Abba's trip to Johannesburg

I thought one of the most interesting parts of the trip to Johannesburg was the stopover in Ethiopia. We took Ethiopian airlines and the new Dreamliner 787, the flight comfortable with a lot of bells and whistles even in coach.

We arrived in Ethiopia a little after sunrise

The airport was a lot smaller than I thought it would be. It seemed that no planes taxi-ed up to the terminal, but left you off on the tarmac and passengers took buses back and forth

Separate prayer booths for men and women right next to the bathrooms

These lounge chairs were all over the airport, with lots of people going around without shoes

Johannesburg itself was also very interesting. We were mostly in the Glenhazel area, where there were a lot more shuls than I expected and all in very close proximity. The dozen or so shuls that we visited were all Nusach Ashkenaz (it was hard to find a Nusach Sefard siddur in any shul). There was no trace of Conservative or Reform shuls anywhere in Glenhazel

In Johannesburg they drive on the left side of the road, and the cars have the steering wheel on the right hand side, just like England, so we opted for a driver on this trip and here is a picture of our driver Clement

Clement our Driver

The trip was in August, but that is winter time in South Africa. Many of the locals were wearing coats and winter hats, but coming from Israel, we found the weather to be quite pleasant

We visited Yeshiva College on Thursday, the Johannesburg Cheder on Friday, and the Ohr Somayach schools on Monday.

Feeding the birds the leftover Challah on Friday after school

That's some playground at the elementary school with cargo nets and Tarzan vines

It was also a pleasure to meet a close friend of Rav Romm, Rabbi Avraham Tanzer, who has been one of the driving forces of Yiddishkeit in Johannesburg for over 50 years. Rav Romm himself was a student at Yeshiva College under Rabbi Tanzer many years ago.

Before I left, people were warning me about the security in Johannesburg. You could see from the way every home, school and shul, were gated and guarded that security was a major concern to the residents. B"H while I was there, there were no incidents. Even though it seemed excessive, I followed the safety precautions given to me by the residents. They explained that although crime in Glenhazel was down over 95% since the main private security organizations G.A.P. has established their presence in Glenhazel, it was still a good idea, for example, not to walk alone on the public sidewalks, even during the day, but rather drive to and from all locations.

On the day we left, we ran into some old Great Neck residents, Lanny Oppenheim, Charlie Goldberg, Irv Golumbeck, Michael Frank and David Kalish, who happened to be davening at the same minyan at Yeshiva Maharsha that we were.