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The of Pressure

Jewish Liberalism and South

Louise Leibowitz

February 2008

M.A.

University of

- ii - Table of Contents

Chapter l: Introduction ...... l

Chapter 2: The SA Jewish Community ...... 6

White Settlement in ...... 6

The Origins of the of South Africa ...... 8

Relationships between and Jews ...... 15

The Composition of the Jewish Group in South Africa ...... 20

SA Jewish Communal Structure and Functions ...... 26

Chapter 3: Theories of Jewish Liberalism and the SA Context ...... 30

Value Theories ...... 30

Historical Theories ...... 34

Sociological Theories ...... 37

Chapter 4: Medding's Theory of Jewish Liberalism ...... 47

Chapter 5: Political Behaviour and Political Values ...... 64

Chapter 6: Jewish Activism and the Community's Response to Activists ...... 74

Chapter 7: The Problem of Comparison ...... 85

Comparison with Other Minorities ...... 85

Comparison with other Jewish groups ...... 86

Comparison with English-speaking Whites ...... 87

The English Language as a Political Act...... 92

Chapter 8: Beyond Overt Political Action ...... 100

Chapter 9: Conclusion ...... 114

Bibliography ...... 117

- iii - Chapter 1

Introduction

From a moral perspective, the record of the under apartheid leaves much to be desired. As Gideon Shimoni aptly put it, South African Jews demonstrated "characteristic minority group behaviour - a phenomenon of self­ preservation performed at the cost of moral righteousness." 1 While moral judgment of South African (hereafter SA) Jewish political behaviour is beyond the scope of this study, apparent Jewish complicity with apartheid is of social scientific interest in that it is unexpected. A large body of literature attempts to explain why Jews in the Diaspora have been so politically liberal compared to their national populations and comparable ethno-religious and socioeconomic groups. Yet in South Africa, the Jews seem to have exhibited typical minority group behaviour, which, in this case, amounts to acting in an illiberal manner.

The liberal orientation of Jews has been noted since the nineteenth century. 2

Jews have not only tended to support left-liberal candidates, parties, and policies across places and time, but, unlike other originally excluded disadvantaged groups, have often continued to do so even after their social and economic status improved dramatically. 3

1 Gideon Shimoni, Community and Conscience: The Jews in Apartheid South Africa (New Haven: Brandeis University Press, 2003), p. 276. 2 Paula E. Hyman, "Was There a 'Jewish Politics' in Central and Western ?", in The Quest for Utopia: Jewish Political Ideas and Institutions Through the Ages, ed. Zvi Gittelman, (New York: M. E. Sharpe, available www.frontpagemag.com/Articles. accessed 4/8/07. 3 Geoffrey Brahm Levey, "The Liberalism of American Jews-Has It Been Explained?", British Journal ofPolitical Science, vol. 26, No.3.(July 1996), pp.396-401, at p. 379.

- 1 - It would seem that, as a group, Jews are more likely than their national populations and other comparable minorities to vote against their acquired class and socio-economic interests. These unusual patterns have ceased to surprise.

Pronounced left-liberalism is, if not always exhibited by Diaspora Jews, considered to be the default position of Jewish politics in Western societies.

Accordingly, many theories have sought to explain the puzzle of Jewish political liberalism.

While the majority of studies focus on American Jews, in most comers of the

Diaspora a Jewish proclivity for liberal politics has been in evidence since the 19th century.4 For most of the twentieth century, most Jews in Central and Western

Europe, in North America, and in the antipodes have supported the left of the political centre of the country concerned. Even in places where majority Jewish support for the left-liberal parties has tapered off - as it has in Britain and

Australia in recent decades - residual Jewish liberalism is in evidence. In Britain, for example, Jews are more likely to vote Labour and to express support for civil liberties and social justice policies - key elements of modem day liberalism - than non-Jews who share the same social and occupational status. 5 And in , most Jews who seek political office or who are otherwise politically active

4 Bernard Susser and Charles S. Liebman, Choosing Survival: Strategies for a Jewish Future (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 66; Levey, "When did the Liberalism of American Jews Emerge?" also James J. Sheehan, German Liberalism in the Nineteenth Century (: Methuen, 1978), p.104-119. 5 For an account of the attitudes and opinions of , see Stephen Miller, Marlena Schmool, and Antony Lerman, Social and Political Attitudes ofBritish Jews: Some Key Findings of the JPR Survey, Institute for Jewish Policy Research Report , 1996, no. I; also Geoffrey Brahm Levey, "Toward a Theory of Disproportionate American Jewish Liberalism," Studies of Contemporary Jewry, vol.11: Values, Interests and Identity: Jews and Politics in a Changing World, ed. Peter Y. Medding (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), pp. 64-85, at p. 66.

- 2 - associate with the left-liberal political parties. Indeed, for many Jews today, being

politically liberal constitutes a key part of their Jewish identity.6

Against this background, SA Jewry appears as a dramatic exception. While a

small minority of Jews were conspicuous players in left-radicalism in South • Africa (not unlike Jewish involvement in radical movements elsewhere), the vast

majority of SA Jews seem to have complied with the discriminations and

injustices of apartheid. In this thesis, I want to challenge the commonplace

assumption that the political record of SA Jewry under apartheid refutes the oft­

noted pattern of a pronounced left-liberalism among modem Jews in the Diaspora.

In particular, I shall argue that political actions do not necessarily reflect political

values, especially under authoritarian regimes. Indeed, I suggest that, in the South

African case, voting patterns and official postures obscure, rather than refute a

Jewish preference for liberal politics.

Various theories have been proposed to explain the phenomenon of residual

Jewish liberalism. The public face of SA Jewish political behaviour lends support

to one of these theories in particular, that of Peter Medding. Medding cites the SA

Jewish example to support his claim that our assumptions about disproportionate

Jewish liberalism are wrong. He disagrees with those who assert that Jews are

enduringly and universally liberal; rather, "political liberalism is a particular

variant of Jewish political behaviour, occurring only under specific historical and

societal conditions, rather than a universal phenomenon."7 Medding cites the SA

6 Jonathan Woocher, Sacred Survival: The Civil Religion ofAmerican Jews (Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1986), in which Woocher describes a Jewish civil religion built upon Holocaust commemoration, a commitment to social justice as well as support for the State of .

7 Peter Medding, "Towards a General Theory of Jewish Political Interests and Behavior," in Kinship and Consent: The Jewish Political and Its Contemporary Uses, ed. Daniel J. Eiazar (Turtledove Publications, 1981 ), p. 313.

- 3 - experience as an example of "illiberal" Jewish political behaviour, suggesting that political behaviour bends under the pressure of anticipated . While

Medding's theory accounts for much of SA Jewish political action, it does not account for all of it. Specifically, Medding assumes that Jewish political action accurately reflects Jewish political values. However, Medding's theory itself suggests another possibility: that Jews may strongly subscribe to liberal values, but, as a result of pressures both extrinsic and intrinsic to their particular communities, be less able or less willing to express these values in a politically overt manner than Jews elsewhere. They may have been "persuaded" to express their liberal values in "apolitical" ways.

To assess this possibility, the events used to capture and indeed categorise SA

Jewish political convictions need to be reconsidered. The Jewish community in

SA while unusually cohesive was, like other Diaspora communities, not monolithic. The "united front" presented by the Jewish community in apartheid

SA disguised a predictably diverse range of political opinion. Hidden in the official deliberations and directives, and in the domestic dilemmas and incidental actions of SA Jews, lies the material from which we may form a fuller picture of

SA Jewish political values than that offered by focusing only on those political events which the group knew would be noticed and judged.

If we are to make sense of the apparent SA Jewish complicity with the injustices of the apartheid era, we must acknowledge that political action is multifaceted. Certainly, we need to consider the political behaviour of SA Jewish organisations and individuals as it is officially presented and recorded. But we

-4- also need to consider the shadows of that political behaviour: the ambiguities, contradictions, deceptions and assorted gestures and reactions which accompanied it. In apartheid SA, under a repressive and punitive regime, much political activity was of necessity diverted into the shadows. The organised Jewish community of

SA ensured that "risky" Jewish political behaviour stayed in these shadows. Since political values may not be openly and freely expressed when external and internal pressures are brought to bear, it is appropriate that our quest to understand and explain these values goes beyond that which is openly expressed and peers into the shadows of political behaviour.

- 5 - Chapter 2

The SA Jewish Community

Every Diaspora community is different and the particular circumstances of the SA

Jews may have led to different political values and forms of expression developing in their case compared with other Jewish communities. In this chapter,

I will outline the origins and characteristics of the Jewish community in SA, placing them in the context of the history of the country and the general interaction that obtained between its various groups. This background will illuminate the particular circumstances and pressures affecting the Jewish community in SA.

White Settlement in South Africa

South Africa had been occupied by White settlers some two hundred years prior to significant Jewish immigration. Although previously discovered by the

Portuguese, European settlement in South Africa began in 1652. It started as part of the establishment of a spice route by the Dutch East Indies Company. Until this point the area was occupied by indigenous Africans. Largely nomadic and tribal, the Africans were perceived by the European settlers as "not numerous ... sometimes troublesome and ... dangerous (but without) strength enough to resist European settlement. "8

Various employees of the Dutch East Indies Company were to remain in South

Africa, lured by the agricultural promise of the land. 9 Predominately from

8 C. W. De Kiewiet, A : Social and Economic (London: Oxford University Press, 1968), p. 2. 9 Mendel Kaplan, Jewish Roots in the South African Economy (: Struik, 1986), p. 27.

-6- Western Europe (Germany and Holland), they were soon followed, around 1688, by a group of French Huguenots. It is important to note that this substantial strand of settlement (from which the Afrikaner people emerged) was organised in response to widespread religious persecution in Europe at the time. This persecution has great significance for the Afrikaner nation, and, eventually, also for their relationship with the Jewish people.

The Afrikaner people saw themselves as victims of two forces, those of religious persecution and imperialism. They were Calvinists escaping persecution in their countries of birth, and on arrival in Africa they were subject to the rules and regulations of the Dutch East Indies Company. Soon after, their fate was to be determined by British colonials.

In the early stages of Afrikaner settlement in southern Africa, slavery (which eroded the culture of those indigenous to South Africa) was legal. Despite their resentment at their own colonisation, the Afrikaners were enthusiastic slave owners. African men were appropriated as fighters and stockmen, and children were separated from their families and indentured as domestic servants. 10 The

Afrikaners, particularly those in isolated areas, guarded fiercely against any possibility of gelykstelling (social levelling or "mixing") with the Blacks. This precaution was largely enforced through their church. 11 Membership of the staunchly Calvinist Dutch Reformed Church was restricted to Europeans (that is, racially ). Indigenous Africans were dealt with patemalistically in accordance with the religious dogma of the Dutch Reformed

10 Hermann Giliomee, The Afrikaners: A Biography ofa People (Cape Town: Tafelburg Publishers, 2003), p. xiv. 11 Giliomee, The Afrikaners, pp. 619-623. The Dutch Reformed Church (DRC) cited the story of Babel as justification for its racially determined membership policies.

- 7 - Church. 12 When the British occupants of South Africa abolished slavery and statutory discrimination in the 1820s, they also abolished the institutions which had come to regulate the lives of the Afrikaner. Marginalised and unrepresented in the land they believed to be their own, the Afrikaners dispersed. This dispersion into the hinterland of the country was to become known as the Great Trek. It resulted in the Afrikaners being spread across the breadth of the land and amongst the indigenous people of Africa. It was at this stage that the Jews of South Africa first encountered their future hosts. Although it appears that a few Jews arrived in

South Africa amongst its earliest settlers, under the colonial European-based rule of the Dutch East Company ( 1652-1795), settlement of non-Protestants in

South Africa was not officially permitted. 13 Jews did not make their way to South

Africa in any significant number until well after it was conquered by the British in

1806.

The Origins of the Jews of South Africa

While some of the Jews who came to South Africa in the 1820s after British occupation were British themselves, the main source of later Jewish migration to

South Africa was Eastern Europe and specifically Lithuania. Litvak Jews are those who come from "within the boundaries of the pre-1917 Czarist Russian provinces of Kovno, Vilna, Grodno and Northern Suwalki" (of Lithuanian-Polish character) and of "Vitbesk, Minsk and Mogilev (Byelorussian-Russian in character)." SA was soon jokingly referred to as a "colony of Lithuanian Jewry." 14

12 The "Sendingkerk", a "mission church" associated with the Dutch Reformed Church, was designated for . 13 Milton Shain, Jewry and Cape Society: The Origins and Activities ofthe Jewish Board of Deputies for the (Cape Town: Historical Publication Society, 1983), p. xv. 14 Gideon Shimoni, Jews and : The South African Experience ( 1910-1967) (Cape Town: Oxford University Press, 1980), p. 5.

