From South Africa to Brooklyn Heights: Local author discusses apartheid and Mandela
Brooklyn BookBeat: Ellie Levinson speaks, signs books at Brooklyn Heights Branch Library
Ellie Levinson is a well-rounded Brooklynite. Known around Brooklyn Heights for her volunteer work with the Promenade Garden Conservancy (and for the delicious baked goods she contributes to the PGC’s bake sales), Levinson is active in her residential community and values her Brooklyn friends and neighbors. Yet in spite of her enthusiasm for local affairs, Levinson’s history reaches far beyond Brooklyn. At the Friends of the Brooklyn Heights Branch Library’s monthly event on Tuesday, Levinson spoke to a crowd about her upbringing in South Africa, discussing her recently published memoir “Let’s Play Hopscotch, Growing Up Under Apartheid in South Africa” (Tate Publishing & Enterprises).
Betty Scholtz, another South African-turned-Brooklynite who has also made a name for herself in the community as director emeritus of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, introduced Levinson. The two women are great friends; Scholtz, who has now lived in Brooklyn for 53 years, told the audience she was delighted when Levinson and her husband Ivan moved into her apartment building. Scholtz spoke of Levinson’s great energy, showing off Brooklyn Heights Press clippings featuring Levinson’s baked goods and her gardening work, and noting that the author introduced a book club into their apartment building.
Levinson began her discussion by acknowledging the late beloved South African leader Nelson Mandela. “It seems fitting that I steer my talk toward politics in light of Nelson’s passing,” she said. Levinson grew up in a small, conservative town called Welkom in the 1950s, where, by the time she was born, apartheid was entrenched in South African society. Levinson explained that while politics were not openly discussed in her home, her parents “were a great example when it came to tolerance…we didn’t need the lecture on ‘respect for everyone’ – they pretty much showed us the way, and for that, I am very grateful,” she said.
Levinson remembers that she was 11 years old when she first became aware of the conflict in her country. She read a moving passage from her book, told from her point of view as an 11-year-old: “Nelson Mandela has been arrested for treason. I don’t exactly know what that word means. They say he is a terrorist (I also don’t know what that means), so we should feel safer with him in prison.”