For a much younger
man, Stephen Biko, it was a matter of honouring an
idea worth dying for rather than live for ideas that
would die. Helen Suzman’s ideals drove her from
her comfort zone as an upper middle class suburban
white SouthAfrican to stand for a more just society.
All signs in our society point to the need for us to
take stock and ask ourselves fundamental questions
about how we have been able to discharge our
responsibilities to honour the ideals we enshrined in
our founding constitution. We stand at a crossroads
yet again as a society struggling to emerge from the
growing pains of being a young democracy.
It is fair to say that much more is asked of us that
we have given over the last decade and a half. We all
grossly underestimated the task of transforming
ourselves into a democratic society. We did not
reflect enough on the paradigm shift it would entail
given our pre-1994 histories. Nor did we appreciate
the complexities embedded in our diverse starting
points in our journey to the new dispensation. The
TRC process was a bridge that allowed us to cross
over the turbulent waters of our past. But much
more work remains to deal with the unfinished
business of growing into the nation we dared to
dream to become.
The women of Crossroads are yet to wipe away
their tears. The social pain of past and ongoing
humiliation at the hands of public servants
undermines whatever self-respect many of them
have clung to over the last 15 years. The extortions
they endure from unscrupulous moneylenders as
they try to keep body and souls together leave them
in a state of permanent anxiety.
The issue we face now is how we rediscover the
ideals for which so many have sacrificed their lives
and devoted so much energy? How do we wrestle
with the inherent tensions in choosing integrity in
public life as individuals, public servants, business
people and community activists? How do we follow
Helen’s example and stand out above the fray and
pressures from peers to lead lives characterised by
integrity?
What is Integrity in Public Life?
Integrity is defined as that which is beyond
reproach, fully honourable and trustworthy. But in
public life such a definition is inadequate. The
complex issues inherent in integrity are best dealt
with by standing outside the obvious formulations.
Theodore Sturgeon takes an interesting approach
to this issue in a 1953 novel entitled The Wages of
Synergy. He constructs a dialogue between a wise
man and a youngster:
“An act can be both moral and ethical. But under
some circumstances a moral act can be counter to
ethics, and an ethical act can be immoral.”
“I am with you so far,” he (the youngster) said.
“Morals and ethics are survival urges, both of
them. But look: an individual must survive within
his group, The problems of survival within the
group are morals.”
“Gotcha. And ethics?” (The youngster probes
further).
“Well the group itself must survive, as a unit. The
patterns of an individual within the group, toward
the end of group survival, are ethics.”
Dr Mamphela Ramphele
Cautiously he (the youngster) said, “You’d better
go on a bit.”
“You’ll see it in a minute. Now, morals can
dictate a pattern to a man such that he survives
within the group itself may have no survival value.
For example, in some societies it is immoral not to
eat human flesh. But to refrain from it would be
ethical, because that would be toward group
survival. See.”
Helen Suzman’s life stands as an example of one
who wrestled with matters of ethics and morality in
a complex political context. She did not shy away
from breaking with family expectations of moral
choices for a young Jewish woman. Nor did she
refrain from making ethical choices that
demonstrated courage to follow patterns in her life
that went against conventions of “her group.” She
was able to see the folly of what was regarded as
“good morals for the survival of the group” to
borrow Sturgeon’s formulation.
South Africans tend to have short memories
about recent social history. Remember the
“Immorality Act”? Here was an example of what
was seen as “moral for the survival of the group”
namely prohibition of intermarriage between white
and black people in order to protect white
supremacy. Only the most courageous were able to
make the ethical choice of crossing the colour line
to follow their hearts. For the majority of South
Africans private choice of partner was sacrificed on
the altar of “moral expectations of the group.” Some
were even prepared to lead unethical double lives of
lies and deceit in the name of morality apartheid
style.
But awful as the Immorality Act was, it was not
the most damaging racist law. The worst damage
was wrought by the Migrant Labour System and its
corollary, the Influx Control Act that systematically
destroyed the foundations of indigenous African
family life. Africans were reduced to units of labour
as a “moral act for the survival of the group” that
stood to benefit from their economic exploitation.
Helen Suzman’s courage was most memorable in
fighting a lone battle against this inequity. She was
not intimidated as a lone voice: only woman, only
opposition MP, only defender of human rights of
those without a voice. Hers was an ethical stand in
the face of overwhelming belief by white people
that these were essential laws for their survival as a
group in a country with a predominantly black
population.
