Doyenne of the stage and the kitchen

1928-2015

GERTIE Awerbuch, who has died in Johannesburg at the age of 87, had a risqué sense of humour and if you didn’t like it you could lump it. She was not given to contrition.

When the rabbi asked her to stage a play for charity, he was taking a chance because he knew her reputation. To be on the safe side, he attended a rehearsal and satisfied himself that it was kosher.

So kosher that it bored her to bits and she changed the whole thing. On the night of the performance the rabbi was horrified and the Jewish community so outraged that they wanted him fired.

He called her, of course, but she quickly disabused him of the notion that he or the offended community might receive some kind of apology. “Tell them to get a life,” she said. Awerbuch was born on September 28 1928 in Doornfontein, Johannesburg. She grew up in a boarding house that her mother ran to absorb and assimilate Jews who had come from Russia and Poland to what they saw as the “golden land”. Her parents were both from Russia. Her passion was to be a stage actress, but that’s not what nice young Jewish women did in those days. After matriculating with seven distinctions at Commercial College, she became a secretary at Grinaker shipping company, taking dictation for her boss and pointing out his howlers. Meanwhile, she started writing and acting in amateur ‘BALABOOSTA’: Gertie Awerbuch’s traditional Jewish recipes were famous the world, meeting a succession of more or less grotesque candidate wives, including Cleopadla, Nufka (whore) of the Nile.

The parts were all played by men, including the Krok twins, furniture king Eric Ellerine and other pillars of the Jewish establishment who happily sacrificed their dignity for charity and a healthy respect for Awerbuch’s tongue.

It was one of the most risqué productions yet seen in Johannesburg, certainly in the Jewish community. It was a huge success and kept going, on and off, for eight years.

Another Awerbuch success was Take My Word, a musical she wrote that opened at the Brian Brooke Theatre in Johannesburg in 1965.

The highlight of her acting career was appearing opposite British actor David Koseff in Sideman and Son.

Most of what she made in theatre went to charity.

She made money as a formidable estate agent and was one of the first to sell sectional title. She would sell a block of flats in a week.

A big, expansive personality, she had few peers in the industry when it came to knowing how to close a deal. When Gertie sold, you bought. Resistance was ill-advised and usually futile.

She was cookery editor of the Citizen for 17 years while the newspaper was edited by the equally formidable Johnny Johnson, who, like her, took no prisoners. Surprisingly, the relationship lasted. She submitted her column once a week, and he knew better than to touch it.

Her forte was traditional Jewish food and her recipes were famous. She published a recipe book for her 80th birthday. She supplied Bulkas (a Jewish version of the Chelsea bun) and cheesecake, which she baked in her kitchen, to an upmarket patisserie in Illovo until days before she died, and a number of patisseries used her recipes.

She lived in a flat in Killarney, but when boredom struck, as it frequently did, she would sell up and go somewhere else for six months or so. She lived variously in San Francisco, New York, London and Tel Aviv, among other places.

She is survived by three children. Her ex-husband, Morris, died in 2001 at the age of 78. — Chris Barron

When Gertie sold, you bought. Resistance was ill-advised and usually futile