- 8 - Arriving in South Africa as gold was discovered in the mid- l 880s, these

Litvaks achieved great success. SA was relatively well disposed towards Jews at the time, as it was imbued in nineteenth-century British liberalism, with its deep respect for the Judeo-Christian tradition. 15 Governor Smith supported the protection of Jewish interests, claiming that "whether a man is a or a

Christian, he is equally protected by the law, (and) equally acceptable in the eyes of God." 16

While it is unlikely that this generous declaration of equality in the eyes of the law was translated into widespread social acceptance, many seeking to leave troubled Eastern Europe managed to settle in South Africa. The phenomenon of landsmanshaft migration (with families and communities inspired to relocate as news of the success of migrants in the "New Country" reaches the

Old) is not uncommon. 17 Between 1880 and 1910, over 40,000 Jews migrated to

South Africa and, while hard evidence is not available, there are many indications of their generally Lithuanian origins. 18

Since their Lithuanian roots are considered to account for many of the features of SA Jewry, it is appropriate that they be considered in some depth. The Jews from within the Russian Pale of Settlement (from which most SA Jews were drawn) were characterised by a high level of self-affirmative identity and were considered to have the "most cohesive ethnicity in the Lithuanian region"

(perhaps because the indigenous Lithuanian population was of the peasant class

15 Milton Shain, The Roots ofAntisemitism in South Africa (Charlottesville and London: University Press of Virginia, 1994), p. 10. 16 Ibid. 17 See, for example, the account of Australian Jewish settlement in Suzanne Rutland, The Edge of the Diaspora: Two Centuries ofJewish Settlement in Australia (: Brandl and Schlesinger, 1997). 18 Shimoni, Community and Conscience, pp. 3-5.

- 9 - and socially foreign). 19 This social segregation continued in SA. Despite their acculturation within mainstream colonial life, Jews remained a conspicuous sub­ group, with a strongly cohesive ethnic and communal identity. It seems that the stress on Jewish identity and "separateness" which the Litvaks brought with them was reinforced in SA. At the time of Jewish arrival, long before the institutionalised introduction of apartheid, SA society was already divided along many biases such as colour, race and language.20

Many aspects of Jewish identity were crystallised in this new land. Zionism was well supported in Lithuania when Jewish migration to SA began, and Litvak regard for the State of Israel as a prime source of national identity was seldom challenged in the early days of Jewish settlement. Jews were not presented upon arrival in SA with an over-arching national identity to which they were required to ascribe. They were not ruled by the indigenous Africans, and their English rulers remained colonial, thinking of rather than of SA as "home."

The Lithuania that had shaped the migrants' Jewish identity was a "lively centre not only of traditional rabbinic scholarship, but of... Jewish Enlightenment and ... social radicalism as well."21 Although Hasidism had spread from Poland to

Lithuania by the end of the eighteenth century, the movement was not well supported.22 Despite their exposure to non-orthodox strands, Lithuanian Jews maintained a reputation for "a high level of traditional Jewish piety and intellectualism," which also continued after their migration to SA. In their new

19 Ibid, p. 4. 20 Brian Lapping, Apartheid: A History (London: Paladin Press, 1987), p. 13. 21 Robert M. Seltzer, Jewish People, Jewish Thought: The Jewish Experience in History (New : Prentice Hall, 1980), p. 484. 19 Ibid, p. 488.

- 10 - land, they were "respectful of knowledge m general and Jewish learning m particular. "23

They were also well-poised to capitalise on the opportunities presented to them in SA. Since Lithuania was an agriculturally poor area, the skills of Lithuanian

Jewish migrants to SA lay primarily in "small scale artisanship and independent trading activity," ideal for the new country and the particular times. 24 The majority of Lithuanian Jews who made their way to South Africa began their new lives as lowly salesmen, setting up small shops in run-down areas or moving around the countryside as peddlers (smouse) and selling their wares. 25 This kind of the Jewish migrant resourcefulness is not unusual and foreshadows the success of Jewish migrants in what Gilman and Shain refer to as "frontier societies. ' 26 It also explains an enduring Jewish exposure to all sectors of the South African populace. Of particular relevance here is the - (as opposed to English-) speaking background of the Lithuanian Jews who were quickly able to master the peculiarities of the language that had evolved over two centuries among

Dutch- and German-speaking settlers in SA. 27 The ease with which the Jewish

Eastern European migrants were able to communicate with their Afrikaner

23 Ibid, p. 614. See also M. Greenbaum, The Jews ofLithuania (: Gefen Publishing House, 1995), and also John Simon, 'The South African Jewish Experience," in Jewries at the Frontier: Accommodation, Identity, Conflict, ed. Sander L. Gilman and Milton Shain (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1999), p. 71. 24 Shimoni, Jews and Zionism, p. 9. 25 Shain, Roots ofAntisemitism in South Africa, p. 157. See also Kaplan, Jewish Roots in the South African Economy, p. 35. 'Smous' was a pejorative reference to a Jew, perhaps a Dutch corruption of 'Moses". By the nineteenth century in South Africa, the term had lost its abusive overlay and was used to refer to a Jewish itinerant trader. 26 Sander L. Gilman and Milton Shain, (eds.), Jewries at the Frontier: Accommodation, Identity, Conflict (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1999). 27 Yiddish is a non-territorial Germanic language, written with the Hebrew alphabet. It originated in about the tenth century in Central and Eastern Europe, spreading via emigration to other continents.

- 11 - neighbours may have placed them apart from English-speaking Whites in future considerations by the Afrikaner apartheid regime. 28

Economic improvement for the Jews in South Africa was both rapid and long­ lasting. In typical migrant fashion and in keeping with the aforementioned respect for learning in general, all earnings were earmarked for the future education and thus the improved status of subsequent generations. The success of Jewish migration to all comers of the Western world is widely acknowledged, and the

South African chapter of this story need not be covered in any detail here. 29

Suffice to say that the same factors which accelerated Jewish economic success elsewhere in the Diaspora operated also in South Africa. It might be suggested, however, that the SA Jewish success story outstrips that of most other Diaspora communities. Since Black and Coloured labour was cheaply and readily available, the Jews in SA were unusually successful in "the overriding striving for occupational independence that was a common characteristic of Jewish migrants everywhere. "30

Apartheid was a system refined and institutionalised by the Afrikaner but introduced by the British, and therefore many aspects of it were already in place when the Jews first settled in SA. 31 The resultant availability of cheap labour based on skin colour is an obvious and important feature of the SA Jewish experience, and was just one of the undeniable advantages of the apartheid system which contributed to the Jews' impressive socio-economic ascendance. 32

Although cheap labour was not unusual in the Colonies at the time of the Jewish

28 Abe Schapera, "The Jews of ," Jewish Affairs, 35: 12 (1980): pp. 23-28. 29 Seltzer, Jewish People, Jewish Thought, Chapter 14. 30 Shimoni, Jews and Zionism, p. 9. 31 Hirsch Goodman, Editorial, Jerusalem Report, June 2, 1994, p. 29. 32 Kaplan, Jewish Roots in the South African Economy.

- 12 - settlement, it became institutionalised and was thus maintained for longer in SA than in most other Diasporas. In most other areas in the Diaspora, it had been outlawed in response to anti-slavery sentiment. The favourable economic climate in SA from the beginning of settlement meant that Jewish funds were available to establish those institutions which Jews consider essential, such as ,

Hebrew schools and burial grounds. As the Lithuanian Jews thrived, they built upon and diversified the essentially British institutions already in existence.

Litvaks soon constituted the SA Jewish majority and its dominant influence. 33

Lithuanian Jews had taken "with them to North America, to South Africa, to

South America (and) to Israel, the same identification with the suffering of others, the desire to break out of the shtetl, and the deep belief in the value of working to benefit others and in the universalism of humanity. "34 Many of these values were no doubt diluted by acculturation but the welfare system instituted and maintained in SA by the Jews is still widely admired to this day. The SA Jewish welfare system was organised within a centralised structure and was extended to Jews and non-Jews alike. Welfare organisations were active during the apartheid years, and during the transition from apartheid to democracy.35

A sense of responsibility for the welfare of Jews extended to those in Israel.

Zionism had become well-entrenched in Lithuania between the two wars and since it was not challenged by Reform in either Lithuania or SA, it remained a strong part of the Litvak Jewish identity. 36 Although the Zionist

33 Shimoni, Jews and Zionism, p. 13. As in other Diasporas (such as Australia, where subsequent waves of migration altered the composition of Jewish bodies) this transition was not without conflict in SA. 34 Natan Sharansky, "Their Jordan-and Ours," Jerusalem Report, June 2, 1994. 35 , "Jewish Modes of Opposition," Jewish Affairs, Autumn 1997, p. 27. 36 came to SA relatively late (in the l 930's), and its leaders were, unusually, pro­ Zionism.

-13- orientation of the Litvak Jews (along with their "unpleasant" and conspicuously

"foreign" ways) disturbed the Anglo-Jewish establishment in SA, the dominance of the Lithuanian sector of the Jewish community meant that eventually SA Jews

"held the record for formal membership in the World Zionist Organisation." 37

The Zionist Federation was to remain an extremely influential Jewish institution in SA throughout the apartheid era. - Jewish immigration to Israel - although integral to Zionism, was perceived in SA as an idealistic act, and fundraising was considered to be the SA Zionist group's chief responsibility. The per capita contribution of SA Jews to Israel during the apartheid era was the highest in the world, and the total amount given second only to American Jews.38

This phenomenon was due in no small measure to the attitude of South Africa's apartheid leaders, since Jews were readily able to send funds to Israel through government bank orders. Throughout the apartheid era, the Afrikaner government was therefore also capable of restricting the relay of funds to Israel, and of severing a primary source of Jewish identification.39

Relationships between Afrikaners and Jews

The relationship between Afrikaner and Jew in SA was complex. Empathy and respect coexisted with resentment and antisemitism. Relations between SA and

Israel were generally sound and mutually supportive, but they were also changeable and affected the way Afrikaners perceived local Jews. While at the time of the establishment of the State of Israel, the Afrikaners identified with its

37 Shimoni, Community and Conscience, p. 5. 38 Ibid. 39 Franz Auerbach, "Do We Apologise? South African Jewish Community Responses to Apartheid", Jewish Affairs, Autumn 1997, p. 34. Regarding the importance of Zionism as a "civil religion" for SA Jews, see Milton Shain and Sally Frankental, "Accommodation, Activism and Apathy: Reflections on Jewish Political Behaviour during the Apartheid Era," Jewish Affairs, Autumn 1997, p. 55.

- 14 - "plucky struggle" against Britain, they later felt that they had been abandoned by the Jews, seeing them as siding with the British in eroding the Afrikaner's rights in SA. 40

For a long time, however, the Nationalist Party (NP) was favourably oriented to the State of Israel. As the ruling party in SA, the power base of the NP was the

Afrikaans-speaking majority of the White population. As has been mentioned elsewhere, the Afrikaners were a fiercely religious Calvinist group with great respect for the Old Testament (). Several common strands united the

Jewish and Afrikaner people. Both groups have a history of persecution and

Divine deliverance. The Afrikaner's escape from Europe and later oppression as a result of British domination of the Cape Colony became known as the Great Trek.

The Trek into the SA hinterland is believed to be ordained and assisted by God and was considered to constitute a Dutch Reformed Exodus, likened to the Exodus of the Jews. 41 South Africa is understood by the Afrikaners to be their Promised

Land as a result of a sacred covenant entered into between their ancestors and

God. Other links between the two groups are found in retelling of the Afrikaner's story, with Old Testament references commonly used (for example, William of

Orange is known as "ons Moses" - our Moses).

Israel's conflict with Britain further endeared the new Jewish state to the

Afrikaner government, and SA Prime minister was the first head of a foreign state to officially visit the State of Israel after its independence. Military supplies and expertise were exchanged, along with technology and education, between the two countries. , in a recent speech, refers to a close association

40 Shimoni, Community and Conscience, p. 27. 41 Giliomee, The Afrikaners, pp. 144-153.

- 15 - "involving the supply of technology from South Africa and permission from the

South African government for money to be sent (by Jews) to Israel."42

The sympathy between Jews and Afrikaners was, however, only one strand of their interaction. As in other Diasporas, the relationship between Jew and gentile was often ambivalent. Shain suggests that South African antisemitism predates the

Jews' arrival, as the Afrikaner settlers had brought the antisemitism of their

European origins with them to SA. 43 While the rapid financial success of the

Jewish settlers in SA was accorded grudging respect, it soon led to Afrikaner resentment and a resurrection of perennial stereotypes.44 Several scholars have documented the precarious nature of Jewish well-being in SA.45

The arrival of a mass of Jews from Lithuania in the late 1920s coincided with the emergence of what became known as the "poor White" issue. The Afrikaners had long thought of themselves as "people of the land." In the 1920s, a period of economic depression hit SA and many Afrikaners were forced to leave their farms and seek employment in the cities. Impoverished, they resented the upward mobility and urbanised attitudes of the newly arrived Jews they encountered, and spoke of an "English-Jewish capitalist conspiracy."46 By the 1930s anti-Jewish sentiment was frequently and readily expressed.

