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Southern Africa Jewish Genealogy SA-SIG

Myer Yodaiken
by Anne Lapedus Brest © 2009


 
Yodaiken
Family
Isaac Joe
Yodaiken
Maurice
Yodaiken
Myer
Yodaiken
Paulina
Yodaiken
Rosie
Yodaiken
Sam
Yodaiken

 
Editor: Dr Saul Issroff
Copyright © 2009 Saul Issroff, Mike Getz, SAfrica SIG
and Jewishgen Inc.
URL: http://www.jewishgen.org/SAfrica/family-histories/yodaiken/Myer_Yodaiken.htm
Date: 2009

 
 
MYER YODAIKEN

As told by his son, SAM YODAIKEN
In Australia - (Ex Rhodesia and S.Africa)

Myer YOKAIKEN (Meir being his Hebrew name)was born in RUSSIA in 1886, and arrived in Dublin, Ireland at the age of 3 months. He was one of 6 children, and all were born in Lithuania except for Maurice, the youngest, who was born in Ireland.
 
He was the son of Bassa LAPEDUS YODAIKEN and Avraham Menachem Mendel YODAIKEN.
 
Myer left school in Dublin, Ireland at the tender age of 11 years, and worked for his Uncle Simon LAPEDUS, in Dublin, making the well-known "LAPEDUS Handmade cigarettes." The LAPEDUS family were related to the YODAIKEN family, and the LAPEDUS Cigarettes were so well known in Dublin, that the boxes in which the cigarettes were sold from, are in the Dublin Jewish Museum.
 
Myer's father, Avraham Menachem Mendel YODAIKEN, in the meantime, left Ireland to go to (what was then known as) Palestine where he farmed in Chadera (city near Tel-Aviv, Israel) where he was a colonist, hoping to bring his family there.
 
However he died in 1932, in Chadera, Israel, before this came about.
 
Myer himself left Ireland in 1901 or 1902, when he was 15 years of age, arriving in Worcester in the Cape where, later, he and his 2 brothers (who also left Ireland) started a tyre retreading business--the first in Africa. In those days tyres were solid.
 
Some years later, Myer went up to Southern Rhodesia -- I do not know what he did in those days. He went with the "rag tag" which was the Rhodesian & South African army to invade South West Africa, now called Namibia, a German colony in 1914 when the 1st World War broke out.
 
Returning to S.Africa shortly after that, he met and married Rebecca SAMUELS on 31 July 1918.
 
They then went to live in Worcester were he worked for his brother-in-law, Louis SAKINOFSKY (Aunty Paulina's husband). My maternal grandfather (Hymie SAMUELS was Louis SAKINOFSKY's partner in the shop.) The partnership broke up because of Robert SAKINOFSKY if I remember correctly. Hymie SAMUELS then left for Muizenberg (Cape Town, S.Africa).
 
My brother Julius born Jan 1920, my sisters Jean - Feb 1922, Barbara - June 1926 all in Worcester. ( Rosaline (Ros) was born in Sept.1928 and I, Samuel (Sam) in Oct.1932 in Gwelo, Rhodesia). Ros now lives in Auckland, New Zealand, with her daughter and Son-in-law Miriam (Bass) and Gary BLACKMAN and grandchildren, Seth and Dale BLACKMAN.
 
The YODAIKENS left again and returned to S.Rhodesia possibly to Lalapanzie (town in Rhodesia) where Myer had a chrome mine, a transport business moving his chrome ore & African Mines chrome ore to the railhead for loading into railway trucks.
 
Myer also had a farm with +/- 25000 head of cattle.
 
Along came the great depression in 1927, he lost the chrome ore contracts, plus the transport business.
 
In about 1932 his cattle contracted foot & mouth disease (no cure even to-day) and the police came & shot all his live stock, and Myer had to arrange for their burial, costing him a great deal in time & money.
 
In 1933 we then all went to live in Odzi on the Eastern border of S.Rhodesia, where my dad had a Hotel. The hotel burnt down one night, some time later whilst it was being painted. I was carried out, as I was very, very small at that stage. There after all I can remember is that we lived in Fort Street, Bulawayo, what Myer did, I do not know, he also did a bit of prospecting, found a site full of Shelite - no known use for it, so could not be mined (To-day Shelite is used).
 
Around 1937 Myer had a butcher shop in Lobengula Street for the Africans who lived in the Township across the road. This butcher shop was not a great success so he closed it down. Thing were still very tough in Rhodesia in those days.
 
