Rebuilding the community – together
HOUGHTON – Professor Karen Milner shares her experiences as Gauteng chairperson of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies.
Having a passion for her Jewish heritage and a love for South Africa and community, it was only a matter of time before Professor Karen Milner found a place on the South African Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD).
She was contacted by the board to assist with an issue of anti-Semitism a few years ago, and said she had never looked back.
Today, she is Gauteng chairperson of the board.
Milner said one of the most important lessons she had learned through her involvement with the board was the importance of learning important lessons from the past, and then of the amazing ability that human beings have to rebuild after catastrophic events.
She said she was among those who stood alongside authorities from different community governing bodies, assessing damages after the recent looting and violent episodes in South Africa.
“We visited a mall area in Daveyton after the looting. There was ash and glass everywhere, and I was amazed to see commuters stop in their tracks and join us in the cleaning up.”
She said this lesson in restoration after tragedy was one she had learned from Holocaust survivor Dr Edith Eger, who gave a talk at a conference she attended as a board member.
“This was possibly my most memorable experience with the SAJBD,” she said. “Dr Eger spoke about how she had rebuilt her life after her horrific ordeal in a concentration camp. If anything, the Holocaust taught us the consequences of hatred, and we saw the evils of dehumanising another because of differences which exist between us.”
Milner said she believed that, as Eger did, each of us was able to rebuild what had been broken. “I saw the power of this decision to stand in unity and rebuild in my Daveyton experience, after the looting.”
Milner works at the University of the Witwatersrand and is also an expert in issues related to anti-Semitism.
She said the team of the board worked closely with leaders from the Holocaust and Genocide Centre in Forest Town to educate the community on the dangers of anti-Semitism, and other forms of extreme prejudice and discrimination towards any race or culture of human beings.
Details:
Website: https://www.sajbd.org/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SAJBD
Twitter: @sajbkd