42 Helen Suzman, reported (Jerusalem Post: June 21, 2006), p. 8. Helen Suzman was for many years the sole representative of the Progressive Party in SA 43 Milton Shain, "If it was so good, why was it so bad?", Memories, Realities and Dreams: Aspects ofthe South African Jewish Experience, ed. Milton Shain and Richard Mendelsohn (Jeppestown: Jonathan Ball Publishers, 2000). 44 Shain, Roots ofAntisemitism in South Africa, p. 66. Jews were frequently referred to by the derogatory terms "Peruvian" (a loose acronym for Polish and/or Russian) and "Hoggenheimer" in the popular press. 45 See, for example, the work of Gus Saron, Milton Shain, and Gideon Shimoni. 46 Brian Lapping, Apartheid: A History (London: Paladin Press, 1987), p. 149.

- 16 - The antisemitism that had accompanied Afrikaner settlers when they left

Europe and had predated Jewish arrival in SA was woven into the fabric of early

Afrikaner nationalism. The Greyshirts - a racist, antisemitic fascist group - derived their views largely from Nazi propaganda and were widely supported by disenchanted Afrikaners across South Africa in the 1930s. The Greyshirts saw

Jews as Asiatic rather than European, and considered them "anti­

Christian ... fomenters of a world-wide conspiracy using ... communism and capitalism as their instruments."47 The Afrikaner National Socialist Nuwe Order group was also active in the early war years. It was openly pro-German and against SA support of Britain in WWII. The Ossewa Brandwag (a quasi-military mass movement organised against "British-Jewish democracy") also had a significant following at this time. 48

Although many of the members of these organisations were interned during

WWII, the power of their sentiments continued after the war. Seventeen of the

Nuwe Order's representatives were elected members of Parliament in the post-war period. Greyshirt rhetoric was incorporated into the political platform of the

Afrikaner Nationalist party which came to power in 1948, and went on to introduce and administer apartheid. Greyshirt and Ossewa Brandwag members rose in NP ranks to achieve positions of great importance. A significant number of internees became leaders in the National Party (NP) and frequently acknowledged their philosophical connections, declaring that "in Italy they call it fascism, in

47 Shimoni, Community and Conscience, p. 13. 48 Giliomee, The Afrikaners, p. 442.

- 17 - Germany .... National Socialism, (and) m South Africa we call it Christian

Nationalism. "49

The impact of Volkisch sentiment was not only philosophical, and extended to actions against the Jewish group. , Prime Minister of the

National Party of South Africa from 1958 until his assassination in 1966, had early in his political career addressed "The Jewish Question," and had in his student years led a protest against the uptake of Jewish refugees from Nazi

Germany. In 1937, as editor of the influential Nationalist mouthpiece Die

Transvaler, he claimed that

... a conflict of interest existed between the disadvantaged Afrikaner majority and a privileged Jewish minority .... which dominated commerce and industry (to the extent that) Afrikaners felt that Jews have a chokehold on their continued existence. 50

Verwoerd advocated the imposition of strict measures to prevent the arrival of

Jews fleeing , as well as legislation to ensure ewewigtige verspreiding or "balanced distribution." Calling for a quota system, he promised that the NP would "refuse further trading licenses until the Jewish share was brought back to their share of the white population."51 Herbert Giliomee in The

Afrikaners acknowledges that Verwoerd's was "not a lone voice (and during the) month before his article appeared, the Cape NP had unanimously accepted a resolution ... stop[ping] all Jewish immigration ... and express[ing] the view that

49 Mayibuye, March 1992, p. 16. Available www.disa.ukzn.ac.za, accessed 10 April, 2006. Mayibuye, published for many years as a small, underground newsletter, was one of three African National Congress publications alongside Sechaba and Dawn ( ). Circulation was limited and hampered by conditions of illegality. Publication began late in 1966, with the aim of stimulating political debate and discussion to promote the voice of the banned Congress to the masses. Legal publication began in 1990 after the unbanning of the African National Congress. 50 Giliomee, The Afrikaners, p. 417. 51 Ibid. This share was estimated to be around 4% of the white trading population.

- 18 - trading and other licenses have to be granted on a proportional basis to Jews. "52

The Minister of the Interior Dr. D .F. Malan frankly declared in 193 7 "that there are too many Jews here .... for South Africa's good ... and for the good of the Jews themselves."53 It should not be thought that Malan and Verwoerd's views were particularly extreme. In fact, it was only the more moderate of the Nationalists who were content to merely limit further migration of Jews to SA. Right-wing nationalists advocated the expulsion of most Jews already in SA. Pressure from the Afrikaner electorate prevailed, and laws halting Jewish migration from Europe were enacted with the Quota Act of 1930 and the Alien's Act of 193 7.

This pre-war surge of antisemitic sentiment was not particularly unusual from a global perspective. In many countries, parliamentary measures designed to stop or limit Jewish migration were enacted. 54 However, the Jewish experience in SA was unusual in that, after WWII, it was the outspoken critics of the Jews who were elected to govern the country. The NP came into power in 1948. Although restrictions against Jews joining the branch of the NP were officially in force until the 1950s, the overt antisemitism that infused the party throughout the

1930s and early 1940s was quickly glossed over after the war by Jews and non­

Jews alike. Although Afrikaner antisemitism could potentially be unleashed upon the Jews of SA, the earlier outbursts of various Nationalists were pragmatically explained away in the Jewish press as a fleeting reaction to economic and political difficulties. Only recently has the idealisation of Afrikaner-Jewish relationships been challenged, and antisemitism in SA is now acknowledged as more than a

52 Giliomee, The Afrikaners, p. 417. 53 Shimoni, Community and Conscience, p. 14. 54 Rutland, Edge ofthe Diaspora, p. 256.

- 19 - "by-product" of Nazi propaganda. 55 The place of antisemitic rhetoric in Afrikaner ideology must be acknowledged if we are to understand SA Jewish political actions.

The Composition of the Jewish Group in South Africa

Attempts to limit Jewish migration to SA affected the composition of the Jewish group in SA. In contrast to many other Western Diasporas, in SA the ruling

National Party did not respond significantly to pressure to accept Jews displaced by . 56 Increases in the Jewish population of SA after WWII are largely due to natural growth. This meant that when the Jewish population of SA was at its maximum of 120,000 in the 1970s (about 2.5 per cent of the White population and a fraction of 1 per cent of the entire population) most of those counted were born in SA and were the descendants of Lithuanian Jews. 57

The particular composition of the Jewish group in SA affected the group's structure and its functions. The Jews in SA remained, throughout the apartheid era, unusually homogeneous and cohesive with a very small proportion of

Holocaust survivors. The Jews of SA, then, may have responded differently to the

Holocaust than did the Jews of other Diasporas. Indeed, when their limited exposure to survivors of the Holocaust is combined with their (already empowering) dimension of "whiteness" and their considerable prosperity, one might well expect post-war SA Jews to respond politically to certain issues in ways that differ from other Jewish communities. Jews in post-war SA may not have seen themselves as victims to the same extent as did Jews elsewhere in the

55 Shimoni, Jews and Zionism, p. 117. For a detailed account of the extent of Afrikaner antisemitism, see Shain, Roots ofAntisemitism in South Africa, p. I. 56 Shimoni, Jews and Zionism, p. 144. 57 Allie A. Dubb, The Jewish Population ofSouth Africa: The 1991 Sociodemographic Survey (Cape Town: Jewish Publications, 1994), p. 95.

- 20 - Diaspora. The ambivalent status of SA Jews - a group that was relatively powerful and wealthy and yet fearful of Afrikaner antisemitism - needs to be kept in mind in any consideration of their political behaviour.

As an ethno-religious entity, the Jews of SA reached their maximum number during the period of "high apartheid."58 The religious makeup of the SA Jews during apartheid reflected the homogenous nature of the group itself, with some

80 per cent of SA Jews describing themselves as Orthodox and a further 13 per cent as Reform (or Liberal) adherents. Rates of membership were consistently high, with 75 per cent of Jews in SA belonging to a synagogue.59

However, synagogue affiliation and attendance were not synonymous for the group, and it cannot be suggested that the SA Jews were unusually observant. The

SA brand of orthodoxy has long been characterised as "moderately observant," with "widely differing combinations of observances depending on personal preference [and] middle-of-the-road, laissez-faire Jews [making up] the largest proportion of those who regard themselves as orthodox."60 SA Jews maintained a sound knowledge about Judaism and its tenets, despite their lax attitudes to its application.

Another interesting phenomenon, which may be connected both to the homogeneity and the religious makeup of the group, is that for SA Jews, during apartheid and to the present time, attrition in their numbers cannot be attributed to assimilation. One of the essential and perennial issues facing integrated Jews around the globe - nowhere more so than in the - is that of large

58 Dubb, Jewish Population of South Africa, p. 7. Between 1960 and 1970, Jews constituted 3.7 per cent of the SA white population. 59 Dubb, The Jewish Population ofSouth Africa, p. 107. 60 Ibid, pp. 110-111.

- 21 - scale assimilation. 61 SA Jews presented as "a prosperous community playing a meaningful part in the development of (their) country ... .integrated into every aspect of national life- the economy, politics, culture and sport."62 Despite their integration into White SA society to (at least) the same levels as Jews in other

Diasporas, the number of people who were born Jewish but do not regard themselves as such remained constant in SA throughout the apartheid era.

Although census or survey information on this topic is limited, the number of

"mixed households" continued to register as only a small and stable proportion of

Jewish households. SA Jews, unlike the Jews of most other Diaspora communities, do not show rapidly increasing rates of assimilation through intermarriage. On the contrary, it seems that there is a parallel increase in the number of converts into the Jewish group.63

Although some have attributed SA Jewish resistance to assimilation to the community's cohesive Lithuanian roots and its traditional religious orientation, the Litvaks who made their way to other countries (such as England and America) do not seem to have had the same effect. 64 Other explanations of widespread

Jewish assimilation have been proposed. Antisemitism has been almost nostalgically viewed as an increasingly defunct barrier to assimilation, since in an open and accepting postmodem world Jewish identification has waned, with Jews, as Yudit Greenberg puts it, moving from a "Chosen" to a "Choosing" people.

According to this view, Jews, once free to do so, may "opt out" of membership of

61 Alan M. Dershowitz, The Vanishing American Jew: In Search ofIdentity for the Next Century (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1997). 62 Aleck Goldberg, Profile ofa Community: South African Jewry (: Union of Orthodox Synagogues of South Africa, 2002), p. 4. 63 Dubb, The Jewish Population ofSouth Africa, p. 50. 64 Marcus Solomon, Editorial in "The Maccabean," (Newsletter of the Perth Jewish Community), April 2002, p. 2.

- 22 - the Jewish group. 65 The assimilation of Diaspora Jews is then seen as an inevitable by-product of and dwindling institutionalised antisemitism. However, this interpretation fails to account for SA resistance to assimilation. The Jews of SA were not "less emancipated" than those of other

Diasporas. 66

The choice to assimilate represented by Jewish emancipation may have been compounded in some Diasporas by an emphasis on the Holocaust as a central defining Jewish experience. The portrayal of Jews as "victims" may not be attractive to younger Jews.67It is interesting to consider this notion in light of the relatively low rates of disaffiliation observed amongst SA Jews. As mentioned above, unlike many other Diasporas, SA did not absorb significant numbers of

Holocaust survivors after WWII. It may seem, therefore, that SA Jews were likely to have been less immediately confronted with negative forms of self-description than were the Jews of other Diasporas. However, we cannot assume that merely because there were fewer Holocaust survivors in SA, Jews there were less likely to consider themselves to be "victims" than were the Jews of other Diasporas. The

Jewish narrative prior to the Holocaust also concentrated on persecution and discrimination, stretching from the Destruction of the Temple to the of

Eastern Europe, offering countless "negative" archetypes to SA Jews. At the same time, post-Holocaust Jewries were also able to access symbols of victory and might, as a result of the achievement of a Jewish homeland.

65 Yudit Kornberg Greenburg, "The Choosing, Not the Chosen People," in Jewish Identity in the Postmodern Age: Scholarly and Personal Reflections, ed. Charles Selengut (Harrisburg and New York: Continuum, 1999), pp. 13-23. 66 Kaplan, Jewish Roots in the South African Economy. 67 Jacob Neusner, Judaism in Modern Times: An Introduction and Reader (Cambridge: Blackwell Publishers, 1995), Chapter 8.