Myer never ever recovered from his losses at (Lalapanzi by the way that means place of rest).
 
Around 1938 Myer used to walk the streets of Bulawayo with a wheelbarrow to collect newspaper, which he and Mom (Becky) used to cut up to special sizes for the mines. We children also helped by packing the paper into old wooden soapboxes. We used to work late into the night cutting & packing this cut up paper. That is the way Myer supported his family.
 
In 1940 Myer went to work for a wholesale company called R. Chiltern, selling everything including the kitchen sink. Chiltern sent my dad to run for them a hotel, African store, & cattle farm at Lapani (a town). From Lapani he used to supply the roads dept meat for their workers on the Bulawayo-Wankie road. The 2nd World War was on, so there was no petrol to be had -- Petrol was rationed so we hardly ever saw anyone in the hotel. The 3 youngest children went to Boarding school in Bulawayo.
 
October 1943 Myer returned to Bulawayo where he purchased the "Charter Confectionery & Cafe" opposite the Palace Theatre. Myer with the help of Becky ran the shop until he passed away. In 1947 Myer went prospecting for Chrome again, finding high quality chrome, which he exported, to England. To get it to the railhead, he needed a new road; the Road Minister said it would cost 2000-00 Pounds. My dad sent him a telegram saying" Do not need a gold-plated road, but chrome-plated road. --It can be done for £400-00 pounds."
 
The government paid him some years later for the road, as it became portion of the main road between 2 towns. Myer had built the road. At the mine there was extensive Magnesite deposit, but there was so sale for it at the time.
 
After Myer had his heart Attack as it was called then, he managed to sell the Chrome Ore deposit to an English man, but the deal was a bad deal. So much down & the rest to be paid as a royaltyon sales/ton sold. The mine was never used after that. Myer then started a wholesale stationery company, was doing fairly well when he died on 23 December 1954. I sold off the stationery in stock & closed the business down. After Myer had his coronary, he had to give up smoking, which of course he did not, but was recommended to have a tot of Brandy in the evening, as it was good for the heart.
 
When we had the Charter Cafe, during the war, there where thousands of RAF men were being trained in Bulawayo & we were their home whilst they were being trained. Every Friday night we had some RAF for dinner Myer was also always last to leave shul, always looking to see that there was no one left that did not have a place to go for Shabbat or yomtov.
 
Aubrey YODAIKEN, my first cousin from Ireland, lived with us around 1951/2 for a year or so, sharing a room with me & he used to sing his mad Irish songs in the middle of the night. Aubrey was a potato chip "thief"-- one for you 2 for me & so on.
 
He worked for National Trading Co. (NTC) a rep on the road. There was a potato shortage, so Aubrey took all his samples out of the car, armed only with his order book went into the country, returning with the car being weighed down with potatoes that he bought from all the Africans in the bush.
 
Myer had an excellent sense of humour, good-natured, fair and was well liked & known in Rhodesia. He certainly enjoyed life. There was nothing he could not do, from fixing a car when stuck in the bush, to plumbing, electrical & building - anything & everything.
 
 
From Aubrey Yodaiken in Dublin, IRELAND. . - Nephew.
 
Myer (or Meir)Yodaiken moved to Bulawayo from Cape Town sometime around 1916.
 
He married Rebecca SAMUELS (Aunty Becky) & opened a small general store in a place called Lalapanzi near Gwelo and was locally known as the 'King of Lalapanzi'.
 
Then moved to Bulawayo opening the Charter Store and Cafe in Lobengula St in Bulawayo where I lived for about a year & where most of their family were born.
 
They were Julius, Jean, Barbara, Rosaline and Sam (named after my recently deceased father). In 1948 he owned and ran a magnesite mine up in the country but the value of the commodity was never much more than to cover the operating costs.
 
Meir, extremely kind, a tolerant father, very much enjoyed life.He was told that he would have to give up drinking and smoking because of his heart condition, but after a couple of weeks decided that for as "long as he was here he was going to enjoy life", which he did to the full until his death in 1954.
 
Julius became an engineer in Cape Town, Jean after divorcing Sammy SHER became an international business lady, and Barbara married Jack BERNSTEIN, moved to Israel and worked as a nurse. Sam studied electronics before marrying Brenda KRUGER, lived in Jo'burg (Johannesburg) and later moved to Australia. Ros became an international business woman, tremendously astute. Ros now lives in Auckland, New Zealand.
 
