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The final word from Harold Cohen From the Cape Jewish Chronicle,
November 2005
From the Jewish Report, November
2005
Invitation You are invited to attend the reunion of the
former residents of Maitland Venue: Glen Country Club Clifton Date: 15th December
2005 Time: 5.30 p.m. Cost: R100.00 per head R.S.V.P.: Harold Cohen Working
committee Elka
Arelisky Harold
Cohen Isaac
Karpas Charles
Odes Philip
Stodel Solly
Zieff Catering Naomi Schroder Video David
Stodel Photographs Philip
Stodel Hymie
Waldman Display material
provided by: Elka Arelisky Aron Back Wilma Bass Janice Bloch Harold Cohen Dave Joffe Isaac Karpas Liebe Lagnado Mike Lang Jeanette Lewis Ruth Mibashan Hymie Odes Chalky Samson Sam Silbert Joan Smith Philip Stodel Shirley Waldman Solly Zieff From:
Maitland Re-union [mailto:maitlandthen@yahoo.com] Sent: Thu,
December 15, 2005 10:03 To: Cc: Subject: Shhh
!!!.....(on the eve of the re-union) Being
sent 10h00 South African time. At
17h30 this afternoon, close on 90 ex-Maitlanders will gather at the Glen
Country Club in Clifton, Cape Town, for the first known re-union of
ex-Maitland residents. This
e-mail is being sent only to ex-Maitlanders living abroad, to invite you to a
sneak preview of the event. If you
can't be there in person, at least you'll have an opportunity of getting a
taste of the event, long distance, by visiting the Maitland Re-union website. Go to
http://www.geocities.com/MaitlandThen ENJOY!! A SUCCESSFUL RE-UNION!! (written by
Philip Stodel) Guests started arriving from about 5.15 p.m., and after visiting the registration table and collecting their name badges, they mingled, re-introduced themselves to old (and new) acquaintances, and just generally "caught up" with the many years that have passed since their Maitland days. The focal point was the visual display, which comprised a collection of photographs dating back to 1920, as well as a secondary display board housing photos that guests brought along with them. On display was the trowel used in the building of the Shul, and copies of published articles about the establishment of the congregation. A novel addition to the display board was an aerial picture from Google Earth, which clearly showed the streets, schools, houses, Shul and cheder, which ex-Maitlanders remember so well. Isaac Karpas identified as many of the houses as he could, and wrote the family names on each of them, to aid identification. The roving video camera moved between the groups and captured the atmosphere. Waiters circulated with trays of cocktails.
At about 6.30 p.m., guests were ushered to their tables, for the formal part of the evening. Harold Cohen welcomed everyone, and briefly set the scene. He called on Philip Stodel to read the e-mail messages that had been received from ex-Maitlanders living abroad. The surprise of the evening must have been when Philip reached Jeff Margolis's message - instead of reading it, he called on Jeff to come up and read it himself - Jeff had just arrived unexpectedly from London, specifically for the event. And although there wasn't even a name badge prepared for him, ex-Maitlanders were delighted to see him. The idea of the re-union was largely his idea, and he made reference to this in his impromptu speech, in which he recalled how he had first mentioned this idea to Harold.
Philip continued reading the rest of the messages. At one stage, the microphone was passed to Janice Bloch, who shared some recollections with the group. Philip finished his address by playing a 5 minute sound clip - an extract from his Barmitzvah in 1969, in which Rev Efron proposed a toast to the Kramers (Philip's grandparents) in Yiddish. The guests listened rapturosly. On the sound clip, the master of ceremonies who introduced Rev Efron was Sam Levenberg, who unfortunately was not able to be at the re-union.
The microphone was then handed over to Isaac Karpas, who MC'd the rest of the proceedings. He called on Louis Immerman, who was billed as being the "earliest born Maitlander" at the re-union. Louis had some interesting stories to tell. He was followed by Harry Buchinsky, and then Julius Buchinsky, both of whom entertained the guests in their inimitable ways. They were followed by Dave Joffe, who told some Maitland tales. Elka Arelisky had prepared some recollections of "the younger generation", and this was read out to the guests. Isaac closed the formal part of the evening by relating brief details of the part that his grandfather, Rev Kaufman, played in the establishment of the Maitland-Brooklyn Congregation. Isaac read extracts from a translation of the scroll that Rev Kaufman had written, in which he had penned the history from as far back as he could remember (1903). Isaac recalled his grandfather telling him that he himself had plucked from a turkey the feather that he had used to write the scroll.