- 23 - It is therefore not necessarily true that the SA brand of Judaism was a more attractive "choice" than that on offer in other Diaspora Jewries. It is also unlikely that SA Jewish group survival is only the result of intrinsic factors such as religiosity or group homogeneity, since other Jewish communities have had the opportunity to stress the same factors in their own narratives. The view that antisemitism is a necessary evil which ensures or at least contributes to Jewish continuity is also challenged by the unusually "good" SA record. Despite Tzippi

Hoffman and Alan Fischer's suggestion that "discriminatory immigration legislation and anti-Semitism" were among "the negative factors which forced the community to unite and create [the] well-organised, self-conscious community that it is today," there seems to be no reason to see SA antisemitism as any worse than that experienced by Jews in other places. 68 Although they declare that

"prejudice forced the community to fall back on its own resources," Hoffman and

Fischer also confusingly acknowledge that the history of SA Jewry is not "a tale of suffering and persecution." Since SA Jews suffered no more and, indeed, probably less from such prejudice than did Jews in many other countries, the SA

Jewish experience may indicate that antisemitism per se does not encourage

Jewish survival and enforce group membership. It is possible that, in an environment in which group identity is considered important, cohesion is more readily achieved.

South African society was segregated into different groups on the basis of skin colour. Apartheid was built upon "the recognition and separation of specific

68 Tzippi Hoffman and Alan Fischer, The Jews of South Africa: What Future? (Johannesburg: Southern Book Publishers, 1988), pp. 3-4.

- 24 - groups. "69 It relied on a complex system of laws designed to keep the races apart and to ensure the domination of South Africa's White minority over its Black majority. Built upon existing colonial patterns of segregation, laws such as the

Population Registration Act and the Group Areas Act classified all citizens of SA and the according to race. The key to these policies was tribalism.

Each South African was assigned a racial grouping (White or Coloured or

Native).Natives (indigenous Black Africans) were considered to be the subjects of tribal leaders, and were granted land in resource-poor areas of the sub-continent known as Bantustans, also known (in a spirit of anthropological ingenuity and euphemism) as "homelands." The conservative tribal leaders of the homelands were chosen by the government and given funding so that they could assert their tribal authority. All "Natives" were considered foreigners in SA since they were residents of a . Many city-educated Blacks were sent back to their

"homelands." When coming into the city to work, Natives were required to carry an identity document (known as a pass) at all times. In these, and various other methods, the superior status of Whites in social, political and economic spheres was institutionalised. The vast legal structure which maintained the subordinate status of Blacks also drastically restricted the civil liberties of Whites. Whites were not allowed to mix with Blacks. This guarding against "gelykstelling" affected many white activities such as public transport, access to Black neighbourhoods, and social interaction.

Although White supremacist undertones resonated within apartheid, theoretically, at least, the philosophy emphasised the importance of ethnicity, with each group considered an entity to be preserved in its pure form as created by

69 Robert Ross, A Concise History of South Africa (Cape Town: Cambridge University Press, 2000), p. 116.

- 25 - God. The dominant White group was further divided linguistically into the

Afrikaans and English subgroups, each affiliated to a different Christian religious institution. With this "institutionalised" segregation as a backdrop (totally unlike the American "melting pot" scenario), group membership became particularly relevant. For American Jews, Jewish identity has become largely voluntary.

The American Jewish community is - in contrast to that of SA - decentralised and often in conflict. 70 may be less likely in an environment

(like apartheid SA) where group allocation is officially enforced and

"separateness" upheld as a general notion, even when the target of exclusion is not the Jews and antisemitism is not enforced. Jews may not have to be the primary target of "othering" for their group identity to be maintained and assimilation curtailed.

Whatever the secret of SA "success," it is apparent that the declining Jewish numbers in SA are not caused by the same constellation of factors that explain the decline in other Jewries, such as the marked assimilation in the USA. 71 Although

Jewish birth rates in SA under apartheid are similar in their downward trend to those of the USA, while intermarriage in the USA is sometimes reported to be in excess of fifty per cent, the reported rate in SA remains relatively low. It seems that the declining number of Jews in SA is largely due to emigration. 72

SA Jewish Communal Structure and Functions

Two of the cultural norms of their immigrant forebears that SA Jews perpetuated were a commitment to Zionism, and the acknowledgement of the need for "a

70 Seltzer, Jewish People, Jewish Thought, p. 647. 71 Dershowitz, The Vanishing American Jew, pp. 13-14. 72 Dubb, Jewish Population ofSouth Africa, pp. 62-65 and p.108. Jewish emigration from SA is often referred to as a "brain drain."

-26 - cohesive approach to outside society."73 The many institutions supporting SA

Jewish communal life retained their centralised character and united representation through the apartheid era, and a cohesive and intact community was facilitated. The two main institutions organising SA Jewish life prior to apartheid were the Zionist Federation and the SA Jewish Board of Deputies. Since the

Board was resolutely "firm and unquestioning (in its) commitment to Israel" conflict between the two bodies was limited.74 The cohesion of the SA Jewish community may also have been made easier by the cordial relationship established between the apartheid government and the State of Israel. By 1948 (and the establishment of the State of Israel) the SA Jewish Board of Deputies had became the official voice of Jews in SA since most communal organisations (including the

Zionist Federation) were affiliated to it. 75 Diverse Jewish bodies such as those concerned with religion, welfare and sport were all organised within the Board.

The SAJBD saw its role as "defending Jewish interests and overseeing matters of local communal interest" although its welfare branches were "by no means solely devoted to helping Jews."76

SA Jews were involved not only in the development of SA but have also done much to maintain and strengthen their own identity. Although as was mentioned earlier the majority of Jews living in SA in the second half of the twentieth century had been born there, Jewish communities across SA "adhered to the religious and cultural norms of its immigrant forebears."77 Their socio-economic successes made it possible for the Jews to create and support the very institutions that espoused and maintained these norms, all cohesively organised within the

73 Goldberg, Profile ofa Community, p. 11. 74 Ibid, p. 14. 75 Ibid, p. 17. 76 Hoffman and Fischer, Jews ofSouth Africa, p. 5. 77 Goldberg, Profile ofa Community, p. 5.

- 27 - Board's hierarchy. Statistics paint a picture of overwhelming Jewish success during the apartheid era. SA Jews leaned strongly toward self-employment with

41 per cent of Jews as opposed to 16 per cent of Whites in SA self-employed. SA

Jews achieved a higher level of education and occupation than any other group in

SA with the medical, legal and accounting professions reflecting a considerably larger proportion of Jews as members than of other Whites. While this picture has changed dramatically in recent times as many SA Jews have left the country, the combination of two common "Jewish" dimensions of cohesion and achievement characterised SA Jewry throughout the apartheid era.

Both cohesion and success can affect the nature of a particular community's political responses. This is especially important vis-a-vis the group's official responses to political coercion. Shimoni in his comparison of SA Jewish and southern American Jewish political behaviour points out that when "the responsibilities of communal leadership (are) less concentrated (they are) also less vulnerable to governmental pressure."78 The political actions of the group are easier to "control" when that group itself is well-organised. A corollary of this emerges: the political actions of individual group members are easier to control when the group is well-organised. In SA, Jewish community leaders were able to control the actions of individual Jews for their own purposes, and not only for those of the government. Even without government pressure, the may have influenced the political action of individual Jews. Each

Jewish community in the Diaspora has its own modus operandi. We can identify, in the SA Jewish group, many ways in which the political behaviour of its members was controlled and shaped by an unusually centralised and well-

78 Shimoni, Community and Conscience, p. 271.

- 28 - organised representative body. The more "officially" centralised and cohesive the community, the more power the group itself has to direct and control the behaviour of individual members. Without cohesion, the weapon of

"excommunication" or marginalisation by the group of any dissenting members becomes less effective. The weapon of disapproval was frequently unleashed on those Jews whose political activities were considered to place the community in danger.

We need to be aware, then, that pressures exerted on a group and which affect its political participation need not only be externally imposed, as Medding suggests. 79 Groups themselves can control the political action of their members.

Both intrinsic and extrinsic pressures need to be considered before we can judge the degree of correlation between political values and political behaviour. As we will see, recognising this much is pivotal in considering the relation between the political values and behaviour of SA Jews.

The preceding pages have attempted to detail the unique nature of the SA

Jewish community, by discussing its context, origins and structure. We need to consider the way in which the political behaviour of SA Jews was shaped by a variety of factors. Only then can we assess the implications of the SA experience for our thinking about Jewish political behaviour in the Diaspora in general. In particular, we need to be wary of the assumption that, as emancipated citizens in

Western countries, Jews participate in political life in an uninhibited manner.

79 Medding, "Towards a General Theory", p. 337.

- 29 - Chapter 3

Theories of Jewish Liberalism and the SA Context

In this chapter, I want to consider some of the main theories attempting to account for the phenomenon of Jewish political liberalism, paying particular attention to their relevance to the SA context. I will examine both the premises of the major theories, as well as some of the criticisms levelled against them. I will argue that none of the theories considered convincingly accounts for the political behaviour of SA Jews.

Value Theories

One of the theories often used to explain disproportionate Jewish liberalism in the

Diaspora highlights aspects intrinsic to the Jewish religion. Lawrence Fuchs proposed that the Jewish religious system encourages a politically liberal orientation. On this account, - strictly, the Five Books of Moses that constitute the Jewish bible, but here referring more broadly to the corpus of

Jewish texts - reflects a concern for education and promotes rational and considered decision-making. Willingness to support reform and progress is an essentially liberal value and the way in which the Jewish texts are used echoes this dynamism. Judaism is transmitted through an Oral Tradition, with the recording ongoing debate between learned about how the word of God should be interpreted in particular circumstances and at different times. The consideration of alternate and novel perspectives is thus imperative in Judaism.

Fuchs further asserts that core religious values presented in the Torah also prime

Jews for a liberal political disposition. He nominates Zedakah or social justice and the Jewish concern for individual welfare, along with the "non-asceticism" of

- 30 - Judaism, which urges its members to seek pleasure in everyday life rather than waiting for an afterlife, as factors that promote in adherents of Judaism a "political behaviour along liberal lines. ,,so

A theory that seeks to explain Jewish liberalism in terms of values intrinsic to the Jewish religious tradition is faced with many challenges. Some of these challenges concern the claim that Jewish behaviour is principally shaped by factors integral to Jewish and life. External forces also operate on the

Jews by virtue of their particular minority group status, and it seems remiss to deny the historical and continuing effect of these often powerful forces. 81 Other challenges subvert Fuchs's Judaic values hypothesis by pointing to the wide range of "political directives" contained in the Jewish texts. Judaism can be seen to contain both liberal and conservative elements and it remains to be shown why

Jews concentrate on, and are politically inspired by, the liberal ones. Furthermore, many of the world's major religions embrace similar core values, so using these values alone to explain the disproportionate liberalism of the Jews seems ill­ advised. SA Jews who were involved in anti-apartheid activities, both legal and illegal, seldom cite aspects of the Jewish religion per se as stimulants of their liberal political convictions or activities.82 Non-religious social activities, such as involvement in Jewish youth groups, are sometimes acknowledged as inspirational. 83

80 Lawrence Fuchs, The Political Behaviour ofAmerican Jews (Glencoe, Illinois: Free Press, 1956), p. 13. 81 Levey, "Toward a Theory of Disproportionate American Jewish Liberalism," pp. 64-85. 82 Albie Sachs, "Being the Same and Being Different," Jewish Quarterly, vol. 40:2 (Spring 1993), pp. 13-16. 83 Immanuel Suttner, Cutting Through the Mountain: Interviews with South African Jewish Activists (London: Viking Penguin Press, 1997), p. 164. Jewish youth organisation experiences are commonly cited as inspiration for activism.

- 31 - A common criticism of the Judaic values theory is the observation that non­ religious Jews are generally more liberal than their more observant counterparts.

The SA experience offers an opportunity to explore this criticism. While the SA story supports the claim that left-radicalism is far more common among those

Jews who are least religious, we do not have sufficient information to suggest that in apartheid SA very religious Jews voted any differently to those who were less observant.84 It may be (and this remains to be studied) that religiosity affects political behaviour more at the extremes of the political spectrum than it does mainstream political behaviour.