       
1. JULIUS YODAIKEN b. 21/1/1920 Cape Town, SA m to Dolores Levy b. 1923 Durban.
  Martin YODAIKEN b. 17/6/1947 Salisbury (Harare), Rhodesia m 1. Sharon Duncan b. 1948 C.Town
    1. Terry YODAIKEN b. 24/11/1974 Jhb.SA
    2. Karen YODAIKEN b. 13/111978, Jhb SA
  Martin m 2. Daksha Hargovan b. 1961 Durban.
    3. Anjana YODAIKEN b. 10/9/1998 C.Town
    4. Ashira YODAIKEN b. 10/9/1988 C.Town (twins)
2. JEAN YODAIKEN b 10/2/22 Worcester, SA married to Sammy Sher (div)
  1. Hylton (twin) SHER b. 1947 Bulawayo, Rhodesia m. Gillian Weinberg b. PE
    1. Daniel Jonathen SHER b 1974, London, UK m
      1. Ma'ayan SHER b 2004
      2. Alon SHER B 2006.
    2. Adam SHER b. 1977 Jhb. S.Africa
  2. Malcolm (twin) SHER b 1947 Bulawayo, Rhodesia m Lindsey Nahman
    1. Justin SHER b. 1978 San Francisco. USA
    2. Lindsay SHER b. 1981 San Francisco, USA
    3. Melvyn SHER b. 1955 Bulawayo, Rhodesia. m Charmaine JOHNSON
      1. Joseph Samuel SHER b Israel
      2. Joshua SHER b. Israel
3. BARBARA YODAIKEN b 15/6/26 Worcester, SA m Jack BERNSTEIN b 10/10/1917 in Viatka, Belarus.
  1. Leslie BERNSTEIN b. 11/6/1953, Bulawayo, Rhodesia m Irit TZINAMON b. Israel
    1. Shir BERNSTEIN b24/1/1989 Tel Aviv, Israel
    2. Or BERNSTEIN b.2/10/1992 Tel Aviv, Israel
    3. Shachar BERNSTEIN b.17/4/1996 Tel Aviv, Israel.
  2. Maya BERNSTEIN b. 18/3/1955 Bulawayo, Rhodesia. M Shmuel (Kovalio) GEVA b 28 Nov 1954, Kfar Sava, Israel.
    1. Gal GEVA b. 17/1/1981 Beer Sheva, Israel
    2. Ron GEVA b. 17/7/1982 Kfar Sava, Israel
    3. Eyal GEVA b. 25/71987 Kfar Sava, Israel
    4. Dan GEVA b. 30/9/1988 Petach Tikvah, Israel
  3. Reneé (Rina) BERNSTEIN b. 11/11/1958 Bulawayo Rhodesia d. 7/8/2004 Kfar Sava, Israel
    1. Bar BERNSTEIN b. 28/Nov/1993, Kfar Sava, Israel
4. ROSALINE (Ros) YODAIKEN b. Gwelo, Rhodesia m Issy BASS (div)
  1. Cecil BASS married to Glyniss GILLMAN
    1. Jonathan BASS b. Jhb SA (twin) m Candice BRAVER
      1. Noah Gabrielle BASS b. Sydney , Australia.
    2. Anthony BASS b. Jhb SA (twin) m Talia MILLER
      1. Leora BASS b. Sydney, Australia.
    3. Lisa BASS b. Jhb SA m Brett COHEN
      1. Arieh Leib COHEN b Sydney, Australia
  2. Miriam BASS married to Gary BLACKMAN
    1. Seth BLACKMAN b.
    2. Dale Mitzi BLACKMAN b.
5. SAM YODAIKEN b. Gwelo, Rhodesia, married to Brenda KRUGER.
  1. Myer Mark YODAIKEN b. Jhb. SA m Nikki (Nicole) SHROCK
    1. Orah-Leah YODAIKEN b. Jerusalem Israel
    2. Shayna YODAIKEN b. Leeds, UK
    3. Akiva YODAIKEN b. Manchester, UK
    4. Eliezer YODAIKEN b. Manchester, UK
  2. Robyn Rivka YODAIKEN b Jhb SA m Gary Weinberg
    1. Shane WEINBERG b Jhb, S.Africa
    2. Tali WEINBERG b. Jhb. S.Africa

 



 
LIFE IN RHODESIA as it once was

By MALCOLM SHER (ex Rhodesia), USA
Grandson of Myer YODAIKEN
 
I can only say that for me, it was a mixed bag, with both very happy and deeply sad remembrances.
 
