The organist librarian

Thursday A most interesting visit to the South African Jewish museum. I looked in vain for Kadden and Sherman in the lists of passengers arriving and those at the Jewish shelter in Cape Town. It was good to see Helen Suzman celebrated among many others. A big surprise was the reconstruction of a shetl from Eastern Europe and a wonderful collection of Japanese netsuke. The modern art did not appeal. The great synagogue is most impressive. I bought a rabbi fridge magnet and a guide book. We were back at the house in good time for our 12 o clock pickup. The driver finally appeared at 12.30 after long costly phone calls to Ecco Tours and even calling a cab which I cancelled. The ferry to Robben Island actually went late and was a good trip with video to watch. The bus guide took us to a wonderful viewpoint looking across to Cape Town and we saw a huge gun never fired in WW2. I would have liked to see the Mosque. Then a former political prisoner took us around the prison and we saw Mandel...

Icon Church of the Nativity Bethlehem Helen Suzman was a relentless critic of South Africa's Nationalist government. For 13 years, as sole member of the Progressive Party in parliament, she was the only MP to speak out against racial segregation, at a time when only the white minority enjoyed the right to vote. Born in 1917 to Jewish immigrants from Lithuania, she married Dr Moses Suzman, who became one of South Africa's leading physicians. Five years after graduating from Witwatersrand University, she joined the staff as a lecturer in economic development. Helen Suzman's interest in disadvantaged urban Africans increased after she became a member of the South African Institute of Race Relations. She began to take an active role in politics after the 1948 election, when the mildly liberal United party was replaced by the National party, with its rigid policy of apartheid. Racial discrimination In 1952, standing for the United party, she was elected to the Hou...