News 4

Kimberley expat letter no 4

September 2014

We are heading now to the end of summer (in the northern hemisphere) In Kimberley it will be warming up for spring!

With the New Year holidays coming up we all wish for a world that calms down and that humanity and peace will prevail.

Message from Kimberley

The President of the community Barney Horwitz and Head of Khevre Kadishe Arnold Rauff send warm wishes to fellow Kimberley-ites now living all over the world. They are greatly looking forward to Nachi Ashe and Josef Shissler and their families joining them to usher in the New Year in the joyous and thoughtful way that they have been doing for the last 14 years. Barney says: ‘They started coming to us in 2001 as schoolboys and have come every year since and now come with their families. Five families (with ten young children) in total are coming down to make sure our High Holy Days are really a communal success --- so if anyone is looking for a family shul, Kimberley is it where the kids can play in beautiful grounds under supervision while their parents are in Shul.’

Barney is also happy to report ‘The big news of the year is that we finally managed to build a wall around the West End Cemetery so those dear to us now rest in peace and security. After all these years, we have also added proper ablution facilities to the shul building itself. These engineering feats are squarely the results of the tireless efforts of Arni Rauff.’ Barney and Arni thank all those ex-pats who contributed so generously.

We, around the world, are so proud of what you in Kimberley have achieved and grateful that you are looking after our departed loved ones and that you can still open the doors of our beautiful synagogue for song and prayer.

Those of us who would like to have our family remembered in the Kimberley shul this New Year and to support the community at home to preserve the fabric that we all love – your help will be much appreciated. The bank details of the Kimberley community are at the bottom of this Newsletter*. Please transfer directly to their bank account and send an email to Barney to let them know which names they should mention in the services. (ahorwitz@lantic.net )

Website and family stories

We have invited Barney and Arni as well as David Allen to be Patrons of the Kimberley Jewish Community website. This is to show our respect for them and that the website is for those still in Kimberley as much as for the ex-patriots spread around the world.

We hope that you like the website http://kehilalinks.jewishgen.org/kimberley and with this and the Kimberley Expats Newsletter – I am sure we all feel a bit more connected to each other and to those still in Kimberley. Barney says: ‘Good luck with the project. The spirit of Judaism which came to Kimberley and which has now moved off into the wider world is quite special and unique’.

If you have suggestions for the site or email addresses of those who might like to be on the mailing list – please send them to me. And don’t forget to write something about your family in Kimberley. While we are still around who know some facts and stories we should write them down don’t you think?

We are pleased to have already received and uploaded some interesting information, pictures and stories. We thank Leon Chonin in Toronto for his story about his grandparents Lipi and Hannah Weinstein, Trevor Toube in London for his details about the Toube and Blumenthal families and Stella Clingman (Kroll) in Sydney for her story about growing up in Kimberley in the 50s (GHS, Miss Southern etc). You can read them under their family name or all together here http://kehilalinks.jewishgen.org/kimberley/Family_Stories.html.

We have created a time-line of the history of the community from its earliest days 1868 to 1911 when the Baronial St. Synagogue was built. Please let me know if you have any other information and if anything is not correct.

I found when searching the internet, some very interesting historic pictures of the synagogue – like the one at the beginning of the Newsletter taken soon after it was built (showing no palm trees or elegant railings). And I found one with half-grown palm trees …See them on this page http://kehilalinks.jewishgen.org/kimberley/Synagogues.html where you can also see some wonderful galleries of the interior and exterior of the synagogue by 3 amazing photographers.

Do you perhaps have any personal pictures of the synagogue – maybe of your wedding taken on the steps? I know I do somewhere – of my wedding and my mother’s wedding. Do you have any pictures or stories of the small Baronial Street shul – we don’t have anything about that building which has now sadly gone or of Jewish events or places in Kimberley that we could include?

On the ‘Articles’ page you can now see a video of a wonderful talk about Kimberley’s history given recently by Wayne Sussman of Limmud SA at the Melbourne Limmud. Amazingly Eli Rabinowitz – our webmaster – who was the person who filmed Wayne’s talk in Melbourne also met Stella Clingman (Kroll) at the opening of the Memories of Muizenberg exhibition in Sydney!! Small world! (Eli has also by the way, amongst others, made a Muizenberg website. Maybe Muizenberg impinged on your life at some stage too. it’s at: http://kehilalinks.jewishgen.org/muizenberg/Home.html .

The Kimberley site is still a work in progress, but I am sure there is enough there for you to encourage people to look at it. If you have a facebook page or other means of communication – at the end of this newsletter is a short announcement** that you can cut and paste on to your own site – or anywhere else that might be useful to draw attention to the Kimberley website.

‘Alles van die beste’ for the High Holydays and the coming year.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Best wishes

Geraldine

* Donations to the Kimberley Community should be paid directly into the Shul Bank Account, the details of which are below: Please confirm to: Adrian (Barney) Horwitz [ahorwitz@lantic.net] and tell him which names to mention in shul.

The banking details of the Congregation are as follows :

Bank : Standard Bank

Branch : Kimberley

Branch Code : 050002

Swift Code: SBZAZAJJ

Account Name : Griqualand West Hebrew Congregation

Account Number: 04-005-444-6

**Announcement of the Kimberly Community Website

Take a look at the new Kimberley Jewish Community website created to celebrate and document the Jewish families who lived and worked in Kimberley South Africa.

If you have a story to tell, pictures to contribute or any comments to make, please contact the webmasters Eli Rabinowitz and Geraldine Auerbach via the contact page of the website. http://kehilalinks.jewishgen.org/kimberley/Home.html