Certainly as "middle class" Jewish kids growing up there, we were happy, spoiled by grandparents and family, dedicated servants, reasonably well educated in the strict, conservative British style, yet at the same time very insular and ignorant. After spending so many years in England and liberal Northern California, I can't imagine that I would have been able to live my whole life in Bulawayo, but I suppose that in those days we simply knew nothing different or better.
 
When Sammy and Jean married soon after the war, they had little or no money and lived in a little flat on Fort Street in Bulawayo, around the corner from Jean's parents, Meyer and Rebecca "Becky" Yodaiken who lived on Abercorn Street in a sort of house attached to their shop as living quarters. The shop was the Charter Confectionery, a store selling all types of locally made and imported confectionery goods such as sweets, ice cream, chocolates as well as teas, coffees and baked goods and sandwiches and light meals. The sweets were kept on shelves in huge glass containers with metal lids.You had to climb a ladder to get to them. The ice cream was in big buckets under the front counter. There was always a choice of flavours, though nothing like you can get today. My twin brother and I particularly loved going to our grandparents on Friday nights for dinner when we were allowed to leave their living quarters and go into the darkened shop to get big bowls of ice cream and create lots of noise running on the long wooden boards behind the counter.
 
Because the shop was right across the road from the Palace Theatre, one of only two cinemas, ("bioscopes") in Bulawayo, many of the patrons would run over there at interval, after the newsreels, trailers and comics to buy stuff before the main feature. Hylton and I loved being there when the folks from the cinema arrived and were always proud to have our friends come to our grandparents' shop. Our grandfather, Meyer,often sat in the cafe part of the shop, usually in the front window with his drink eating snoek on cream crackers or rough brown bread.
 
My Dad's parents, Meyer and Anna, lived in a different part of town, not in the commercial center of town among other shops and businesses, but in a modest house in a suburb known as North End. They only spoke some English, and always conversed in Yiddish at home and with my Dad and his siblings. As grandparents, they were more "distant" than Meyer and Becky, with not the same tolerance for small, noisy, sticky little boys. However, I do remember them with affection. Meyer owned Atlas Motors, one of the used car businesses in Bulawayo, but fortunately had his sons "in the business" to help run the place and keep it "in the family". In later years, after their deaths, my father expanded that business, became the Southern Rhodesian representative dealer for the American company Chrysler and the French company, Simca. However, he always had a fondness for Jaguar and although he never acquired that dealership, did own most of the models of Jaguar and was noted for importing the first E-Type Jaguar into Southern Africa. What a gorgeous car. I saw one in San Francisco this past week and was quite envious!!
 
My parents eventually were able to build a bungalow in Kumalo, a suburb several miles from central Bulawayo and where most of the Jews lived. Because my Dad was such an avid tennis player, and was appointed a Davis Cup selector, we had a clay tennis court, which required rolling with a heavy roller almost every day, especially when it had rained. We were fortunate to have many famous tennis players of the era visit and play on the court, including Lew Hoad, Pancho Segura, to name just two I remember. My parents often hosted elaborate tennis parties where, after the playing, they and their friends would sit on the veranda where servants would serve "sundowners" while the kids would ride bikes around the garden or take off for "The Quarry", an old, abandoned granite quarry, a couple of miles from our house, where we would build forts and be terrified by snakes and spiders!
 
Most of the children knew each other, as did so many of the parents, who, or whose families had either emigrated from Europe or who were first generation born in Rhodesia. Thus, the Jewish community was closely knit and people either socialized at each other's homes or at Weitzman Country Club, until its membership declined and it closed or at Parkview Sports Club which had big time tennis and bowls facilities.
 
Jewish kids invariably started their education at the Louis Landau Hebrew School, across the street from the beautiful old Shul where, of course BARMITZVAHS were celebrated. Later, some went to Carmel, the new Jewish day school. Hylton and I celebrated our Barmitzvah at the Bulawayo Shul in 1960, the first twin Barmitzvah there in forty years. An "open invitation" to the community resulted in several hundred people at the Shul, the Brocha and the dinner and dance. It was quite the event!
 
The congregation labelled itself "Orthodox" and was observant, butnot really very frum and many people did not keep kosher although they would walk home from Shul on Kol Nidre to Kumalo and then back to Shul for Yom Kippur services the next morning, driving home in their cars at the end of the day. Myra Watkins, of blessed memory did the catering for almost all Jewish events in Bulawayo. Her kichel and herring were "a michel in the bichel" as we all used to say. All the boys went to Chader as was expected and, of course we gave the teachers, all older immigrants from Eastern Europe with thick accents, a particularly hard time. I recall with some mirth but now shame,how we once put sand in the petrol tank of Mr. Ninklebaum's car and one student, Michael Shmuckler would bring frogs into Mr. Slepek's class and taunt him. It was all really disgraceful behaviour....at least on reflection!
 