As noted previously, SA Jewry during the apartheid era was a cohesive group with a high level of Jewish identity, emerging from an overwhelmingly Orthodox

Jewish tradition. 85 Their particular Litvak tradition was insulated from the innovations of Reform Judaism, which, despite its widespread appeal elsewhere in the Diaspora, was not well supported in either Lithuania or SA. SA Jews maintained a consistently high level of Jewish literacy and were well-acquainted with their Orthodox roots. Although not fundamentally religious in ritualistic terms, they were exposed to the core values of Judaism in a consistent and meaningful way. Although SA Jews may be considered lax in terms of religious observance, Jewish education was "the preferred mode of modern Jewish education" in SA. 86 A high proportion of SA Jews were knowledgeable about

Judaism and its tenets. They should have been exposed to and inspired by values such as Torah, zedakah, and non-asceticism. If SA Jews are indeed not left­ leaning, the strength of Fuchs's theory is undermined. However, if signs of

84 Henry Lever, "The Jewish Voter in South Africa", Ethnic and Racial Studies, vol. 2:2 (1979), pp. 428-440. 85 Dubb, The Jewish Population ofSouth Africa, p. 109. 86 Shimoni, Community and Conscience, p. 217.

- 32 - disproportionate liberalism are evident among SA Jews, then Fuch's theory may yet be supported, since it could then be suggested that knowledge rather than practice is crucial in the predisposition toward liberalism. This may answer Fuch's critics who note that it is the least observant Jew who is most likely to be liberal. 87

If religious knowledge rather than religious practice promotes political behaviour along liberal lines, SA Jews might be expected to be left-leaning. So in situations where "literate" Jews do not feel able to express their "residually liberal" political values freely, we might find these values expressed in other ways which are encouraged by the Jewish religious system, such as social justice, welfare initiatives, and a rational approach to solving life's problems. These patterns can indeed be seen to apply in SA, lending support to Fuch's theory.

The SA Jewish story warns against the application of Fuchs's ideas in a vacuum. If "values" are to be a meaningful explanation of difference, then we have to look not only at the values of the Jewish group concerned but also at those of the population in which it resides and to which it may be compared, For example, the particular "frontier society" that the Litvaks encountered upon their arrival in SA may have shared the "non-asceticism" that Fuchs regards as an essentially Jewish characteristic. In their various countries of origin, Christian and

Calvinist non-Jewish Whites may have valued asceticism. However, those that chose to leave, subject to the "potent brew" of Calvinism and Capitalism, might have been the less "ascetic" of their group, since the promise of riches was part of the attraction of an unknown land. 88 Also, once non-Jewish settlers arrived in SA and were exposed to the gold and diamond rushes that the new land was built

87 Steven M. Cohen, The Dimensions ofAmerican Jewish Liberalism (New York: American Jewish Committee, 1989), pp. 143-146. 88 Giliomee, The Afrikaners, p. 5. Most of these settlers were drawn from the Netherlands.

- 33 - upon, such ascetic values (if indeed they existed in the population under consideration) may have been quickly discarded. Context will doubtless affect the relative power of the elements of Fuchs' s schema. In employing the Judaic values theory to explain differences between Jewish and non-Jewish political behaviour, the values of the particular non-Jewish group also need to be described and understood.

Challenges to Fuchs's thesis need to be kept in mind in considering the SA

Jewish response to apartheid, but we also need to contextualise the terms of value theories. Without contextualisation, we cannot assume that SA Jews are less liberal than the Jews of other Diasporas.

Historical Theories

Historical theories suggest that outside factors impacting on the Jewish group and its interests promote a liberal leaning among Jews. 89 Since the liberal side of the political spectrum in Europe supported Jewish emancipation and their right to equal citizenship, Jews developed and maintained an allegiance to the left.

Theories which see current Jewish sensibilities as being shaped by the particular experience of the Jewish people in the past have been criticised for ignoring the many contemporary forces also shaping Jewish political behaviour. The way Jews alter their support for political candidates according to the professed attitudes to

Israel of these candidates is just one example. It is also difficult to explain the transmission of political values through generations of Jews.90 Most damning is the observation that historical records do not support the central presumption of

89 Werner Cohn, "Jewish Political Attitudes - Their Background", Judaism, vol.8, no. 4, pp. 312- 322. 90 Lucy S. Dawidowicz, and Leon J. Goldstein, "The American Jewish Liberal Tradition", in The Jewish Community in America, ed. Marshall Sklare (New York: Behrman House, 1974).

- 34 - historical theorists that Jews since Emancipation have "had no choice but to be liberals. "91

It appears that the history of the Jews suggests an "imperative not to permit injustices to go unchallenged." 92 However, also reveals a tradition since medieval times of placating and honouring their Diaspora rulers. Harry

Schwarz observes that Jews historically have sought to "accommodate themselves to the whims and fancies, policies and dictates of a variety of rulers."In order to survive, they have frequently adopted a low profile, since "high profiles could

... rapidly change from prominence to ."93 I will contend later that it is this historical pattern that we see repeated in SA Jewish political behaviour under apartheid. But I will also suggest that this pattern should not be allowed to obscure an enduring Jewish liberalism.

The SA Jewish experience presents yet another obstacle to the historical thesis.

It alerts us to the failure of historical theorists to account for the variation in available expressions of political sensibilities in any given political context. Most theorists acknowledge that the nature of liberalism today is very different from that of Emancipation liberalism. 94 Although the varied political "styles" of different Diasporas has been noted, few theorists examine the changing way in which political attitudes are able to find expression in different historical

91 Levey, "The Liberalism of American Jews", p. 378. 92 Harry Schwarz, "Jewish Modes of Opposition", Jewish Affairs, (Autumn 1997), p. 27. 93 Ibid. 94 For example, Medding, "Towards a General Theory", p. 314. As a political theory, liberalism has always stood for limited and accountable government based on the rule of law, certain individual rights, and significant church-state separation. However, its policy interpretations and institutionalisation have changed over time, especially concerning state intervention in the economy and the ambit of individual rights. Whereas in the nineteenth century, states resisted intervening in the economy in the spirit of laissez-faire, by the early twentieth century liberals increasingly accepted that the state had a responsibility to alleviate economic inequalities. The state's involvement in the protection of the rights of minorities is also largely a twentieth century development, beginning in the aftermath of , and undergoing further elaboration in the last fifty years.

- 35 - contexts. 95 Democracy can take many forms, some of which allow greater political choice than others. A multi-party democracy in which all political options are represented obviously offers greater voting choice than one in which many political orientations are outlawed (as was the case in SA). Comparing Jewish political behaviour across different democracies and across time therefore requires caution.

While Jewish liberalism may indeed have endured through the ages, we cannot assume that it can be equally readily expressed in different contexts. We also cannot assume that liberalism can be measured in the same way that it was in earlier times. The importance of evaluating the measures assumed to indicate liberalism is crucial in restrictive environments such as SA where the context limits the range of available political options. The extent to which political expression reflects political sentiment is also affected by the range of legal political options on offer. In SA during the years of High apartheid, Jews (if indeed they had "no choice but to be liberal") had a restricted domain in which to express this compunction since many left-wing political parties were banned.

When we examine instances of overt liberal political behaviour in SA, we are not only gleaning political attitudes but also other factors such as "bravery" and

"risk-taking." This does not necessarily imply that historical experience has played no role in Jews' liberal predilection; it does mean, however, that liberal politics is not an equally viable option to politically actualise in every context, and so we need to be aware that how it is expressed may vary considerably across

95 Peter y. Medding, "Conclusion: Australian Jewish Politics in Comparative Perspective", in Jews and Australian Politics, ed. Geoffrey Brahm Levey and Philip Mendes (Brighton, Sussex: Academic Press, 2004). The advocacy-oriented mode of political action associated with American Jewish political behaviour can be contrasted with the "quieter" political styles of .

- 36 - contexts. And perhaps no better example of these dynamics and this caution is to be found than in assessing the situation of liberalism in SA.

Sociological Theories

Sociological theorists focus on the place of the Jew in a particular political environment. They consider the place of the Diaspora Jew in a predominately non-Jewish political environment. Status inconsistency, marginality and minority group status are concepts called upon to explain why Jews question, and often reject, the conservative status quo. It is usually this conservative element of society that imposes marginality and inferiority upon the Jews. In SA, however, the conservative status quo ensured that Jews remained part of the dominant

White culture. Unless terms such as "marginality" and "minority group status" are contextualised, sociological theories remain confusingly vague. The very notions of "minority" and "marginalisation" have a unique meaning in the South African context, and need to be defined and explored if sociological theories are to retain any explanatory value.

Critics of sociological theories take issue with the assumption that marginality and social discrimination necessarily promote liberal political responses. We still need to resort to a particular group's circumstances, values and experiences in order to predict the direction their response to marginalisation will take. Those who have been subject to oppression may seek the survival of their culture at any cost, and may develop indifference, rather than compassion, to other victims of oppression. 96 Naomi Cohen recounts the experience of German Jews arriving as

96 Stacey Kalish, "Dynasties of Denial: Apartheid South Africa", Australian , August 6, 2004, p. 17.

- 37 - ill-prepared and insecure migrants in the USA. As a result of their perceived marginality and previously experienced hardship they consciously rejected the possibility of an identifiably Jewish voice. 97 Instead, they adopted what could be seen as a politically neutral stance: one suggesting that Jews as a corporate body have no particular political preference. In many ways (to be discussed later), the

SA Jewish experience also evidences this attitude. Consideration of SA Jewish political behaviour needs, then, to take into account the possibility that a policy of political neutrality may reflect discomfort with being "different," rather than discomfort with liberalism. What looks like apathy may be a purposeful and considered act. Failure to express liberal ideals does not necessarily indicate failure to subscribe to those ideals. Hesitancy to confront the status quo may not reflect an indifference to the suffering of others. The experience of discrimination may indeed encourage liberal values, without necessarily encouraging liberal behaviour. We need to be wary of equating political actions and political values.

While marginality may indeed propel minority groups into political action, it cannot in itself predict the direction that action will take. Those who have experienced discrimination may even feel grateful that a group other than their own is the society's scapegoat. Levey suggests that "the direction or character of

(minority group) politics .. .is mediated by the cultural reservoir of the group itself."98 He cites Edgar Litt' s comparisons of the responses of migrant Irish

Catholics and American Jews encountering Protestant exclusivity. Both groups had previous experiences of hardship, yet their responses to marginality were very

97 Cohen, Dimensions ofAmerican Jewish Liberalism, p. 141. 98 Levey, "The Liberalism of American Jews", p. 86.

- 38 - different. 99 Their cultural and historical reservoir may also explain why, upon experiencing marginalisation, Jews retreat to a defensive position where they concentrate on combating prejudice and preventing possible discrimination rather than attacking the system instituting the marginalisation. A sense of social responsibility, engendered inter alia by their religious traditions, combined with sympathy for those experiencing discrimination, may have encouraged Jews to sublimate feelings of exclusion into various welfare initiatives rather than political action. Since the challenges to sociological theories emerging from Litt's study are concerned with political action (i.e. party affiliation) rather than political attitudes, his conclusions cannot be used in isolation to suggest that marginality itself does not necessarily lead to a liberal political orientation. We can only say that marginality does not necessarily translate into liberal political behaviour. If we consider together the various theories outlined above, we may have to conclude that, while their history and experience of discrimination may lead Jews toward a liberal political outlook, a propensity to take risk may be curtailed by the same history and experience of discrimination. While we cannot assume that marginality necessarily leads to liberalism, we cannot assume that failure to demonstrate liberal convictions necessarily implies that those convictions are absent.

Another problem with sociological theories relates to the nature and origin of the marginalisation itself, and is especially apparent in the SA context. SA Jews were not politically marginalised when apartheid was introduced in 1948, as they were included in the already numerically precarious White minority. Socially,

99 Ibid.

- 39 - however, they were kept on the margins of both Afrikaner and English circles. 100

They were viewed as uitlanders or foreigners by the Afrikaner. For English speaking, non-Jewish South Africans, the conventional British attitudes to Jews applied. 101 While their inconsistent status may account for the actions of many

Jewish opponents of apartheid, it does not seem to propel Jews uniformly in a particular political direction. 102 Those SA Jews who interfaced socially with

"ware Afrikaners" (real Afrikaners) in the platteland (countryside) were least likely to exhibit liberal political behaviour. Urban Jews (those interfacing with the

British or English speakers) were more likely to be liberal. 103 Since the direction taken by each Jewish subgroup seems different, we cannot cite marginalisation in isolation as an explanation of political action. Marginality theories are further challenged by the observation that, in SA, it was those Jews who perceived they were most embraced by the wider non-Jewish community (and thus those least marginalised) whose commitment to liberalism was greatest. 104 It seems that the political force of marginality depends on the particular group inflicting the marginalisation. This group may even be one's own. There is no doubt that for many liberal SA Jews their primary experience of social marginalisation occurred within Jewish circles. While they cannot be viewed as "non-Jewish Jews," many politically active liberal Jews felt some degree of ostracism from the Jewish group. 105 It cannot be asserted with any degree of certainty whether the marginalisation of politically liberal Jews from the broader Jewish community led

10°Kalish, Dynasties ofDenial, p. 16. 101 Shain, Roots ofAntisemitism in South Africa, p. 11. 102 Shimoni, Community and Conscience, p. 103. 103 Suttner, Interviews with South African Jewish Activists, p. 607. According to Suttner, platteland Jews (those living in rural communities) were more racist than their urban cousins. 104 Ibid. 105 Isaac Deutscher The Non-Jewish Jew and Other Essays (London: Oxford University Press, 1968). Both Colin Tatz (2007) and Immanuel Suttner ( 1997) refer to widespread marginalisation of Jewish activists by the Jewish group.

