Moishe House JHB - ILAN STRAUSS

Hello Everyone,

INTRO
Well Moishe House JHB is going from strength to strength. And what a mesibah. Our house is pumping, the food is flowing, people are chilling and the house arrangement is going really well. People are even bringing over items to help us out. Someone brought a couch and even some random Jews from France.

POLITICS 101
Johannesburg life is the window of the "New Africa." It is the tash mahal of Africa in fact and immigrants from around the world choose to come here. This is also part of the problem. South Africa at present has 40% unemployment. During the great depression by most estimates unemplyment was around 35% max. To compound this our good old friendly neighbour Robert Mugabe (or "Bob the builder - can he destroy it") has continued since 1999 to cleanse the country of political opposition and so in the proccess around 6 million Zimbabwians have been pushed into South Africa. The SA government has felt no need to pass any legislation over the last half a decade to deal with this influx of immigrants, creating a loose loose situation for immigrants (no jobs or labours las can apply to illegal immgirants who have not been granted asylum seeker status) and for SA (we loose out on bringing into the labour market many individuals with skills such as teachers and doctors). Instead we stead them off to towns for immigrants where they live in inhumane and barbaric conditions. Instead we let locals watch as foreigners sometimes receive RDP (post 1994 - Economics policy dedicated to Growth through redistribution of resources) houses ahead of locals thus creating a teapot, with the steam coming out and a hissing noise letting people know that the situation is about to explode.

This lead to mass violence against foreigners in South Africa. Our gardner who is from ZImbabwe, was beaten and so him and his wife and his brother and there wife and his child, were sleeping in our house for a period of time. Most peoples origonal housing (which was in informal shanty towns - in tins shacks) was burned down and still dangerous, thus making it hard for these locals to return safely to there houses even after the violence had subsidided.
Layer sof political manipulation and interest can and should be read into this situation however this blog must have a word limit on it.

So with that in mind, come to JHB and see Moishe here. Where we try and help others and not just ourselves. And we say that Moishe House money should not just be spend on junk but on helping those around us. A strong Jewish community can only radiate it message outwards, Moishe House can create that core.

Best,

Ilan