In the very early 1960s, the first "Reform" Shul was started by Rabbi Cassel from London and that created quite a stir as the historically conservative community began to splinter. Things were really never the same, I'm told, although my Mom I and my brothers all left Bulawayo in 1963 to live in London and we did not really experience the deterioration of the Jewish community which is now all but decimated with only a couple of hundred congregants, if that many.
 
In high school, boys and girls were segregated, with most boys going to Milton High and most girls to Evelyn High. Boys had to do cadet military-type training every Friday afternoon, dressed in typical Colonial-style uniforms of the era with boots which were required to be spat on and polished and with the rest of the uniform to be "just so" on pain of corporal punishment. Come to think of it, that was the same for school uniforms. I now cringe at the thought of schoolboys using a cane on other schoolboys, but such was the discipline of the time!
 
Outside of school, the social interaction between girls and boys was usually limited to "get-togethers" at friends' homes, the cinema, attending BARMITZVAHS, sports events and Saturday night parties, including birthday celebrations, sometimes going to watch stock car racing or "speedway" motorcycles, trips to the "Dairy Den" or the "pie cart", a group of several trailers selling food near the park on Sunday night. We would always welcome outings to the Central Africa Trade Faire which was held in Bulawayo. Most of our socializing was reserved for weekends and might include. My Mom, Hylton and I were active in local repertory theater and each of us appeared in plays, many produced and directed by my aunt, Barbara Sher, who was a local T.V. personality and impresario. Many of us were members of Habonim or Betar and would frequently go on Machaneh to Weitzman Country Club, located many miles from Bulawayo or to camp at East London or Port Elizabeth where life-long friendships were forged.
 
In our earlier years, my parents would take the whole family to Muizenberg, ("Jewsenberg") for a month or more in December, where we would either stay at the old Marine Hotel, (which is no longer there but of which I saw photos at a museum in Muizenberg some five years ago) or my parents would rent a flat in town. Usually our cook and a nanny would accompany us for the duration. So many of Bulawayo's Jews would take the same vacation and spend their holiday doing the same thing so that it was almost "life as usual" except that the parents would bake in the sun on Muizenberg Beach while the kids swam in the Vlei or played in the sand. Those were Halcyon days when we experienced and explored life in the greater world outside of insular Bulawayo, which, in retrospect, was a place where, apart from the divorce of parents, the odd "scandal" at the Shul or some businessman's downturn in fortune, nothing of any great moment occurred in our somewhat closed Jewish community.
 
However, one unusual timeI do recall well was the refugee crisis of 1959/1960 when trainloads of white people fled the Belgian Congo and many took refuge in Rhodesia where Jewish families, including ours took them into our homes for months at a time. We would watch the news on T.V., which in those days was new in Rhodesia, only in black and white and with very limited hours per day. What a mess so much of Africa has become since then! It is a tragedy to see what has happened in Zimbabwe and I am often in tears when I think that all four of my grandparents are buried in Bulawayo's Jewish cemetery and that the rest of a once flourishing and wealthy community has fled to America, England, Australasia and elsewhere. My cousin, Brian Sher, is in charge of Bulawayo's Chevra Kadisha and I can only hope and pray that my grandparents' and other graves of people I knew are well tended. I do, of course have photos of the all four of my grandparents' gravestones.
 
I last returned to Bulawayo about seventeen years ago, taking my family to visit our homes, schools, the Shul, before it was destroyed in a fire, Motopos and other spots such as the Victoria Falls and Wankie, (now Hwange) Game Reserve. It was a wonderful trip and I'm glad we made it before there is nothing left to see. Even then, I was heartbroken to see that so much of the infrastructure, from municipal and public buildings, including the Municipal Park and Gardens in Bulawayo were in such neglect and disrepair and so many of the homes in the suburbs had high walls and electric gates surrounding them. When in New York about five years ago, I was delighted to fine a map of Bulawayo from the 1950s and 1960s in the New York Public Library and even found the streets where many of our family and friends lived.
 
I am such a nostalgia buff and that meant a lot!
 