-40 - to, or resulted from, their political convictions. If anything, the SA story seems to suggest the circularity inherent in sociological arguments. Those who behave

"differently" in the group are marginalised and the more marginal they become, the more "differently" they behave. In the SA context, the corollary emerges that when individuals step outside the controlling parameters of a very cohesive organisational structure, they are freer to behave differently. They are less likely to be affected and controlled by mainstream preferences.

Many of the activists interviewed in Immanuel Suttner's major work Cutting

Through the Mountain consciously reject their links to the Jewish community.

None describes him/herself as religious. 106 Many Jews were involved in the apartheid struggle in an overt and "heroic" way. The , which was adopted as the basis for African National Congress (ANC) activity after 1955, was worded by the Jewish socialist . 107 Tatz alleges that "at the height of their activities Jewish institutions excoriated [these activists] denouncing them as unrepresentative of the community, as apostates who should be placed in herem." 108 According to Tatz, Jews such as First, Slovo, Wolpe and Bernstein were "denied their Jewish identity."109 It is difficult to establish whether their

Jewish identity was denied by the Jewish group, or rejected by the individuals concerned. Many of the early activists were Communists and, for them, religious affiliation was a dispensable burden. Their alienation from the Jewish group may have been self-imposed rather than the result of the judgment of the group.

106 Suttner, Cutting Through the Mountain. 107 Ross, A Concise History a/South Africa, p. 125. 108 Colin Tatz, "One-eyed Vision of the Apartheid Struggle," Australian Jewish News (August 29, 2003). 109 Ibid.

- 41 - Although Glenn Frankel maintains that for the Rivonia activists "Jewishness

[had] ceased to be a part of their identity," Suttner' s interviews suggest that this is not the case for all activists. 110 While some activists - for example, the socialist

Ray Alexander Simons - consider their Jewishness as, at best, irrelevant, there are many interviewees like Ina Perlman, who acknowledge the impact of Judaism on their political choices. 111 Frankel himself sees the activists' radicalism and alienation from Judaism as in itself part of a Jewish tradition; that the very act of rejection is only possible as a member of a "contentious and self-contradictory faith." 112 Frankel has suggested that Jewish radicals "didn't know what to make of their own backgrounds .... they simply didn't know how to process ... why it singled them out and what they owed to Jewish tradition and what, in tum, Jewish tradition owed to them."113

The interesting proposal that liberalism itself has become a source of Jewish identity emerges in part from marginalisation theses. Edward Shapiro sees a consistent commitment to political liberalism as the result of an enduring sense of marginality in the Jewish psyche. 114 Jonathon Woocher suggests that a Judaism based on religious laws and practices has been supplanted by a "civil religion."

This form of religious affiliation relies on Holocaust memory, support for the

State of Israel, as well as a commitment to social justice.

110 Kalish, Dynasties ofDenial. 111 Suttner, Cutting through the Mountain, pp. 404,412. . . . 112 Glenn Frankel, "The Road to Rivonia: Jewish Radicals and the Cost of Conscience m White South Africa", in Memories, Realities and Dreams: Aspects of the South African Jewish Experience, ed. Milton Shain and Richard Mendelsohn (Jeppestown: Jonathan Ball Publishers, 2000), p. 188. 113 Ibid. 114 Edward Shapiro, "Liberal Politics and American Jewish Identity," in Jewish_ Identity in the Postmodern Age: Scholarly and Personal Reflections, ed. Charles Selengut (Mmnesota: Paragon House, 1999).

-42 - Many Jews today describe their Jewish connection in terms of an incumbency to behave in a "socially just" manner. W oocher suggests that when other forms of

Jewish identification are less available or less attractive liberalism as a source of ' Jewish identity becomes more relevant. Many of the activists interviewed in

Cutting Through the Mountain cite a "Jewish imperative" to be liberal as both an inspiration and a justification for their political activities. 115 This form of Jewish identification had strong precedents in SA. The Jewish Democratic Association had been set up by Michael Szur in the 1950s with an anti-Zionist platform and the conviction that liberalism (rather than nationalism) was "intrinsic to

Jewishness." 116 The centrality of liberalism to Jewish identity was further espoused in the Zionist youth movements. Incidental socio-political exposure in socialist youth movements such as Habonim is acknowledged to have sparked the des1re . o f .many . activists to oppose apa rth e1.d . i 11

However, this does not necessarily imply that liberalism was a source of

Jewish identity in SA. Activists were no more committed to the other elements of a civil "Jewish" religion than were conservative Jews. One cornerstone of

Woocher's "civil religion" is the State of Israel. Many activists protested against

SA Jewish support for Israel (as a form of Jewish identity), and were scathing of

SA Jewry's concern with Israel rather than the problems of apartheid. 118 For

Woocher, the Holocaust is also an important component of a civil Jewish religion.

As mentioned before, most SA Jews were exposed to the Holocaust in a relatively restricted way since few survivors were accepted into SA after the war. SA

115 Suttner, See, especially, the reflections of Laurence Neill Nathan (p. 179) and Rabbi Ben Isaacson (p. 567). 116 Shimoni, Community and Conscience, p.197. 117 Ibid, pp. 92, 101, 117. . . . 118 See the criticism of SA Jewry by Anton Harber, m Suttner, Cuttmg Through the Mountain, p. 159.

-43 - activists were not affected more directly by the Holocaust than were other Jews.

None of Suttner's interviewees are themselves survivors. Ina Perlman is the daughter of a German-Jewish survivor and she refers to the Holocaust as a motivation for her activism rather than a form of Jewish identification. 119 Some activists see the Holocaust as a lesson for all mankind and not especially the

Jews_ 120

So for SA activists, "civil religious identification" (if indeed it exists) was not embraced in its entirety. Although Jewish activists may cite religious texts and historical precedents as justification for their liberalism, it does not appear that liberalism was a form of political action chosen in order to express their

Jewishness. 121 Woocher's suggestion that liberalism as a form of Jewish identification will be invoked by those Jews who remain unsatisfied by religious and historical connections makes sense. The least religious and most peripheral

Jews are those most likely to describe their link to the Jewish group in this way.

There is no reason, however, to assume that activists were less able to access other forms of Jewish identification than their less liberal co-religionists. The question thus remains: why do activists choose liberalism (if indeed they do) as their way of "being Jewish" when other ways of being Jewish are also on offer? In order to explain disproportionate Jewish liberalism in terms of Jewish identity, we still need to draw on other theories of Jewish liberalism, such as the Jewish values thesis and the historical explanations. Rather than being framed in Shapiro's or

Woocher's terms, we can refigure the connection between liberalism and Jewish identity in the SA context: the identification may be a justification for liberalism,

119 Suttner, Cutting Through the Mountain, p. 411. 120 Ibid, p. 185. 121 Ibid, p. 181.

-44 - rather than its impetus. Even if this detracts from the strength of Shapiro's and

Woocher's arguments, it is interesting that this particular Jewish imperative to be liberal is often cited in arguments between activists and Jewish organisations. 122

Many activists declared that only through an ongoing commitment to liberalism can the duty of the Jewish group as a people who have themselves suffered discrimination be discharged. Activists frequently tried to persuade the official

Jewish bodies to speak out against apartheid on the grounds that it was a Jewish responsibility to be seen to behave in a socially just way, as a light unto the nations or a kind of communal tikkun olam (Jewish imperative to "repair the wor ld") . 123

122 Ibid, p. 185. See also letters to the Editor, "Many were involved in the Apartheid Struggle", Australian Jewish News (Sydney Edition), August 29, 2003, p. 15. 123 Suttner, Cutting Through the Mountain, p. 179.

-45 - Chapter 4

Medding's Theory of Jewish Liberalism

Peter Medding disagrees with those who assert that Jews are enduringly and universally liberal. Observing Jewish political behaviour under different political circumstances, he concludes that "political liberalism (is merely) a particular variant of Jewish political behaviour, occurring only under specific historical and societal conditions, rather than a universal phenomenon." 1241n this chapter, I will examine how the various challenges to the Jewish values, historical, and sociological explanations of residual Jewish liberalism outlined above are met in

Medding's "political" explanation. Nevertheless, I will suggest that Medding's use of SA Jewish political behaviour to support his claim that Jews are not inherently liberal is ill founded.

Medding accounts for Jewish political behaviour in terms of the group's

"micro-political" concerns. While Jewish "macro-political" concerns underpin an interest in maintaining a "liberal or open society", Jews will respond primarily to

"the greatest perceived threat to Jewish micro-political interests." 125 Only once these interests are met will they seek to express their macro-political concerns.

They will prioritise as a political concern their own stability and security,

"irrespective of the nature of the regime" they must support to achieve this end. 126

Jewish liberalism, on this account, does not inhere in Jewish life or identity, but is merely circumstantial. Jews will oppose policies which they perceive as threatening their own micro-political interests, even if those policies are based on

124 Peter Medding, "Towards a General Theory", p. 313. 125 Ibid. 126 Ibid, p. 321.

-46 - liberal principles. Medding sees Jewish micro-political interests as fundamentally the same as those of any other ethno-religious minority group. Micro-political concerns include the survival of the group, the group's ability to function fully in society, its freedom to practice its religion and to pursue its economic interests.

These four micro-political concerns take precedence over Jewish macro-political concerns in the determination of political orientation. According to Medding, Jews will support the political group which represents the least threat to their micro­ political interests. Since the threat perceived by the Jews is dynamic, their political orientation will be subject to change and may not necessarily be liberal.

For Medding, therefore, Shimoni's conclusion that Jews in SA behaved no differently to other minority groups is to be expected. Apart from several context­ specific problems which will be dealt with later, Medding's theory explains much of what we observe in the SA Jewish record. In accordance with his theory, SA

Jews under apartheid prioritised as political concerns their own stability and security even though compliance with an illiberal regime was required in order to achieve this end. Medding predicts that in a regime such as apartheid SA, where

the dominant forces of order and stability are right-wing, authoritarian and racist the majority of Jews will support those more moderate and liberal forces permitted to exist [with] a significant element of support for the regime itself. [Jews will] not openly espouse or join in radical opposition to the dominant forces, and will, rather, remain silent or be acquiescent to the main contours of the regime, while separating themselves politically from the underclass. 127

While Shimoni's conclusion that SA Jews behaved just like any other minority group supports Medding's thesis, various aspects of the SA story can be cited to challenge Medding's explanation of Jewish liberalism.

127 Ibid, pp. 325-326.

-47 - For Medding, Jewish political interests are varied and unpredictable. Any event which Jews consider likely to affect their immediate "micro-political interests" is a source of perceived threat. Jewish responses, however, are not equally broadly defined. Only voting patterns and overt expressions of attitude are considered to capture Jewish political behaviour and to reflect Jewish political values. As I mentioned earlier (in Chapter 3), since context limits the domain of available political behaviours, many measures assumed to indicate liberalism become unreliable in restrictive environments such as SA. Medding fails to acknowledge and account for this difficulty. His assumption that political behaviour adequately reflects political values therefore warrants attention. I will argue later that when

"safe" political responses are restricted by circumstance (as they were in apartheid

SA), a broad range including less overt political actions should be used, in order to capture the political values of Jews.

Justification for Medding's conclusion that Jews are not "inherently liberal" is drawn from his study of Jewish political behaviour, not only in SA, but in other non-liberal and authoritarian societies. 128 He examines the case of the Jews of

Romania and Poland between the two World Wars, and suggests that "where the dominant political and social forces are moderately right-wing, Jews will support and co-operate with them rather than upset the status quo by strong open support for left-wing forces." 129 According to Medding, this will hold true when the moderate Right is antisemitic, as long as the extreme Right represents a greater threat to Jewry. This was the situation of the Jews of Poland and Romania between the World Wars. Medding distinguishes the position of the Jews in SA

128 Ibid, pp. 329 -337. 129 Ibid, p. 323.

-48 - from those of Eastern Europe on the grounds that, in SA, the dominant right-wing forces of order and stability were not "specifically anti-Semitic [but there was] an obvious incipient or potential, if not immediate threat ( of antisemitism) from both above and below."130 Under such conditions, he predicts, Jews will support the more moderate and liberal elements of legal political parties, as he suggests they do in SA. He states that there will also be "a significant element of support for the dominant forces of the regime itself, which will tend to increase as long as the threat to Jewry remains incipient or becomes less apparent, or if the threat from below begins to loom larger." 131

Jews will also behave differently in authoritarian regimes when the antisemitism of the ruling party is "overt" rather than "incipient." Medding assumes that the dominant forces in apartheid SA were not overtly antisemitic.

