Number 29: My Batmitzvah was held on Shavuot, 30th May 1971. We as a group of young girls were taught about Judaism and given parts to recite relating to Shavuot – the festival of the first fruits and of the giving of the Torah. We then participated in a communal service at Marais Road Shul. After almost 50 years l am still friendly with 3 of the girls in the photograph who are today in Vancouver, (Marion – who together with  her husband Stephen introduced Ray and I), Toronto (my cousin Debbie who lives there with her entire extended family ) and Manchester (Les who left Israel and went to the UK and comes periodically still to Cape Town to visit  her parents).

We had a problem regarding my celebration: My Oupa and only surviving grandparent (Sascha Edelstein – paternal grandfather) was very ill with cancer and the prognosis was not good. So my parents made a wise decision: Instead of a specific time to hold the celebration we opened our house for the whole weekend after the Shavuot / Batmitzvah celebrations on the Friday.  As it turned out, this decision was a great success as guests could visit whenever they wanted to. It felt like an Indian wedding with continued  friends and food throughout the weekend.

It must have been the last party that my parents held at Livsof, our house on Victoria Road, Bantry Bay. My late maternal Grandmother Ida Sirkin (‘nee Schneider and later Paradisgarten) had purchased that house in the late 1940s, when she moved from Keetmanshoop, South West Africa after her husband, Selig Sirkin had passed away. My Oupa sadly died a few months later and the following year we moved to our home in Kloof Road, Clifton.

Written by Sheryl