Anders Nyberg's blog

--> Celebrated Jewish Passover with the Jaffee – Moss family in Cape Town. First time ever with the kippah on – I most honestly confess that I thought no one would ever see me in this one. But in this very generous and progressive family I bore it with head high. The traditional meal was long and interspersed with readings from the Torah that gave the different dishes their symbolic meanings. Host Georgina Jaffee had put all the readings in new contexts which landed them in today’s South African and global reality without deviating from the overriding theme of “Liberation” – which is what Pesach is all about. After every reading discussions followed in a high and open-minded spirit. Here are some of my reflections after sharing the night and the thoughts with my new Jewish friends: When King David encouraged us to “Sing a new song unto the Lord!” he asks us to sing a song that he did not sing, he asks us to renew the tradition. In order for us to ...

I am sitting in a plane 12 km above the face of the earth and I get this strong feeling of deja vú. 23 years ago I travelled the same route with a strange mix of deep longing and trepidation. I was going from Sweden to South Africa, the country that more than any other had stirred my feelings with its heroic struggle, its people poor in all means except those that really mattered; the desire to reach their freedom, come what may. And they did it singing, together, side by side, creating pockets in time and space of harmony and unity in that diabolic world of separation called apartheid that made us all realize without any doubt the truth of the songs we were singing; “Freedom is coming”, indeed, it had already arrived in that moment we raised our voices.                But on that specific flight, 23 years ago, there was another and new element to my trepidation. I was going to meet a song of another key, of another genre. The waiting was...