His unmistakable Scottish accent reverberated in prayer at the Union Buildings during the emotional inauguration of Nelson Mandela as president of a democratic South Africa; it was heard at the funeral of Joe Slovo; it rang out at numerous inter-denominational forums, from public platforms and from pulpits in synagogues all over South Africa.
On Tuesday night, at his home in Hermanus, to which he retired only last year, the voice was silenced. Chief Rabbi Emeritus Cyril Harris died of cancer of the oesophagus, just six days short of his 69th birthday.
Glasgow-born Harris, for 17 years South Africa’s chief rabbi, was, in many ways, a paradox. On the one hand he was an outspoken proponent of human rights who gave the Jewish community lessons in humanity that had been lacking for decades, since the departure of another Scottish-born chief rabbi, Louis Rabinowitz. On the other, he could be a rigid upholder of his faith, intolerant of diversity, contemptuous of what he termed ”supermarket Judaism” (his description of Reform or Conservative variants of the religion). And yet, despite his reservations, he would go to the funeral of a stalwart member of the Reform community who had stood for the human values he espoused, courting the ire of the increasingly dominant ultra-right religious in the community.
A man known to respond adversely when he felt his authority was being challenged, who at times reacted angrily to perceived criticism, he could nonetheless say before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission: ”The Jewish community benefited from apartheid and an apology must be given … We ask for forgiveness.”
The very fact that he appeared before the commission made Harris an unusual leader of a community known for its political conservatism and which shunned during the apartheid era Jews who chose to oppose the system. He had, says one of those opponents, ”a commitment to the ideas of the new South Africa. He was a beacon in the lives of all liberal Jews, he provided a necessary lead and opened the way for Jews who would otherwise have held back.”
Harris, who was described by Mandela as ”one of the foremost among our new patriots”, came to South Africa from a comfortable position at one of London’s largest synagogues, St John’s Wood, and soon became passionate about the country and deeply involved in the issues with which it struggled in the years immediately before and after the move to democracy. ”In years to come,” said Mandela, celebrating the 10th anniversary of Harris’s appointment, ”when the history of our transition is written, his name will be among those South African leaders who lent a hand in the efforts to establish democracy; to heal divisions; and to start the process of building a better life.”
He did so in numerous ways: by establishing the Jewish community’s Tikkun (repairing the world through social action) initiative to help redress the legacy of discrimination; by building bridges between faiths with his involvement in organi-sations such as the National Religious Leaders’ Forum, the Inter-faith Peace Summit, the Parliament of the World’s Religions, his role on the religious broadcasting panel of the SABC; and as a leading member of the World Conference for Religion and Peace and by speaking out on many issues on many occasions.
A man who enjoyed to the full (with the proviso that the food served to him was kosher) the social life of his adopted home, he was to be seen, with his lawyer wife, Ann, at symphony concerts, at graduation ceremonies, at public celebrations and even ”Addressing the Haggis” when Johannesburg’s Scottish community gathered annually to celebrate Burns Nicht.
He was, says one who knew him well and engaged in many a head-on moral and intellectual tussle with him, ”a fascinating man, a complex man, a mercurial man — he would fly into a rage instantly and calm down just as quickly”.
”Thank God,” says the same commentator, ”there was Cyril Harris. He was a great leader and a great chief rabbi. He was the right man at the right time.”
Harris is survived by his wife, sons Rabbi Michael and Jonathan Harris, five grandchildren, his brother Victor and two sisters, Leila and Marilyn. — Pat Schwartz
Cyril Harris, born September 19 1937, died September 13 2005