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Dear Rabbi Moshe Silberhaft,

Herewith just a few words of appreciation for an excellent talk which took place here in Netanya, Israel, on Weds evening 4th Jan 2012 at the Telfed Netanya Regional Committee AGM.

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Rabbi Moshe Silberhaft, the South African Country Communities Rabbi, spoke at the Telfed Netanya Regional Committee function on Wednesday 4 January 2012, 9 Tevet 5773.A large crowd of ex-South Africans, mainly from the country communities, came to listen to the Travelling Rabbi talk about his visits to the remaining Jews in the small country towns of Southern Africa. Rabbi Silberhaft enthralled the crowd with stories gleaned from his travels to diverse places such as Oudtshoorn, Kimberley, Swellendam, Zimbabwe and Mauritius.

For more than a year Netanya Telfed Regional Committee had been trying to set up a guided tour around new and special projects in their area.    Once City Councillor, British-born Simon Monk, became an  'honorary South African'  (now he even greets me saying 'howzit'!!) he was very happy to help us to achieve this.
He initiated the connection between Ruth Omsky (Chairman of a very active Netanya committee) and Shlomi Waroner, Director of Keren Netanya - and the project was born.
 

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In an entertaining and informative talk about the seven years he worked as Abba Eban’s right hand man in the Ministry of Education, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister and Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mannie Shimoni gave a few examples of Eban’s wry sense of humor: “At the age of two years, I emigrated from South Africa because I couldn’t stand Apartheid!” he would comment when asked about his early childhood.