GERSON, MARLENE
South Africa
Born 21 June 1940
Married Brian Bethlehem 20March 1963
[Active 1957-1962]
Won Wimbledon Plate in the 1962.
[From a 2016 pdf file on Jewish South African Acheivers]
Some 10 days after meeting Marlene Bethlehem, I scoured my notes for her age.
I couldn’t find it. The point is not that I am a slipshod reporter, it’s that, once you have experienced Bethlehem in person, her age becomes
utterly irrelevant.
Bethlehem’s vivacity is truly remarkable - and over the last five decades a preponderant part of it has gone the way of the South African and international Jewish communities.
Bethlehem was also one of this country’s leading sportswomen and participated in three Maccabiahs (1957, 1961 and 1985), played (as Marlene Gerson) on the international tennis circuit from 1959 – ‘62, reached the quarter-finals of the Wimbledon ladies’ doubles with Australian Eve Duldig in 1961, and in 1962 won the All England Plate at Wimbledon. At the Dutch Open in 1962, she and Sandra Price won the ladies’ doubles final.
Whatever fuels her, Bethlehem’s life has been that of a sportsperson, wife and mother, a person who has involved herself in local politics, and above all a “serial communal worker”.
Bethlehem is married (53 years and not counting!) to Brian, an anaesthetist, with whom she has had three children, Louise, Lael, and Keith. Bethlehem also notes, smiling, that she has six grandchildren.
Following Wimbledon, Bethlehem didn’t dump the tennis. She was a professional coach from 1964 - ‘85 and in 1974, during apartheid, was the official coach to the first-ever black South African women’s tennis team. Last year, she and her daughter, Lael, won their fifth consecutive ladies’ doubles club championships at the Parkview Lawn Tennis Club.
And it goes on. Bethlehem is a past chairman and is a life vice-president of the Jewish Women’s Benevolent Society. She is a past chairman and is a life vice-president of Jewish Community Services.
She was the past national chairman (1995 - ‘99, the first woman since its inception in 1903) and president (1999 - 2003) of the SA Jewish Board of Deputies, still sits on the national SAJBD board, and chairs the country communities’ portfolio.
She was a monitor at the country’s first democratic elections and accompanied the late Chief Rabbi Cyril Harris to deliver his famous address at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) hearings.
Her commitment to the community has been acknowledged in awards from the Edenvale Jewish Community, the Hebrew Order of David, a medal for meritorious service from the Union of Jewish Women, and an award from WIZO.
We’re not done yet. In 2004, then President Thabo Mbeki appointed Bethlehem deputy chairman of the Commission for the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Cultural and Linguistic Communities (CRL). She did this work from 2004 - ‘08 and was reappointed a CRL member in 2009.
From 2008 - ‘16 Bethlehem served as vice-president of the prestigious Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture (MFJC) based in New York City and founded in 1965 by Nahum Goldmann with reparation funds from the then West German government.
The mandate of the Foundation is the reconstruction of international Jewish cultural life following the Shoah. As a
representative of the MFJC, Bethlehem visited Jerusalem,
Istanbul, Moscow, Warsaw, Montevideo and Mexico. Then, just this year, she was elected president of the MFJC - an enormous honour for South African Jewry.
Bethlehem, as a result of her work with the international Jewish restitution organisation, where she worked among others with Edgar Bronfman Snr, chaired the local committee overseeing the disbursement of the Swiss Banks’ Humanitarian Fund for Needy Holocaust Survivors in 1999. She has been vice-chairman of the SA Holocaust and Genocide Centre for six years.
But, going back to 2006 for a moment, Bethlehem was appointed by the SAJBD and the government to be an election observer at the Palestinian elections in East Jerusalem. And, in 2015 Bethlehem was appointed chairman of the Rabbi Cyril Harris Community Centre.
Her most poignant memory? Given her experiences, that’s a tough question for Bethlehem to answer. She seems torn between witnessing Bronfman Snr. negotiate with recalcitrant Swiss bankers and accompanying Rabbi Harris to his TRC presentation. But in the end, she settles for having dealt with Nelson Mandela while SAJBD chair. He presented her a plate, inscribed, “To Marlene Bethlehem, a fine lady, who has
deserved our admiration and respect.”
“I was privileged beyond belief to have an association with him."
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marlene_Gerson
http://www.sajr.co.za/docs/default-...ocs/default-source/pdf/achievers-14/2016-jewish-achievers-download.pdf?sfvrsn=2 [page 12]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lfH-wfJRBQ [1962 Wimbledon clip, Marlene appears at 36 seconds]
Another well-deserved accolade for our Marlene
www.gendatabase.com [source for date of marriage]
[Thanks to LKK for this information]
