Progressive Judaism has lost one of its earliest and most active members in Yiska Schmaman, who died aged 96 By Rabbi Charles Wallach Temple Emanuel

SAUPJ HISTORY Yiska Schmaman: Last of the Idelsohns Yiska Schmaman, who died last week aged 96 was the daughter of Prof Avraham Zvi Idelsohn, onetime Professor of Liturgy and Litany at the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati and the niece of Jerry Idelson, longtime Director of Music for the Progressive movement. Yiska herself was born in Jerusalem and, rather like the family of Eliezer Ben Yehuda, the founder of modern spoken Hebrew, spoke the language from a young child. That she did so magnificently was borne out by the many long conversations I was privileged to have with her these past several years. Yiska and her mother emigrated to South Africa together with her siblings and other family members in the 1920s. Indeed, it was while visiting the family in Johannesburg that Avraham Idelsohn first suggested the idea of establishing a Progressive movement in South Africa. He himself did not remain in South Africa. Indeed, some ten years later he was dead, having been nursed through illness by Yiska. But by then Temple Israel in Johannesburg had become a reality, and soon the movement spread elsewhere. Yiska and her mother first moved to Cape Town and then to Durban where she was to become a byword as a teacher of Hebrew. She was a member of the choir of Temple David and involved in many other aspects of Jewish life. In the latter part of her days she returned to Johannesburg where her principal Jewish involvement was with the United Sisterhood of which she was to become an honorary life member. Her husband Herman pre-deceased her by many years. She is survived by her son Joseph and a number of nieces and nephews.