There was little reflection on the absurdity of the
belief that “group survival” of a small white
segment of the population on a continent where
such attempts fail could be sustained by such
“moral patterns of behaviour.” Few white people
questioned the survival value proposition that was
the dominant paradigm of the time. Most were
seduced by the “swartgevaar” rhetoric.
2
Of all the witty statements Helen Suzman made
in Parliament the one that is most apt for the subject
of this Memorial Lecture is: “I have been sitting
here and watching a shiver traversing the green
benches in search of a spine to crawl up on!” She
was to have to watch for a long time indeed. Ethical
behaviour was soundly trumped by the morality of
“group think.”
The question before us now is what frame of
reference have we been, and are we currently using
to make choices as citizens of this democracy. What
paradigm underpins our conduct in public life? Is it
group morality or is it ethics? How do we respond to
pressure to sustain the patterns of acts driven by
group morality? How is this group moral pattern of
acts in line with the values of our human rights
constitution?
Integrity, Ideals and Citizenship
Our society is bleeding. The social pain endured by
those who have remained marginal in our society
has burst into greater and louder protests in our
streets. Human beings are “hardwired to connect”
which in our lexicon we have translated into
Ubuntu. Growing research evidence points to fact
that people’s need for connectedness is just as
essential as air, food, and water. Exclusion from
one’s society has thus a devastating impact on one.
In addition scientists believe that the reason why the
physical pain and social pain mechanisms are super
imposed in bio-physical processes in the brain and
possibly other yet unknown body mechanisms
related to adaptation and evolution.
We have not focused enough on the costs of
exclusion and marginalization for those people still
living in poverty and deprivation. In addition, what
development efforts have been made have been
driven by a paradigm that does not address the selfworth and self-respect side of social pain of living in
an unequal society. RDP houses that are shoddily
constructed by politically connected winners of
tenders are an additional affront to what is left of
their dignity. Disrespect by public officials and loss
of life due to uncaring health professionals weigh
heavily on those excluded from the fruits of
freedom. It is accepted world wide that too great a
degree of inequality makes human community
impossible. Our democracy is at risk from the level
of inequality that is exacerbated by patterns of
actions that are unethical.
The media is overflowing with reports of
corruption, nepotism and looting of public
resources. A culture of impunity has taken root over
the last decade due to the failure of those in
authority to hold officials involved in these
behaviours accountable. The deployment policy of
the ANC that has packed public services with
incompetent politically connected people has
undermined the institutional culture of our public
service. The good officials are demoralized, and
may have left or are leaving the service. Appointing
and promoting people beyond their levels of
competence not only break the law in terms of the
Public Service Act, but fail the ethics test. The
public good is undermined by imperatives of the
“morality of the Party and its survival.” It is
encouraging that some leaders of the ANC are
urging a shift from this perverse incentive system.
The same “group morality” operates in the
private sector. How else can one explain the
participation of the private sector in corrupt and
nepotistic deals? What of anti-competitive
practices that artificially push up prices for basic
foods and services that negatively affect poor
people disproportionately?
Francis Antonie (HSF) and Mamphela
Ramphela
What Legacy?
What are we to tell our grand children and their
children about the choices we have made over the
last decade and a half of our democracy? Are we
going to be able to look with confidence to handing
over to the next generation a society we are proud
of?
What would we say about our silences in the face
of “group morals” trumping ethics in public policy
and practice? HIV/AIDS denialism; Education
under-performance; and corruption in high places?
What about our inaction in the face of outrageous
statements by young political leaders? Shoot to kill
University of Free State Prof. Jonathan Jansen!
Professor KaderAsmal must just die!
We are at a crossroads as a society. We need to
make a second transition to strengthen the
institutions of our democracy to enlarge the
political space for more citizens to make ethical
choices. We need to identify constraints that may
limit this space. We should not shy away from what
may look like holy cows, including our
constitution.
The provision of our world renowned national
constitution for proportional representation without
the counter-balancing constituency representation
mechanism has the unintended consequence of
weakening the voice of the voters. The resulting
strong role played by parties in allocating positions
within Parliament and in the executive branch of
government, disempowers citizens. Our electoral
and parliamentary systems unintentionally promote
“group morality” by giving too much power to
political parties, with a resultant weakening of
incentives for ethical choices.
