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NEWS
HaRav Matisyohu Salomon Speaks at Bais Yaakov Dinner in South
Africa
by D Saks, South African Correspondent
HaRav Matisyohu Salomon, mashgiach ruchani at Lakewood
Yeshiva in the US, was the keynote speaker at last Sunday's
dinner celebrating 30 years of Bais Yaakov in South Africa.
Amongst the many esteemed rabbonim present were Chief Rabbi
Dr. Warren Goldstein and Rosh Beth Din Rabbi Moshe Kurtstag.
This was the second major commemorative event organized by
Bais Yaakov this year. In March, teachers, pupils and mothers
from Bais Yaakov school devoted a day to lectures, shiurim
and poetry readings to mark the seventieth yahrtzeit of
Soroh Schenirer, founder of the Bais Yaakov movement.
Since its modest beginnings in the suburb of Yeoville,
Johannesburg, Bais Yaakov in South Africa has grown steadily,
despite the attrition the Jewish community suffered from
emigration in the 1980s and 1990s. Next year, enrollment is
expected to be at an all-time high. Over the past three
decades, Bais Yaakov has produced hundreds of committed young
graduates, most of whom have subsequently gone on to further
their studies at seminaries in Eretz Yisroel and the United
Kingdom. A high proportion of these today are teachers and
rebbetzins in their own right, both in South Africa and
abroad.
Rabbi Salomon expressed his wonder at the growth of Torah
Yiddishkeit throughout the world, something that
defied explanation unless one recognized in the great miracle
the Hand of Hashem. He paid moving tribute to the great Rabbi
Yosef Kahaneman, the famed Ponovezher Rav, who had visited
South Africa at the very dawn of the great Jewish revival
whose fruits were now so evident in the community. Despite
his personal anguish at having witnessed the Churban in Nazi-
held Europe and the extremely low levels of knowledge and
practice in the community at the time, the Ponovezher Rav had
not given up on South African Jewry but made an effort to
reach out to it. Rabbi Salomon believed that his neshomoh
was present that night, when the children and
grandchildren of those he had reached out to were receiving a
Torah education in a school comparable to any school like it
in the world.
Chief Rabbi Goldstein strongly stressed the absolute priority
that talmud Torah needed to be given to ensure that
the Jewish people would be successful. Torah was the
lifeblood of the Jewish people he said, and without it they
would not have koach for anything. People too often
failed to realize that when the Jewish people were confused
and lacking in direction, it was because they needed
regeneration in their commitment to Torah. Today, the only
segment of world Jewry community outside Israel that was
growing in both numbers and commitment was the Torah-
observant community.
"Let us reconnect ourselves, as the South African Jewish
community, to redoubling our efforts in Torah and to
rejoicing over it. May Hashem Yisborach pour out His
brochos on us," Rabbi Goldstein concluded.
Rabbi Salomon was introduced by Rabbi Chaim Shein, menahel
of Bais Yaakov, who took the opportunity to sketch the
history of the school. He noted that in addition to
fulfilling its core mission of producing good Jewish mothers
who could hand on the timeless tradition of Torah, Bais
Yaakov also had an outstanding record in secular studies,
putting it in the forefront of private schools throughout
South Africa.
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