Bulawayo Chronicle Uproar
The article below appeared in the
"Busybody" column of the Bulawayo Chronicle,
Saturday, Oct 11 2003. The Chronicle is Bulawayo's
major daily newspaper.
Following the article is the response
by the Zimbabwe Jewish Board of Deputies, which was
printed in The Chronicle on Oct 21 03 and a few other
letters, which were sent to the paper but not printed.
Fire
Bulawayo Chronicle - Oct 21 2003
What really was in the Jewish church
that caught fire last Saturday? Many people who witnessed
some church members trying to rush inside the church
"to retrieve my property" … were
left convinced it was not just a beautiful carpet
that went up in smoke.
There was no shalom last weekend as the synagogue was consumed by fire.
Yours Faithfully watched as church members cried. Others tried to throw themselves into the inferno while one, who came driving a white Isuzu truck, tried to drive right into the fire.
A normal church building would have nothing except the alter (sic), a few effigies of Jesus and perhaps the church library and furniture. But not this one, it seems.
One theory was that the church
members were keeping lots of foreign currency and,
for that matter, millions of dollars in local currency
to cushion themselves against the cash shortages.
Two were said to be keeping their
passports in that church while one or two were said
to be keeping Jewish mementoes that they wanted to
be repatriated to the archives in Jerusalem which
is guarded by the Israeli army day and night.
Several, and so Busybody understands,
had found a "safe" place to keep their hoarded
fuel. Sources say it was that fuel that might have
triggered the fire.
Whatever was being kept in that
church must have been "very big" judging
by the amount of emotion, dejection and desperation
on the faces of the victims that fateful Saturday.
It looks like only one church member did not lose something in the church, or maybe is very good a keeping his emotion at bay.
Eye witnesses say the well known
member of the church was composed with a half smile
while helping in "comforting" others.
Letters to the Editor, Chronicle Oct 21 2003
You got it all wrong, Sir
I trust you will allow me space in order
to reply to the item in Chronicle dated 11 October
2003, following the fire which destroyed the Bulawayo
Synagogue, this article being penned, I gather, by
"Yours Faithfully" and "Busybody"
who may, or may not be, the same person.
The writer/s of that article wonder
why the members of the Jewish community showed so
much emotion, dejection and desperation on their faces
(the writers words) whist watching their synagogue
burn, and rashly speculate that, in the writer's opinion,
there must have been hoarded fuel, passports, foreign
currency and other figments of his fertile imagination
stored inside the building. Can the writer produce
one single shred of evidence to substantiate those
wild speculations?
I will tell you quite simply why
members of the congregation showed such emotion -
it was because their house of worship - the oldest
synagogue in the country, was going up in flames -
a building with over a 100 years of tradition, a building
in which they and before them, their parents and grandparents,
and later their children, had been married in, where
confirmation had regularly occurred - in other words
- history, love, worship and tradition was burning
up before their very eyes.
That, "Yours Faithfully/Busybody"
was the simple reason that emotion and despair was
being reflected in their eyes and faces, and no doubt
this would have applied to members of any community
of whatever religious persuasion faced with the same
situation.
Instead of smugly watching other
people's expressions in time of crisis and then coming
out with far fetched theories, it would have been
far more beneficial and praiseworthy if "Yours
Faithfully" had offered assistance to help rescue
religious items from the blazing building, thus performing
something far more useful and practical than penning
a slanderous article to the Press.
An apology, I feel, is most definitely called for.
We extend to the hard-hit Bulawayo Jewish Community our heartfelt sympathy on their great and sad loss and wish them all the best in the years that lie ahead.
P. Sternbeg, (sic) President - Zimbabwe
Jewish Board of Deputies.
(not Printed, but sent to The Chronicle, Oct 14 2003)
Sir,
It is not surprising that "Busybody"
shields behind a nom-de-plume, for the magnitude of
the vitriol and venom that drips from his pen, if
not from his fangs, is so great that he undoubtedly
does not wish any to associate him with it. However,
in last Saturday's Chronicle he excelled even himself
in his outpourings of insidious insinuations and innuendoes,
for his baseless and defamatory attack upon Bulawayo's
Jewish Community was of unbounded malevolence. In
particular, he implies reasons for the distress and
the spontaneous actions of the distraught Jews watching
their beloved synagogue, encompassing memories and
history of more than a century, going up in flames,
which reasons are not only unfounded by evil and malicious.
The "emotion, dejection and
desperation on the faces of the victims that fateful
Saturday" was wholly attributable to the immensity
of the loss of a beloved place of worship, which had
been the very centre of religious observance and community
cohesion for over a 100 years. For almost all of Bulawayo's
Jewish Community, the synagogue had been pivotal in
their lives and of almost every significant development
and occasion in those lives. And the courageous and
valiant efforts by some to enter the inferno was not,
as Busybody viciously suggests, to recover money and
passports, for none were there. They were endeavours
to recover the sacred scrolls containing the worlds
of God, which words are that foundation, the substance,
and the pillars of Jewish belief, faith and love of
God. They were attempts to retrieve other almost irreplaceable
religious regalia, prayer shawls, and the like, all
of which were hallowed possessions of deep religious,
historical and sentimental importance and meaning.
And, contrary to his insinuation, no fuel was stored
in the synagogue, other than the intangible fuel of
spiritual love and respect for G-d, and for all god-fearing
people.
Busybody's outpourings are generally
of a nature undoubtedly motivated to ingratiate with
his political masters. It is therefore intriguing
to contrast them with the wonderful sympathy expressed
by the Minister of Special Affairs in the Office of
the President and Cabinet, Hon. J L Nkomo, who wrote
to the Jewish Community, "It is with a sense
of profound shock that I witnessed the destruction
of your sacred place of worship, the Bulawayo Synagogue,
on 4th October 2003.
This sad disaster becomes even more poignant as it occurred on the even of the Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement), a special day in the Jewish calendar.
The synagogue in Bulawayo has always
been a landmark that symbolises the richness and diversity
of the city's cultural and religious heritage. The
damage incurred in indeed regrettable as the synagogue
embodies the history of the Jewish Community and,
without doubt, the History of the Bulawayo and the
nation at large.
I would like to extend my deepest
sympathies to the Jewish Community of Bulawayo and
to assure them of our support during this difficult
time."
If Busybody has even the slightest shred of decency, he will retract his vicious attack and will apologies for compounding the distress, the hurt and the loss of Bulawayo Jewry.
Eric W Bloch