Citizens need to work with those in the ANC who
are proposing reviving the Report of the Van Zyl
Book Launch
Angela Tuck, Veronica Belling and Russell
Jones
Sue Ogterop and Mandy Noble
Conclusion
Ours is a great country but we owe it to the memory
of Helen Suzman to create a vibrant polity driven
not by group think, but by ethics. The integrity that
marked Helen Suzman’s political career is in
serious need of revival and strengthening. That is
the least she would expect of us.
Visiting Professor
Guests at the launch of Yakov Azriel Davidson. His writings in the Yiddish
Newspaper Der Afrikaner 1911-1913, translated by Veronica Belling.
Adrienne Folb and Jill Gribble
Slabbert Commission on Electoral Reform to get a
constitutional amendment passed through
Parliament before the next National and Provincial
elections. Preserving and strengthening our
democracy depend on it.
Ben
Angud,
Busi
Kangala
and
Janine
Dunlop
Colin Darch, Joan Rapp and Digby Sales
3
Holocaust historian Professor
Michael Marrus (University of
Toronto, Canada) presented a
series of seminars on his latest
book, Some Measure of Justice:
The Holocaust Era Restitution
Campaign of the 1990s.
A leading scholar of French,
Holocaust and modern Jewish
history, Marrus has made seminal
contributions to the study of the
history of anti-Semitism. Among
his books is The Holocaust in
History – a well-regarded
historiographical survey which tackles the origins of the
Holocaust.
Marrus argues that the Holocaust should be seen as a
tragedy for all humanity, not only for Jews.
“The book’s subject links with South Africa’s
preoccupation with reconciliation and restitution,” says
Marrus. “Distinct points of contact can be made, and the more
we broaden these issues to the global environment, the better.”
Publications
The Centre continues to publish in the field of South
African Jewish history: Yakov Azriel Davidson. His
writings in the Yiddish Newspaper Der Afrikaner 19111913, translated by Veronica Belling, and For the Love of
Justice by the late Leo Lovell.
International Conference
The Centre jointly hosted a successful international conference
Jewish Migration and the Family with the University of
Southampton from 5-7 January 2009. Twenty-five scholars
from six countries participated.
l-r Jenny
Altschuler,
Ruth
Leiserowitz,
Sarah
Pearce
and Paul
Weinberg
l-r Nick Evans, Andrea, James Jordan, Sharon
Walker, Greg Walker, Tony Kushner and Jack
Kushner (front)
Conference participants
Kaplan Centre events for 2009
Faculty Seminars
Benjamin Pogrund (Former Deputy Editor of
Rand Daily Mail and Founder of Yakar Centre for
Social Concern in Jerusalem) Israel after Gaza, 26
March.
Prof Robert Kaplan (Forensic Psychiatrist,
University of Wollongong, Australia) Soaring with
the wind: Freud, Jews and Judaism, 13 May.
Professor Michael R Marrus (University of
Toronto)
Justice and the Nuremberg Trial, 1945-1946: Was
the Glass Half-Empty or Half-Full? 12 May
Seeking Justice: Holocaust Wrongs Meet American
Law
Analyzing Justice: Holocaust Restitution in Law
and History
Evaluating Justice for the Holocaust: What Was
Achieved?
Daniel Mackintosh (Postgraduate Law Student)
University of Cape Town Speaking out against
injustice? Re-examining the Jewish Board of
Deputies in the 1950s and 1960s 17 June.
Hanina Ben-Menahem (Professor of Law,
Hebrew University of Jerusalem) Human dignity
and shame punishment in Jewish law: a preliminary
analysis, 23 July.
Public Lecture
Professor Jonathan Goldstein (University of
West Georgia) The Establishment of ChineseIsraeli Relations. 8.00 pm Wednesday 7 January,
Auditorium SAJewish Museum
The Second Annual Helen Suzman Lecture.
Speaker: Dr Mamphela Ramphele, Integrity in
Public Life (in association with the Helen Suzman
Foundation, the Friedrich Naumann Foundation
and Iziko Museums of Cape Town) Tuesday 3
November, South African National Gallery,
GovernmentAvenue, Cape Town.