The formalities over, an abundance of snacks awaited the guests, and the rest of the evening was spent as it started - eating, chatting, remembering......and then, saying cheerio. MESSAGE FROM HAROLD COHEN (taken from his
e-mail sent to ex-Maitlanders) To my fellow Maitlanders, I just want to tell you about the magic of last night's function. To all of you who were not able to attend for whatever reason, you missed something special. From the moment that people started arriving at the hall, the function just took off. It was as if we had never parted. There were old Maitlanders, middle aged Maitlanders, and young Maitlanders, and the atmosphere was electric. The warmth and camaraderie was magical. We know that a lot of you were with us in spirit. And then Jeff Margolis walked into the room, all the way from London. We also had worldwide contributions from Chalkie Sampson in Irvine, Ruth Horner in London, Esta Back in Israel, which were displayed on a huge board with other visual material as you entered the hall. We then sat in the hall and heard messages from people around the world, and then we had a few Maitlanders speaking about their memories of Maitland. In organizing this affair, I found two treasures in the younger generation in Philip Stodel and his brother Dave. The cleverest thing I did was to appoint Philip as our media liaison officer, which resulted in a wonderful collage of pictures and memories being collected for the meeting. He has now gone a stage further and organized a web site at http://www.geocities.com/MaitlandThen which is available to all of you. So use it for submitting pictures and articles which you may want recorded to complete the history of Maitland Jewry. An example would be the articles that Charles Odes never had an opportunity to present, which we will paste on the website for you to read. If there are any pictures etc. that you want to paste and don’t know how, then contact Philip and he will organize it for you. He is putting everything that was visually available on the site. In addition, his brother Dave took a video of the evening, which hopefully will come out well enough for us to make a video or DVD, which we will then circulate. More about this later. Best regards, Harold Cohen MESSAGE FROM HARRY BUCHINSKY (taken from his e-mail sent to friends overseas) I am sure you are all interested to hear how the Maitland re-union went. In short, it was a great success with everybody just so happy to be with each other, some you hadn't seen in years, others you had never seen ever before, but somehow the jel that you had grown up in Maitland, just gave you the same feeling as if you were all family. The organiser and facilitator, Harold Cohen and his right hand man, Philip Stodel, (Philip is probably not even known to you, in that you had long left Maitland by the time he was a young adult) put together a wonderfully exciting evening at a very suitable venue at the Glen Country Club, and on entering the Club there was the excited conversation of old friends, and in the hall, there was a whole array of old certificates from Cheder and Shul, photos, a large group of which were sent by you, Chalky, of us Maitland boys taken mainly at Muizenberg and Young Israel Camp. Morris and I even did the Tent 42 song (privately). Chaim, there were quite a few photos of your family, your dad, mom, Mike (together with Polly Carlin, of glue fame, not the glue they sniff today, but the real sticky stuff). We received e-mails from all over the world, people informing us how they have moved on since Maitland. After Isaac Karpas, Rev Kaufman's grandson, acting as MC, opened the evening, impromptu speeches were made by various people, including myself, and both of you were mentioned. You, Chaim, in your days as a Side Drummer in the Cadets, when the Brigadier came on his annual inspection, Swanee, the Band master told you when we pass the Brigadier, don't actually play just pretend you were playing! And you, Chalky, when we had the Victory Gang in that wooden box in our ground, and could not admit you to our gang because of space, so you formed your own gang with gentiles, I remember one was Quinton Stemmet, our code name for you was New York, (get it? the new YOK). Other speakers were Leibe Immerman, my brother Julius, and Dave Joffe. Of all the memorabilia, the one with the most impact was a recording of Rev Efron speaking in Yiddish at Philip Stodel's Barmitzvah, to Philip's grandparents, the Kramers, I think from Camden Rd. Old timers present included Mrs Geffen, Mrs Bub, not so old Julian Ozinsky (Oz), Gladys Fish (Saacks), I think somehow related to you, Chalky. The final comment from many, that we should repeat the event later, but we all know that this is just a pipe dream. THE FINAL WORD FROM HAROLD COHEN (taken from his e-mail sent to ex-Maitlanders) I think the 2006 reunion has come to a conclusion. We have distributed the video tapes and DVDs of the event and the last task is to distribute the surplus funds, which I have done in our name. This came to about R1000, which I have donated to the Oranjia Jewish Children Home, an organization with which I am closely associated. I would like to give Philip Stodel and his brother Dave a special vote of thanks for the extra efforts they put into making this event the success that it was. It is possible that we may have another reunion in five years time. Time will tell. Best regards, Harold Cohen FINANCIALS as at 4 July 2006
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