Biale recently returned from a three-week trip to South Africa, where he attended the conference and served as visiting professor at the University of Capetown, which houses South Africa's only Jewish studies program. The trip and his impressions will be fodder for future collaborative research projects with the South African university. The Jewish community there, says Biale, is dramatically different from those in America.
Most Jewish children attend Jewish day schools, regardless of their religious affiliation.
Strong Zionist tendencies also mark South African Jews, Biale says. Today, South Africans have a higher per capita rate of immigration to Israel than any other Western Jewish country. In part, that also has to do with the current political system in South Africa, which is of particular concern to Jews. The end of apartheid has resulted in a vigorous affirmative action program, one that has left young adult Jews with few opportunities. Every single one.