Conference
5 – 7 January 2009
Jewish Migration and the Family
(In association with the Parkes Institute for the
Study of Jewish/non-Jewish Relations, University
of Southampton)
COORDINATORS: James Jordan, Tony Kushner,
Sarah Pearce and Milton Shain
Monday 5 January 2009
SESSION 1: Myth and Memory: Family and
Migration
Chair: Tony Kushner
Nicholas Evans (University of Hull)
Forgotten Journeys? Readdressing the myths and
memories of Jewish migration
Hannah Ewence (University of Southampton)
Mediators between Two Worlds: Second
Generation Narratives of First Generation Jewish
Immigrants in Britain
Sarah Pearce (University of Southampton)
Migration and assimilation: Philo of Alexandria on
the challenges to the Jewish family in the diaspora
SESSION 2: Jews and the Construction of the
Family in South Africa
Chair: Albert Lichtblau
Claudia Braude (Independent Scholar)
From Musar to Mandela: Preliminary Notes on the
Ethical Journey from Kelm to Johannesburg
Saul Issroff (University of Cape Town) with
Herbert Huebscher and Elise Friedman
A Y-DNA study of 62 connected families with a
search for Ashkenazic and pre-Inquisition
Sephardic roots
Paul Weinberg (University of Cape Town)
Conversations with my great grandfather Edward
Weinberg who journeyed with his family to this
country at the turn of 19th Century
SESSION 3: Culture and the Family
Chair: Milton Shain
James Jordan (University of Southampton)
Lies My Father Told Me? The Jewish Family in
British Television, 1946-1955
Greg Walker (University of Edinburgh
‘I found London, not you!’: The Korda Family and
British Identity
Tuesday 6 January 2009
SESSION 1: Myth and Memory 2
Chair: Sarah Pearce
Michael Cohen (Tulane University)
American Conservative Judaism and the Imagined
Family
Adam Mendelsohn (College of Charleston/University of Pennsylvania)
The Business of Family in the British Empire
Tony Kushner (University of Southampton)
Migration, the Family and Settlement: The Case of
Louis Herrman
This Newsletter is published by
the Kaplan Centre for Jewish Studies
and Research, University of Cape
Town.
Editor: Janine Blumberg
Tel.
(021) 650-3062
Fax. (021) 650-5151
www.KaplanCentre.uct.ac.za
Printed by:
Campus Copy & Print
4
SESSION 2: The Family and Apartheid South
Africa
Chair: James Jordan
Deborah Klein (University of Stellenbosch)
The family in Joe Slovo’s The Unfinished
Autobiography (1995), Gillian Slovo’s novel
Façade (1993) and Shawn Slovo’s script A World
Apart (1988).
Richard Mendelsohn and Milton Shain
(University of Cape Town)
The Communist Party as Surrogate Family:
Revisiting the Campbell thesis.
SESSION 3: Challenging the Family:
Chair: Saul Issroff
Haim Sperber (Western Galilee College)
Immigration and deserted women (Agunot)
Veronica Belling (University of Cape Town)
Born Before Their Time: Cape Town’s First Lesbian
Jewish Couple, Roza Van Gelderen and Hilda
Purwitsky
Frances Williams (University of Edinburgh)
A Kindertransport to Scotland; Jewish institutional
care and the ‘Jewish family’.
JennyAltschuler (Open University)
Journeys that span geographic space, the life
course and responses to political change: Jewish
migrations, the family and apartheid
Wednesday 7 January 2009
SESSION 1: Shaping the Family
Chair: Nicholas Evans
Fiona Frank (University of Strathclyde)
Out of respect for my parents: continuity,
discontinuity and out marriage in five generations
of one extended Jewish family
Jonathan Goldstein (University of West Georgia)
The Epstein family in China: Father/Son
Relationships in Jewish Ideological Formation
Hilda Nissimi (Bar-Ilan University)
Between Family and Nation: Re-shaping Mashhadi
Identity in Israel
Ruth Leiserowitz (Free University of Berlin)
The German Army as Matchmaker: Litvak families
in east Prussia and their network
SESSION 2: Escape and the Family
Chair: Jonathan Goldstein
Maura Hametz (Old Dominion University,
Norfolk)
The Art of Escape: The Morpurgo family’s “flight”
Michael John (University of Linz,Austria)
Tragedies in Central Europe: Jewish and nonJewish mixed marriages 1930s-1950s
Albert Lichtblau (University of Salzburg)
Migration and Family Patterns in Vienna 18701938