(L-R): Karen, Lionel, Danielle and Ariella Faitelson at the Spice Route Winery near Cape Town, South Africa. Paarl (“Pearl”) Mountain can be seen in the background. (Courtesy Karen Faitelson) From changes at a South African Jewish day school to the transformation of a country, Karen and Lionel Faitelson have seen it all. In December, the Faitelsons returned to South Africa with their two adult daughters for the first time in 14 years. Growing up, Karen attended the King… Read more »
Ruth Feigenbaum, founder of the Support Group of Families of the Terminally Ill in Zumbabwe, with AIDS orphan Ruth Thabini Dube. (Courtesy SGOFOTI) JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (JTA) — Two years after moving to Zimbabwe from South Africa 20 years ago, Ruth Feigenbaum noticed that her gardener, James Phiri, was losing weight and looking ill. With the help of a physician friend, Phiri was diagnosed: Like nearly one in seven Zimbabweans, he was… Read more »
The late philanthropist Mendel Kaplan showing former South Africa President Nelson Mandela around the South African Jewish Museum, which was opened by Mandela in 2000. (Shawn Benjamin/Ark Images) CAPE TOWN, South Africa (JTA) – When anti-apartheid activist Lorna Levy first became involved in politics as a student in the late 1950s, she remembers being the target of hostility from the Jewish community in her native South Africa. In the 1960s, she and her husband, Leon, made their… Read more »
This architectural rendering shows the interior of the Johannesburg Holocaust and Genocide Centre. "Khumbula" is the Zulu word for remember. (Lewis Levin) CAPE TOWN, South Africa (JTA) — At a South African Holocaust museum that plans to open late next year in Johannesburg, the Holocaust will be featured beside a more local genocide: the Rwandan violence of 1994. The inclusion of the African mass murder is not a mere gesture toward… Read more »
