Out of Africa: a rabbi’s return and reflection

About 30 years ago, shortly after leaving South Africa, I wrote a poem titled Homelands. In it, I explored my simultaneous sense of belonging to Africa and estrangement from it because of my Jewishness. I reflected, too, on how deeply I had come to feel part of this continent while remaining strongly connected to Australia and to Israel. Here is an excerpt:

“But it burns, Africa burns:
this is the flame of some sharp Karoo night,
this is the ember of a star-sated sky.
This coal bears my imprint, yet it is not mine,
for I am the bastard son of this cunning continent.
I carry my father’s burden (still heavy with the terror of a cold Lithuanian night).
And, even now,
as I tread with love and unease in this land of long dreaming,
sometimes I catch a glimpse of Jacob wrestling his starry dark dreams into his homeland.”

I thought of this poem when I returned to South Africa this year to visit my ageing mother and family. Its themes of connection and identity, belonging, home, and the fragile uncertainty of being resonated with particular force this time.

South Africa is vastly different now. The dystopian order of apartheid has given way to a dysfunctional government marked by endemic corruption, crime, and violence. Potholes scar suburban streets, power outages are routine, and in Johannesburg at least, the water system urgently needs repair.

The Jewish community has changed – shrinking dramatically and changing in character. It is both more frum and more fearful. The epicentre of Johannesburg’s Jewish life is Glenhazel, and within its boundaries – patrolled by a highly efficient private armed force, a vigilant community security group, private guards, high walls and electrified fences – you can enjoy the beautiful Highveld winter, its azure skies, and a wide choice of excellent kosher restaurants.

You can also access an astonishing range of shules and shtieblach, learning centres and schools. On Shabbat, the streets and shules were filled with energy and a strong sense of community. Despite its numbers, it remains a highly organised community that serves its members with care, courage and commitment. This is manifest not only in the burgeoning religious community led by the Chief Rabbi but also in the leadership of the SA Jewish Board of Deputies, the vitality of Limmud South Africa and the work of the Johannesburg Chevrah Kadisha, the oldest and largest Jewish welfare organisation in Africa.

The generous communal spirit of this still largely Litvak community, with its strong Chabad presence, is also reflected in the many chesed initiatives that support members of the community and wider society. Again and again, I encountered examples of what in Zulu is called ubuntu.

This philosophy centres on interconnectedness and communal harmony – as Nelson Mandela famously put it, the recognition that “I am because we are.”

I saw this at the home of a friend who opens her house to elderly Jewish women, offering them an engaging speaker and a splendid tea. I read about it in the SA Jewish Report, and in the work of Sue Krawitz, who established a baby saver box where mothers can safely place their babies as an alternative to unsafe abandonment – vital in a country facing a critical shortage of shelters for vulnerable mothers.

I also witnessed it in the remarkable care shown by the Black staff at the Jewish aged home, Sandringham Gardens. These predominantly Christian women, with hearts wider than the Limpopo River, largely belong to a church called the Church of Zion, headquartered in a place called Moriah!

They are deeply supportive of Israel and South Africa’s Zionist community, as are an extraordinary number of tribes across Africa. Despite the hostility of the South African government towards Israel, many South Africans who are aware of the small Jewish community in their midst remain broadly positive towards Jews and Israel.

Of course, antisemitism is present, especially in Cape Town. This was evident during the Cape Town Marathon, where British fitness coach Yoel Levy – who runs marathons dressed as Batman in memory of the murdered Bibas children – was harassed and threatened. Even so, the South African Jewish community feels safer than we do in Australia and has not been subjected to the same barrage of protests and anti-Jewish rhetoric.

There is nothing quite like returning to a childhood home, reconnecting with family and old friends, and being welcomed into the cocoon of a warm and generous community. We remain tethered to the umbilical cord of childhood, no matter where we wander in the world. The connection we share as Jews – in our love, passion, and anxious concern for Israel – also binds us in our personal journeys.

Africa still lives within me, alongside the fire I feel in this dreamtime country of Australia, even in this age of my people’s existential loneliness.

Rabbi Ralph Genende is AIJAC interfaith and community liaison and rabbi of Kesher, the Connecting Community.