Accordingly, he predicts that SA Jews would have tended to support "those more mo d erate ... po 1itlca. · l 1orcess:: permitte• d to exist.· ,, 132

Medding describes regimes according to their declared or overt antisemitism, rather than according to the antisemitism perceived to exist by the Jewish subjects of the regime. This is confusing. Since Medding stresses perceived rather than professed threat as the determinant of political behaviour, we would expect him to discriminate between regimes accordingly. Therefore, in order to predict how

Jews would behave politically under a particular authoritarian regime, Medding should establish how antisemitic the Jews living under the regime perceive those in power to be.

130 Ibid, p. 325. 131 Ibid, p. 326. 132 Ibid, p. 325.

-49 - Medding's assumption that the "real" and "perceived" antisemitism of a regime are directly related is questionable. Jews have at times pragmatically

"underplayed" the antisemitism of those who govern them, with devastating consequences. On the other hand, their history may have made Jews today hyper­ sensitive to threat. They may exaggerate the threat of antisemitism, and perceive it where it does not exist. We cannot therefore assume that Jewish "perceptions" of threat are directly related to any "real" measure of antisemitism.

In any event, it is difficult to establish the degree and nature of antisemitism associated with any particular regime since it can be overt or covert. Even if the

Afrikaner regime was not "officially" as antisemitic during apartheid as it had been in the 1930s, many Jewish South Africans alive during the apartheid era

(especially the period of High apartheid) would remember this uglier time only too well, and their perceptions of threat would be shaped accordingly. SA Jewish political behaviour might then reflect this perception, rather than any current

"reality" that Medding might use to differentiate regimes.

In fact, Medding's assumption that the dominant right-wing forces in apartheid

South Africa were not overtly antisemitic has been challenged, most notably by

Milton Shain. 133 If we assume - contrary to Medding's supposition but in accordance with Shain's observations - that the apartheid regime was moderately and overtly antisemitic, we are led to apply a different set of predictions for the

SA context than those implied by Medding's framework. Medding suggests that when the regime in power is moderately but overtly antisemitic, Jews "will support and cooperate with them rather than upset the status quo by strong open support for left-wing forces." Although this is the formula Medding uses to

133 Shain, Roots ofAntisemitism in South Africa, p. 142.

- 50 - explain the political behaviour of the Jews of antisemitic Eastern Europe, it also works in the SA context. The result is more satisfactory.

While Shain's re-assessment of the antisernitism of the apartheid regime allows us to apply Medding's framework more successfully, it also exposes various limitations. First, since Medding focuses on "perceived threat" as the determinant of political Jewish behaviour in different countries, it seems inconsistent to use official postures or even "real" antisernitism (if this could indeed be gauged) to decide which of his different predictive tools to apply. Their particular experience may have led the Jews to see the Diaspora as a universe of multiple threats: they may perceive some threats which do not exist in any real sense and indeed ignore some that do. Perceptions of threat are likely to vary according to a multitude of factors, not only the nature of the regime. It may be difficult to accurately establish the threat perceived by the Jews from a particular quarter in any situation.

Secondly, it also becomes apparent, upon examination of the SA Jewish story, that Medding's predictions are not always accurate. As outlined above, Medding attempts to explain Jewish political behaviour in terms of perceived threats from

"above" and "below." In SA, as far as the threat from below is concerned, "the majority Black population - including Coloureds and Indians - never focused specifically on the Jews when articulating grievances." 134 This is not to say that the large Black majority did not represent a significant threat to Jewish micro­ political interests, most obviously their economic concerns. Without listing them, there were obviously many economic advantages associated with the maintenance

134 Ibid, p. 5.

- 51 - of the apartheid regime for the Jews, who formed part of the empowered White minority. The question then arises: how do Jews weigh up different threats?

Medding does not explain this process. His framework predicts political behaviour on the assumption that threats presented by different sides of the political spectrum are easily measured and compared. However, in the SA context, the threats perceived from different quarters were very different in nature and likelihood. Even more confusingly, threats from opposing quarters may have led to the same outcome. From above, Jews were threatened by the unleashing of

"incipient" antisemitism which could affect their economic and social security.

From below, they were threatened by the potential for violence and civil disorder which would also threaten their economic and social security. It is unhelpful to suggest that Jews respond to the greatest perceived threat to Jewish micro-political interests, without explaining the way in which Jews compare perceived threats and, accordingly, construct their responses.

Also, Medding fails to account for the difference cited earlier between the political behaviour of country Jews and city Jews. Since country Jews lived more closely amongst Afrikaners, it is likely that, as Shimoni suggests, "their perceived vulnerability to defamation, ostracism, and overt hostility far exceeded that of

Jews in South Africa's major cities."135 Medding's prediction that Jews will respond in a direction opposite to that from which the greatest threat emerges does not explain the difference observed between Jewish political behaviour in the cities and the platteland. 136 Although Jews in the platteland were more exposed to

135 Shimoni, Community and Conscience, p. 270. . . 136 The term platteland (literally, the flat land) is used to descnbe rural areas m the heartlands _of South Africa which are similar to the American prairies. Towns of the platteland are rural, with very small white communities, often dominated by Afrikaners.

- 52 - and therefore more susceptible to threat from the Afrikaner Right than were urban

Jews, country Jews were far more likely to support the Right and also generally far less liberal in their attitudes. 137

When events during the apartheid era are closely examined, it seems that

Medding's predictions are not always accurate. The political behaviour of the

Jews during the period of political agitation and unprecedented strain between SA and the State of Israel in the early 1960s is a contentious case. Medding, along with other theorists, acknowledges the importance of Israel in Diaspora life.

According to Medding, the safety and security of the State of Israel is central to

Jewish micro-political interests in the Diaspora. Jewish concerns about group survival extend to "the security of majority existence, and the [capacity] to defend

Jewish survival." 138 For Medding, Jews not only react to perceived threats to their own confined Jewish group; the attitudes of political parties and politicians toward the distant State of Israel will also affect Jewish political choices. Jews will react to any threat they perceive likely to affect their existence as a nation, including the

Jewish people represented by the State of Israel. Medding asserts that "as a general rule .... where there is support for Israel on one side, and opposition to it on the other, Jewish voters will be under strong pressure to register their support of

I srae l m. t h e1r. votmg. pre1erence.~ ,,]39

On this basis, Medding attempts to account for Jewish political changes across the Diaspora in the first half of the 1970s. For example, Australian Jewish votes in

197 4 and 197 5, suggest an apparent Jewish shift to the Right in the absence of any increased overt antisemitism encountered "at home." Thus, he attributes increased

137 Suttner, Interviews with South African Jewish Activists, P· 607. 138 Medding, "Towards a General Theory", p. 317. 139 Ibid, p. 340.

- 53 - Jewish to the fear that the Left would be less sympathetic to Israel than the Right. In contrast, French Jews at this time moved in the opposite direction. Medding attributes this shift to 's open withdrawal of support for Israel. The direction of each shift is less relevant to Medding's proposal than the fact that it occurs: Jews are seen to shift their support from the side that does not favour Israel, to increasingly support the side that does.

From before the establishment of the State of Israel until the end of the apartheid era, except for a period in the 1960s, interaction between the SA and

Israel was extremely cordial and the Nationalist Party was supportive in its approach to the Jewish state. The reasons for this unusual political stance by a right-wing government are many and varied, some of which were explored above.

What is relevant, here, is that until the early 1960s, opposition to the State of

Israel had seldom been expressed by the Right in South Africa. This was to change dramatically in October 1961, when the United Nations (UN) proposed a motion censuring the SA Foreign Minister as part of an increasingly vocal anti­ apartheid campaign launched by various African states. 140 Perhaps in an attempt to align itself with African powers, the State of Israel supported the censure motion.

Apart from Holland, all other Western states abstained. Extreme condemnation of

Israel's "betrayal" ensued in SA. Minister Eric Louw challenged SA Jews to show their support for SA and to condemn Israel, citing a number of Dutch immigrant organisations who had criticized Holland's actions.

140 Shimoni, Jews and Zionism, pp. 305-326. The particular Minister, Eric Louw, was a ~oto_rious anti-Semite who saw Jews as "an alien, unassimilable race" and had vocally expresse_d ~1s views before the Nationalist Party came to power. See also, Colin Tatz, Peter Arnold and G1lhan Heller, Worlds Apart: The Re-Migration ofSouth African Jews (Rosenberg, Dural, 2007), p. I 03.

- 54 - When the State of Israel took the additional step of voting for the introduction of sanctions against SA to protest against apartheid, the furore escalated. The apartheid government withdrew its customary permission for the transfer of gift funds collected by South African Jews to the Jewish Agency in Israel, a ruling that was enforced until the Six Day War in 1967. 141 A private letter from the SA Prime

Minister to a member of the Jewish community was published in the press. It tried to link the SA Jewish community to the actions of the State of Israel, and was judged to contain "threatening innuendo's ... in a tone uncomfortably reminiscent of National Party statements in the anti-Semitic era of the 1930's and I 940's."142

It included the observation "that during the last election so many Jews had favoured the Progressive party and so few the Nationalist Party."143

The antagonism between the State of Israel and SA occurred at a time of increasing political agitation against the apartheid regime. The high number of

Jews involved in anti-apartheid movements had been noted during the earlier

Treason Trial, and it had been pointed out that many "Jewish-sounding names" featured prominently amongst those see kmg. d . to h un ermme apart e1'd . 144 M any articles with antisemitic overtones appeared in the official NP media. Jewish loyalty to SA was repeatedly questioned, and editorials such as the one headed

"Where does the Jew stand in the White struggle for survival?" raised the age-old question. f . o Jew1s h a 11 egiance.. 145

According to Medding's general theory of perceived threat, when a political quarter becomes critical of the State oflsrael or increasingly antisemitic, Jews will

141 Auerbach, "Do We Apologise?", p. 51. 142 Shimoni, Jews and Zionism, p. 311. 143 Ibid. 144 Shimoni, Community and Conscience, p. 62. 145 Shimoni, Jews and Zionism, p. 234.

- 55 - move politically in the opposite direction. 146 This would be true unless parties in the opposite direction are even more strongly antisemitic and anti-Israel. 147 It does not seem that the threat to SA Jewish micro-political interests from below increased as a result of the conflict between the SA government and the State of

Israel. If anything, a "Black" threat would have diminished when the apartheid government, in their criticism of the Jews, publicised the high number of Jews on the side of Black activists. 148 The threat from above, however, was certainly increased as we have seen above. Also, when SA Jewry did not persuade the State of Israel to change her stance in the UN, the Afrikaner government started strictly applying the foreign exchange regulations it had previously been lax about with regard to Zionist groups sending money to Israel. 149 According to Medding, support for a regime should increase as the threat it presents to Jewry becomes less apparent, or as the threat from below becomes greater. Yet in the face of decreased threat from "below," and increased antisemitism and criticism of the

State of Israel from "above," Jews did not diminish their support of the apartheid regime in line with Medding's prediction: if anything, they attempted to mollify their critics by discouraging overt Jewish support of the Blacks "below."

Official Jewish responses at the time of the Louw incident reflected a vigorous attempt by the Jewish group to distance itself from the activism of individual

Jews. Official voices "laboriously reiterate[d] that the Jewish community ... cannot

146 Medding, "Towards a General Theory", p. 326. Even ifwe accept (with reservations) the now challenged view of the Apartheid regime as not specifically antisemitic, we see that Medding suggests that Jews will generally demonstrate "a significant element of support for the dominant forces of the (right-wing) regime itself, which will tend to increase as long as the threat to Jewry remains incipient or becomes less apparent, or if the threat from below begins to loom larger." 147 In this case, this threat would emerge from SA 's Black population, according to Medding's "above and below" classification system. . . 148 Goldberg, Profile ofa Community, p. 69. According to Goldberg, Bl~ck South Afnca~s d!d. not present any "antisemitic threat" since "there is virtually no evidence, aside_ fr~m cases of md1v1dual resentment, of there ever having been anti-Semitism among the country's md1genous black people. Certainly, never on an organised basis." 149 Ibid, p. 36.

