{"id":32931,"date":"2019-07-12T03:56:58","date_gmt":"2019-07-12T10:56:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=32931"},"modified":"2019-07-10T13:33:04","modified_gmt":"2019-07-10T20:33:04","slug":"goldene-medina-comes-here","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2019\/07\/12\/goldene-medina-comes-here\/","title":{"rendered":"Goldene Medina comes here"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Goldene Medina exhibit is designed to have the feel of a scrapbook album, to have come from any Jewish South African\u2019s family memoir. (photo from South African Jewish Museum)<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The Goldene Medina exhibit arrives in Vancouver July 29 for two weeks. A celebration of 175 years of Jewish life in South Africa, the exhibit was displayed in South Africa, Australia and Israel prior to arriving here, where it is making its North America debut at Congregation Beth Israel. Local Jewish community member Stephen Rom, who is from South Africa, saw it for the first time in Sydney and was instrumental in bringing it to the city.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou need to remember your past to engage in the present,\u201d reflected Rom. \u201cI was struck by the level of professionalism of this exhibit, which was produced by the South African Jewish Museum in Cape Town. What\u2019s different about it is the way the stories have been written. Nobody is named or personally identified. This is the story of all Jews in South Africa, the community as a whole.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Goldene Medina was the Jews\u2019 name for Johannesburg when they arrived during the gold rush in 1886. \u201cThis exhibition has soul \u2013 it\u2019s not a dry exhibition of facts and figures,\u201d noted Wendy Kahn, national director of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies. \u201cIt\u2019s one that tells real stories of families that have been living in South Africa for 175 years.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a social history,\u201d agreed Gavin Morris, director of the museum, \u201cthe story of families and people and their experiences as South Africans and as Jews for 175 years, from our forefathers arriving to contemporary Jewish South Africa. Everything is taken from unpublished memoirs, articles and out-of-print books, to give the exhibit a sense of a scrapbook album, of any Jewish South African\u2019s family memoirs. Our goal was for people to find their own stories in similar stories.\u201d<\/p>\n

The stories are excerpts written in the first person and accompanied by photographs old and new. One excerpt, titled \u201cMy Mother\u2019s Table,\u201d reads, \u201cAt my mother\u2019s table, \u2018being full\u2019 was never a reason to stop eating. Some of the many reasons to have some more included: \u2018I cooked this especially for you because I know you like it,\u2019 \u2018you can\u2019t put so little leftovers back into the fridge,\u2019 \u2018it\u2019s freshly made,\u2019 and \u2018you don\u2019t like my cooking.\u2019 Refusing more was to snub the generosity and abundance that was on offer. Eating was proof that you were loved and that you knew how to love back.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another, titled \u201cCubs,\u201d reads: \u201cAfter my mom realized that I only knew Jewish kids, she sent me off to Cubs \u2013 not exactly your standard Jewish activity. I came home with my first friend and said, \u2018Mom, isn\u2019t it wonderful? Here\u2019s my first friend from Cubs and guess what \u2013 we\u2019ve got the same Hebrew teacher!\u2019 He was the only other Jewish kid there and we found each other. My mother gave up after that.\u201d<\/p>\n

A third is titled \u201cA Surprise Guest\u201d: \u201cWhat is the epitome of Jewish chutzpah? Inviting the president of the country to attend your bar mitzvah. And what is Jewish mazel? When the president actually accepts. The bar mitzvah boy delivered his handwritten note to a security guard outside [Nelson] Mandela\u2019s Houghton estate. He hoped to get a card from Mandela in return. Instead, his parents received an official call to say the president will attend. On the day, President Mandela arrived and sat at the main table, between the bar mitzvah boy and his father.\u201d<\/p>\n

The excerpts are thought-provoking, poignant, entertaining, informative and never boring. And the photographs are deeply intriguing, telling a story of their own \u2013 a timeless Jewish story that has relevance to all Jews whose ancestors have known immigration and resettlement.<\/p>\n

Accompanying the Goldene Medina in Vancouver will be the exhibit Shalom Uganda: A European Jewish Community on the Ugandan Equator 1949-1961, curated by Janice Masur.<\/p>\n

\"photo<\/a>
The Kampala Jewish community gathers for visit of Chief Justice Joseph Herbstein from South Africa, 1958. Gifted by Ilsa Dokelman, in 2005. (photo from Janice Masur)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cAs a child, I lived in this remote European Jewish community on the shores of Lake Victoria in Kampala, Uganda, under British Imperial rule, with no rabbi or Jewish infrastructure. Yet, this tiny community of 23 families and 20 children (15 of whom were born in Kampala) identified as Jews and formed a cohesive group that celebrated all the Jewish festivals together,\u201d explained Masur. \u201cNow that most references to Jews in Uganda pertain to … Abayudaya Jews, I want this history \u2013 my story about my Ashkenazi Jewish community in Kampala \u2013 to be remembered in the Jewish Diaspora.\u201d<\/p>\n

The photos and stories that comprise the Ugandan display are, said Masur, \u201ca testament to a determined but isolated group of Jews who were secular in a [remote] place but upheld their Jewish identity and traditions as best as was possible,\u201d given the lack of religious, educational or cultural Jewish institutions. (For more about the Ugandan Jewish community in which Masur grew up, click here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

The July 29 opening night of the Goldene Medina starts at 7:30 p.m. at Beth Israel, where the display will be up until Aug. 14.<\/p>\n

Lauren Kramer<\/strong>, an award-winning writer and editor, lives in Richmond. To read her work online, visit laurenkramer.net<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Goldene Medina exhibit is designed to have the feel of a scrapbook album, to have come from any Jewish South African\u2019s family memoir. (photo from South African Jewish Museum) The Goldene Medina exhibit arrives in Vancouver July 29 for two weeks. A celebration of 175 years of Jewish life in South Africa, the exhibit […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":32933,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[547,9140,4242,9141,2747,1576,9142,3690],"class_list":["post-32931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","tag-beth-israel","tag-goldene-medina","tag-history","tag-janice-masur","tag-photography","tag-south-africa","tag-stephen-rom","tag-uganda"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32931"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32931\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}