Rabbi Yisroel Moshe (Moshe) Kwiatkovsky (Kay) was born in Brisk (Brest Litovsk) Poland and made Aliyah to Mandatory Palestine in 1935. He studied at Yeshivat Merkaz Ha Rav (headed by Rav Kook) and was then ordained as a Rabbi. He then came to South Africa in 1947 and served the Upington community. In South Africa he met and married Lilly Satill. Lilly was born in Willowmore in the Eastern Cape. Her family came to South Africa form Lithuania. After Upington, Kay became the rabbi for Belville and then Vryburg. From Vryburg the family moved to Parys. The Kays had three children, Pearl (Kaplan), Sandra (Goldberg) and Barry. Barry sadly died from Covid 19 in 2020.

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A Rosh-Hashanah Message By Rabbi M Kay (1955)

“May all men form a single Brotherhood” from the Prayer Book

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We are living in momentous times. An unprecedented pattern of events is taking shape in the History of Mankind. We have great responsibilities to discharge as Jews, as South African citizens and as members of the brotherhood of all humanity. May our Rosh-Hashanah celebrations teach us to think more deeply, to pray more fervently, to act nobly.

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We live in a world of stupendous achievements and also of abysmal failures. Science has brought us the atomic age; but morally humanity is not yet prepared for it. The power we have acquired through technological progress; we apply all to often to lethal purposes, to self-destruction. After two world wars within a single generation, the menace of global strife still casts its baneful shadow over the earth. To the great relief of all nations, there has been a marked improvement in the international climate, but the dangers of atomic warfare have unhappily by no means been eliminated. Our sublime publication, “May all men come from a singe brotherhood”, assumes in the light of contemporary developments, a new significance and urgency. Let us pray more earnestly than ever.

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Against this background of current events we cannot but feel that the message of Rosh Hashanah was never more timely, that it was never more vitally needed. The Shofar call of our Festival bids us re-orientate ourselves, revise our values, change our life’s aims. It declares in unmistakable, challenging terms, that not in the aggressive, materialism of soulless commercialism, not in the dubious experiences of party politics, not in the perilous instability of international balance of power, are peace, prosperity and progress to be sought. Rather are they to be found in spiritual integrity, in religious truth, in economic justice, in racial equity in human co-operation and fellowship.  Rosh Hashanah enjoins us to save the dominion of man by dedicating ourselves to the Kingdom of God.

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May Heaven grant us, individually and collectively, peace and happiness in the coming year , may our welfare be a benison to others. May we live constructively, and teach our children to build even better and higher than we have ourselves. So may we be written and sealed in the Book of Life.

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