 


 
My Memories of Rhodesia

By MARTIN YODAIKEN (ex Rhodesia) now living in Cape Town
Grandson of Myer YODAIKEN
 
Our family came from Salisbury to Que Que. Que Que is an onomatopoeic name, which translates into the noise that the frogs make in the river. Que Que or Kwe Kwe as it is known today stands in the Midlands of Zimbabwe about half way between Bulawayo and Harare. After my parents married in Cape Town they went to Salisbury where after several jobs Dad, Julius, got a position as Town Electrical Engineer in Que Que. We moved there when I was about 5 years of age.
 
There were very few Jews in Que Que and as far as I can recall only three other boys of my age Albert and David Hatchual and Morris Sloman. I had very little contact with them but always recall enjoying Albert's company. I am not sure why we did not see them more often. Anyway we had a small Shul and we would attend on High Holy Days mainly when people would come from the outlaying districts to attend. Between there were very few regulars. In fact I recall that often on a Friday night there were not enough attendees to make a minion and we would at times receive a telephone call from the Shul asking my dad and after I had bar mitzvahed to come to shul to make up a minion. I swam competitively and remember being collected from the swimming pool after training on a Friday evening, still in my tracksuit and wet costume and being taken by my father to Shul. Such was life in Que Que.
 
Eventually and this was about a year before my *Barmy (Barmitzvah), Reverend Ermine (I think that is how you spell his name) came to Que Que and Judaism took on a whole new dimension. He was very conscientious and did his best to create a congregation. From my point of view his daughter Yeta which made my attendance at Shul more regular captured my interest. That is until I realised that she had no interest in me in that way. But we were good friends.
 
The Sloman's were a prominent Jewish family in Que Que as were the Ralfs and the Samson's who featured prominently in my memory. We would gather at one of their houses on Shabbat or Rosh Hashanah and feast. These were the highlights for me. What I learned was that Judaism was more of an atmosphere, an ambience, than a religion.
 
I recall that Mrs. Mulder Sloman's mother would cook exceedingly good parogen. My father loved them so much that she would send over a batch whenever she made. One dinner at their home my father in extolling the virtues of her parogen (sp) said to her "you must give the recipe to Dolores (my Mother). She said "Its very simple you take your piece of lung ..." and that was the last perogen that my father ever ate.
 
The Sloman's owned a general dealer store called Sloman's and as far as I can remember they were the major traders in Que Que, which, as you have gathered, was exceedingly small. I am not sure what the other people did. There was of course Dr. Hirsch who was the local doctor. He thought of himself, as a bit of a psychologist and I recall him hypnotising me for some complaint concocted by my mother which he and she decided was neurotic.
 
The congregation was very small and one year between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur the man who blew the *Shofar died. As a result there was no one to do the honours on *Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement).
 
I however, played the trumpet and so was the obvious choice. At 16 years of age I was called onto the *Bima to play the Shofar to end Yom Kippur. I had never played a Shofar before and hard as I tried I could not make any sound. But my adolescent embarrassment grew and grew as one cue followed the next and the congregation sat in expectant silence.
 
Eventually my embarrassment exploded and taking the Shofar in both hands I looked at it and exclaimed the word "CHRIST". I put the Shofar to my lips and blew a piercing blast. Rev Ermine was beside himself. He admonished me severely for calling out "Christ" the way I did, but seemingly it was only after uttering "His" name was I able to perform.
 
My punishment: he taught me how to blow the shofar.
 
Going to Bulawayo was always a great excitement. Every Friday and Saturday we would go to Shul and I always considered them lucky that they were real Jews. Interestingly there was another namesake (and related to our family, but at that time, it was unbeknown to me) in Que Que the "Jedeiken's". They used to refer to them as the "Jewdaikens" and us as the YODAIKENS. Not only did this reflect the nature of the spelling of our names but also the secularity with which the families approached their faith.
 
Dad was very successful in Que Que and to his credit, in the late 50's introduced a system of load control into the midlands area. It is of note that ESKOM is only thinking of introducing this in 2008.
 
Of my friends I believe that Morris Sloman became an airline Pilot and Albert Hatchuel I met in Johannesburg and he was a maxillo-facial specialist. I don't know what happened to David. I have met several other Jewish "Que Que-ites"who were much younger then me at the time. Most have become professionals.
 
I mention this only because the education and variety in Que Que was so limited and so many of us finished school there.
 
Martin Yodaiken
M.A. (Clin. Psychology)(Wits)
P.G. Dip in Law (Arbit. & Concil.)(UCT)
PCC (GSB-UCT)
CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST
12 Campground Road, Rosebank,
Cape Town,
South Africa, 7700
Tel: +2721685-6993
Fax: +2721685-6214
Cel: +2784685-6993

 
 

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