Browsing by Author "Ben-Meir, Atalia."

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Does Jewish education make a difference? : Jewish identity of pupils at Carmel College, Durban.
(1992) Ben-Meir, Atalia.; Moller, Valerie.
The trend towards assimilation which has characterised the Jewish People has highlighted the importance of Jewish education as one of the primary means of dealing with this process which foreshadows the disappearance of the Jewish People as a distinct national and religious entity. The overt purpose of the syllabus of the Jewish Day School movement in South Africa is to inculcate a Jewish identity based on a traditional religious orientation and Jewish national pride expressed by a commitment to the Jewish People and to the State of Israel. The purpose of this study was to examine the efficacy of the school in fulfilling these aims. A questionnaire study was conducted at the Jewish Day School in Durban, Carmel College in May 1990. Eight dimensions of Jewish Identity were defined and multiple regression analysis was used to test whether they were statistically associated with each other. Two additional tools were used: an open-ended question designed to elicit from whom the pupils demarcate themselves when they define themselves as Jews and a delineation of the attributes of a “good Jew”. In 1991 an additional questionnaire on the family background and its relation to the specifically Jewish dimensions was administered to a sample of Carmel pupils. The findings revealed that the pupils manifested a strong Jewish identity expressed in the importance they attributed to Mitzvot, and Jewish credo in the desire that their children be Jews, in the instinct to associate with other Jews. Moreover, the results suggest that their sense of commitment to the welfare of other Jews does not preclude a concern for non-Jewish society as well. The pupils stressed the importance of being proud to be Jewish and being knowledgeable about Judaism. These findings were true of all categories examined: gender, denomination, standard at school and years of study at Carmel College. The study indicated that Jewish education had a positive impact on identity, but the magnitude of the impact was mediated by family background. No marked differences were found in the intensity of Jewish identity between Caramel pupils and the Jewish pupils attending government schools, although the latter tended to manifest a lesser commitment to the Jewish People and the State of Israel.
The South African Jewish Board of Deputies and politics, 1930-1978.
(1995) Ben-Meir, Atalia.
The pivot around which the controversy over the Board's political policy revolved was the question whether a collective Jewish attitude towards the government's racial policies should be formulated, or whether this was the province of individual Jewish protest. Stemming from this was the question of the extent of communal responsibility towards the individual who had fallen afoul with the law in expressing his protest. The complexity of formulating policy was exacerbated by the trauma of the 1930's and 1940's where the National Party and its leadership espoused a radical anti-Semitic ideology and a pro-Nazism policy. Added to this was the very real sympathy felt for the aspirations of survival of the Afrikaner People, conflated by a revulsion and antipathy towards the measures the nationalist Government took to attain this end. The solution hit upon by the Board was a policy of 'neutrality' in the political area. This dissertation is an attempt to highlight the problems with which the Board grappled and its central concerns in formulating policy vis-a-vis the political issues that were at the centre of the political life of South Africa. The study follows the evolvement of the policy of collective non-involvement from the 1950s and the gradual evolution it underwent in the 1970s and 1980s towards a commitment and a responsibility to openly and publicly speak out on the moral aspects of Apartheid. In view of the above, the thesis begins in 1930 with the promulgation of the Quota Act, which initiated the new antisemitic policies of the National Party, until 1978. The epilogue ends 1985 when the Board of Deputies abandoned its policy of neutrality towards the political arena, when the 33rd National congress of the Jewish Board of Deputies, passed a resolution condemning the Policy of Apartheid, thus adopting a collective stance towards the government's racial policies. Although this stance was in line with the views prevalent in the white community, it signalled a giant step in the Board of Deputies' drive to abandon its policy of accommodation towards the NP government and Nationalist forces.