James Martin – Haaretz
South Africa’s Jewish population is gearing up for a once-in-a lifetime opportunity to play host to thousands of Jewish soccer fans from around the world, during this summer’s World Cup.
The five week soccer festival, which sees 32 teams compete for the famous golden trophy this June and July, is seen by Jewish community leaders as a chance to display its own colours within the spectrum of South Africa’s “Rainbow Nation”.
Rabbi Mendel Popack of Chabad in Cape Town, said he is receiving three times as many emails as usual concerning their services in that city: “We are normally popular in June to August with tourists, but the interest this year is unprecedented.
“We are already getting around 15 to twenty emails a week just concerning our services in Cape Town.”
Information on the Chabad Cape Town website includes where to get Friday night meals and how to obtain kosher flats. There are also provisions to drop off kosher meals at local hotels including in Sea Point where Chabad have set up links to over twenty hotels, which will host Jewish travelers from all over the world.
There will also be a Chabad presence at all nine host cities, including offering help to people in the event of a crisis, which is reassuring for those who venture outside of Johannesburg, which has 60,000 Jews and Cape Town (20,000).
“By calling a number we can send someone to offer help and reassurance,” said Rabbi Popack, who has lived in Cape Town for 34 years.
good work…
From what I remember there are also a bunch of Kosher restaurants and shuls there..not like it’s Jewish hick town…
ENGLAND ENGLAND ENGAALAND!!! CMON ENGLAND!!
go south africa!
lol on the posts guys..
You come.. Its there for you..
Do they have diet pre-packaged food there
go shmuli and aryeh you guys are doing an amazing job i heard, keep up the good work