A letter to South African Jewry

Dear friends in South Africa,
Shalom!

I am writing to you after reading the South African Jewish press with respect to the latest and ongoing seemingly non-stoppable crime-terror incidents in Johannesburg, the power shortages and the general depressing atmosphere.

Various leaders of the community, the Rabbis, the Heads of the Board of Deputies etc. felt the need to reassure people and strengthen their resolve in face of the situation.  They mainly called on everyone to remain 'put' and not to emigrate to other countries.

I'm sorry chaverim, but I do not, cannot and will not buy the saying "yihiye tov", all will be ok, do not worry.

Over the ages, the Jews in the Diaspora have only learnt the hard way, that the future does not always bode good tidings. On the contrary, for most of time, the Jewish future has always been bleak.

Every year a few Bnei Akiva Hachshara groups spend an educational trip in Poland.
There are numerous messages and lessons that we can and need to learn from the
 Holocaust. One of them is that a Jew cannot bury his head in the sand and hope that
the bad times will just pass away. The whole concept of a Jew in the Galut (Diaspora) negates the message of "don't worry be happy". And how we do have to worry! All the  thousands of small Jewish communities that have been wiped off the face of the earth,  never to be re-established, silently witness this simple fact.

In one of the articles I read, an important Rabbinic figure extolled on the beautiful and  multi faceted Torah life of the Jews of South Africa. He claimed that this must never be  allowed to cease and expressed his conviction that it will continue for many years.  What he wrote is true. The South African Jewish community is recognized worldwide for it's high quality of Torah, Keruv, Chessed, and connection to the State of Israel.

In the capacity of my work, I have visited tens of Jewish communities over five continents for the past few years. There is no community that compares with all the positive aspects of the South African Jewish community.

In addition to this, from Auckland to Perth, from Toronto to London, any place that has absorbed South African immigrants, has been infused with numerous aspects of new Jewish life. I am very proud to have been born and part of this community.

However, to the same extent I am sure that if I was born in Vilna, Pieterkov, Kovna or Volozin, I would be just as proud if not more so. The greatness of the above-mentioned communities and the rabbis that led them in the past, did not spare them from the tragedy that befell them. I recently visited Volozin, the location of the world renowned and most important yeshiva of the last two centuries. The town does not have even one Jewish inhabitant, never mind a minyan or a yeshiva. Nothing left. The greatness of the Natziv or R' Chayim Soloveitchik did not spare the Jews that lived there or their Yeshiva.

Are we so vain to believe that we are greater than them and will therefore be spared? Is our Torah holier than theirs, enabling us to continue to flourish?

Do you contend that it cannot happen here? But I have already witnessed a Churban (destruction) in South Africa. Part of my childhood and youth took place between the streets of Raleigh, Muller and Francis. I davened (prayed) in the Adas Yeshurun shul, the Kollel, Chabad, Berea and Etz Chayim Synagogues. Jews from all over Johannesburg
came to 'our' shops in the center of Yeoville to buy the best Kosher food available. It was our little holy shtetl. What's left of Yeoville (nicknamed "Jew-ville")? Nothing but destruction!!

I do not think there is any other adjective to describe what I saw through my eyes a year ago when I went to see the streets of my childhood. I saw the shuls standing empty without Jews, houses that heard thousands of holy Jewish prayers are now used for selling drugs, for brothels or for worse. How else do you describe what my eyes witnessed other than a  "Churban"?

So a destruction of Jewish life has already occurred in South Africa, cannot it happen again?  Can the Jews not be forced again to move, this time from Glenhazel and Sandton? Am I writing about the impossible and the unimaginable? Where will they move to then?
 
You will no doubt ask if I am aware that the security situation in Israel is also not the best – which is an understatement! I know where I live. I am under no illusion that our situation is precarious. But unlike the Galut, I am in Israel. I live in the center of the Jewish world today.

Approximately 130 years ago history changed. Jews from four corners of the earth decided to  stop wandering and come home, permanently. Just like I believe that every facet of my life is  connected in some way to G-d, so I believe that this major turn in Jewish history, together with the creation of the State of Israel is not by chance and without Divine intervention. I believe that providence at one stage decided that the Jews have wondered enough and that it is time to
bring them home. I am just as confident that He did not invest so much in Israel in vain and that only in the Land of Israel the future is and will be the brightest ever. [Saying this I am also aware that by our choices we can direct history the wrong way, but this is our choice].

I do not intend in this article to preach Aliya to you. I am sure that you are all aware of the option. But I have written these words to try and make you aware.  Do not believe in false promises.  70 years ago the Jews were not aware, did not and could not believe that 1000 years of Jewish presence in Eastern Europe came to an end. I hope my predicament is wrong. But after 120 years in this world, I hope I will be able to say that I tried to make people aware, to enable them to make the right choices.

Rav Rafi Ostroff
Head of Programs
World Bnei Akiva
rafi@bneiakiva.net