- 56 - adopt any political line."150 Various spokesmen for the community stated that the actions of some Jews should not be confused with those of all Jews. 151

'Troublemakers', such as the Communist MP Sam Kahn, had in earlier times been disparaged, and accused of caring more about Blacks than they did for their own people. Now that trouble was in the air, activists were once again accused of

. · · 152 · mc1tmg. . . ant1sem1ttsm. In a move designed to appease the apartheid regime, the

South African Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD), together with the Zionist

Federation, formulated a statement which emphasised its official platform of political neutrality and "obliquely" criticised the State of Israel for curtailing

Louw's freedom of speech. 153

Medding does not explain how a Jewish political response is formulated when two micro-political interests are served in incompatible ways. In the Louw example above, SA Jews had to choose between two opposing Jewish micro­ political interests (to use Medding's terms): their own safety and their support of the State of Israel. In the event, SA Jews, officially represented by the SAJBD, prioritised their own safety. The official Jewish response reflected, according to

Shimoni, widespread Jewish conformity to white South African norms, and the fear that Afrikaner nationalist antisemitism would be unleashed on the Jewish community. While acknowledging that Jewish groups abroad wanted the Board to express a 'Jewish point of view' on apartheid, the SAJBD declared that "South

African Jews owe political allegiance to the Republic of South Africa alone."154

Ultimately however the SAJBD's decision (to appease SA at Israel's expense) ' ' failed to satisfy either side. Their discomfort with expressing opposition to

150 Shimoni, Community and Conscience, p. 63. . . . . 151 Suttner, Interviews with South African Jewish Activists, pp. 280, 327 (mterv1ews with Ronme Kasrils and Arthur Chaskelson). 152 Suttner, Interviews with South African Jewish Activists, p. 599. 153 Ibid, p. 47 154 Shimoni, Jews and Zionism, p. 335.

- 57 - apartheid and their failure to support Israel's attack on the apartheid regime was criticised by Jews abroad. Their failure to publicly condemn Israel's stance against

SA was criticised at home.

The circumstances surrounding the Louw incident provide further evidence that it is difficult to establish with any degree of accuracy a group's perceptions, and indeed comparisons, of threat, yet this is required for Medding's explanation to work. We may say that Jews perceived as a very real possibility that conflict between the State of Israel and SA would unleash the latent antisemitism they had long recognized in the Afrikaner. We may also say that since the Afrikaner had shown such admiration for and allegiances with the Jews throughout their time in

SA, Jews perceived it to be less likely that punitive measures would be applied if they did not toe the apartheid line. 155

As an aside, it is interesting to note that SA Jewish reactions to threat do not seem to be affected by numerical and financial strength. 156 If we look at demographic records, we see that when Jews constituted the smallest minority in

SA, official SA Jewish criticism of apartheid increased. 157 In 1960, Jews were strong numerically and economically in SA, yet they chose to mollify their critics.

In 1980 Jews constituted only 2.6 per cent of the White population, a decrease resulting from large scale emigration. However, it was at this time that the SAJBD first officially adopted a critical stance against apartheid. The emergence of a political voice may not be related to any real measure of the numerical or

155 Suttner, Interviews with South African Jewish Activists, pp. I 83- I 84. For example, in _t~e testimonies of Jewish activists, reference is often made to the knowledge that Jewish act1v1sts would not suffer the same severe punishments as Black activists. 156 Kaplan, Jewish Roots in the South African Economy, PP· 390-391. 157 Dubb, Jewish Population ofSouth Africa, P· 8.

- 58 - economic strength of the community. The group's perception of strength may be as important (and as unpredictable) as its perception of threat.

For Medding's theory to provide an understanding of Jewish political behaviour, he needs to explain how Jews compare the likelihood of different threats. I would suggest that their historical and cultural experience has led the

Jewish people to perceive certain kinds of threats as more likely to eventuate and thus more dangerous than others. Medding does not consider the possibility of some level of "priming" in his explanation of Jewish political behaviour. This is not only relevant for the application of his thesis in SA, but in all diaspora Jewish communities.

If we are to understand political behaviour, we cannot look only at the direction it takes: Jews have options beyond turning "Left" or "Right" when they respond to any threat. They can combat the threat, limit the extent to which it can be exercised, or they can comply with the demands of those posing the threat. For example, when the SAJBD detected antisemitism in the SA media during WWII, it responded with retaliatory comments and the establishment of a body responsible for "civic defence" on the local Jewish scene. 158 Yet, two decades later, when it detected antisemitism in the media (in the wake of the aforementioned Louw incident), the Board responded by harnessing its members.

Medding fails to explain why in certain situations of perceived discrimination

Jews are outspoken, while in others they comply with expectations in order to avoid repercussions.

158 Shimoni, Community and Conscience, p. 16. A "9 Point Pr~gra~e"_to c_ombat antisemitis~ was announced at the SAJBD congress in May 1945. As an aside, ed1to~als m th': years foll~wm~ (until the election of the Nationalists) recommended that Jews "take as hberal a view as possible.

- 59 - In addition to threats perceived to affect the Jews from opposite sides of the political spectrum - from above and below in Medding's terms - we should also acknowledge the threats to Jews which emerge from within the group itself. Each

Jewish group in the Diaspora has its own modus operandi and we can identify in the SA situation ways in which the Jewish community was able to control and shape the political behaviour of its members. Uninhibited Jewish political participation was therefore not only restricted in SA by the punitive apartheid regime, but also by internally enforced restrictions. Once again the position of the individual Jew vis-a-vis the group was, as is so often the Jewish condition, ambivalent. On the one hand, while stressing in the mid-1970's that the SAJBD did not see itself as a "collective" participant in the political landscape, Arthur

Suzman (chairman of the Board's public relations arm) urged Jews as individuals to exercise their own political voices. He suggested that each Jew, in his particular sphere of activity, should behave in a "liberal, just and compassionate" manner." 159 On the other hand, Jews were frequently warned about the dangers of the punitive action that would be unleashed on the Jewish group, if Jews were seen to be too critical of the apartheid regime. Anti-apartheid action was officially presented by official Jewish bodies as not only dangerous, but futile. Since the

National Party had come to power with an overwhelming majority in 1948, and only relinquished that power in the early 1990s, this fearful "spin" was easily substantiated. The longevity of the regime was, in many ways, self-perpetuating: from its early days in power, the government had the numbers in Parliament to pass, without effective protest, a vast array of laws aimed at preventing any meaningful opposition. Its long reign also gave the NP the psychological "clout"

159 Shimoni, Community and Conscience, p. 134.

- 60 - to create an atmosphere in which opposition was fraught with danger and often ineffectual.

Perceived threat can be different for Jewish individuals as against the Jewish group. While the debates of the SAJBD often reflect a fear of government disapproval, Jewish activists assumed that, as Jews, they were less likely than

Black activists to be severely punished if apprehended. 160 It has been noted before

(and will be further discussed in the following chapter) that Jewish activists were marginalised by the SA Jewish group. When a group is cohesive (as Jews were in

SA), it is well positioned to marginalise dissenting members. Therefore, in some ways, the group itself can threaten the micro-political interests of its members - in

Medding's schema, interests such as the survival of the group, the group's ability to function fully in society, their freedom to practice their religion and their economic interests. For individual group members, these interests can be affected by their own group and not only by the wider community. If the Jewish group disapproves of an individual's action, it may be difficult for him/her to function fully in Jewish society and to freely participate religiously with other Jews.

The vanous ways m which Jewish individuals were punished, or became estranged, for expressing views considered likely to endanger the community are detailed in both Suttner's and Shimoni's work. 161 While the SAJBD maintained that although it "never protested as a body, it did not oppose individuals or bodies who did," according to Shimoni, activists were "shunned by most Jews, ignored by Jewish organisations, and sidelined by the Jewish press," even before government-imposed banning orders made it illegal to meet with or quote

160 Suttner Interviews with South African Jewish Activists, PP· 183-184. 161 Shimo~i, Community and Conscience, p.106; also, Suttner, Interviews with South African Jewish Activists, pp. 230, 280, 421.

- 61 - • • 162 B h ff activists. aruc 1rson recalls "the frosty reception [and] dressing down"

Jewish activist detainees received from an Orthodox Rabbi. Detainees were reminded that they were "a disgrace to Jewry [and] disreputable." 163 In SA, political activists and apartheid collaborators were not the only Jews susceptible to community restraint. Orthodox Rabbi Benzion Isaacson expressed his frustration with the restrictions imposed by the Jewish community:

It is my personal conviction that a society based on racial discrimination is immoral [and] while we are told, on the one hand, that a rabbi is free to discuss and even criticise the South African scene from the pulpit, my experience has pointed to the exact opposite trend. Criticism of racial discrimination ... leads to outcries of... "endangering the Jewish community" ... On the other hand, those ... who defend the existing society are not accused of[ such] crimes. 164

Obviously, the actions of individual members have the power to affect the micro-political interests of their group. Jews seem to be particularly aware of this, in their frequent and widespread insistence on presenting a "united front." The members of Jewish groups are not solely at the mercy of external forces in the exercise of their political will. The group itself can affect the micro-political interests of its individual constituents, through marginalisation and other strategies.

In summary, Medding looks at Jewish political behaviour in many countries and, on the basis of observed behaviour, suggests that Jews are not universally liberal. In the first paragraph of "Towards a General Theory of Political Interests and Behaviour," Medding refers to the "conventional wisdom about Jewish political behaviour, [that] Jews ... have been consistently liberal or left in their

162 Shimoni, Community and Conscience, p. I 06. 163 Ibid. 164 Ibid, p. 46.

- 62 - political responses and attitudes." 165 While he subsequently notes the ambiguity of the Left/Right distinction and the difficulty in determining the indices of liberal behaviour, he does not justify his conflation of political behaviour and political attitudes. 166 The SA Jewish experience strongly suggests that observable political behaviour may provide only limited insight into political attitudes. Before he can cite the SA Jewish response to apartheid in support of his claim that Jews are not universally liberal, Medding needs to show that Jewish political action under apartheid was a true reflection of the group's political attitudes.

As I suggested at the outset of this thesis, we need to examine our assumption that as emancipated citizens in the Diaspora, Jews can and do participate in an uninhibited manner in political life. The SA Jewish experience cautions against this assumption. Externally and internally generated pressures need to be considered before we can judge the degree of correlation between political values and political behaviour in SA and elsewhere. Medding focuses on external pressures affecting political behaviour, but internally generated pressures also need to be considered. It follows that when the political context inhibits political behaviour, it is less likely that observed political behaviour accurately represents the individual's or the group's political values and beliefs. We readily accept this phenomenon when voting does not occur by private ballot. 167 It may also be applied to official "public" voices. Political context may, indeed, have made it unwise for Jews to object to apartheid, as Medding suggests. It is risky, in light of this observation, to infer what Jews felt about apartheid from what they did about apartheid.

165 Medding, "Towards a General Theory", p.313. 166 Ibid, p. 314. . . . ·1 bi 167 BBC World News coverage elections in Chad, Zambw, and Nigeria, avai a e news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/2454825.stm, accessed 5 June, 2007.

- 63 - Chapter 5

Political Behaviour and Political Values

The assumption that political values can be readily extrapolated from political behaviour is one of the major problems associated with Medding's account of

Jewish liberalism. As far as SA political behaviour is concerned, Medding's predictions on the basis of "perceived threat" may very well be a useful explanatory tool. 168 As far as SA Jewish political values are concerned, the utility of his theory is limited. It is unreasonable to expect that Jews (or any group) would freely express their political values in the face of perceived threat (which

Medding acknowledges to be strong enough to shape political behaviour).

Political behaviour and political values, then, need to be studied separately. It may be true that the political liberalism of Jews is merely a particular variant of Jewish political behaviour, "occurring only under specific .... conditions, rather than a universal phenomenon."169 This does not necessarily refute the conventional wisdom that a commitment to liberal values is a general, if not universal, Jewish phenomenon. The relationship between Jewish political behaviour and Jewish political attitudes may be more complex than is commonly assumed.

This caution is especially relevant when we attempt to use official Jewish political behaviour to portray the political values of the group members. The official voice of the SA Jews was that of the Jewish Board of Deputies. According to Schwarz,

Generally speaking, throughout its history, _the South African _Board of Deputies has taken a conservative approach, m large measure owmg to the

168 The proviso that intrinsic pressures also affect political actions, and therefore need to be considered, has been examined earlier. 169 Medding, "Towards a General Theory", p. 313.

- 64 - construction_ of it~ constitution, the influence of the cliques that have run it for most of its existence, a general disapproval of those who rock the boat and the influence - exercised behind the scenes - of large donors to th~ Jewish community. 170

The actions of the SAJBD during the apartheid era may tell us more about

Jewish political sagacity than they reveal about Jewish political conviction. They should serve as a warning to those who cite the SA Jewish story as a refutation of a Jewish proclivity for liberal values.

At various points during the apartheid era, the Board was harangued by liberal members of the community - among them Julius Lewin and Ronald Segal - to speak out against the apartheid regime, and to argue for the establishment of a democratic multi-racial society. The Board was also repeatedly urged by various members of the community to shift its focus away from issues particular to the

Jewish group in SA, such as the State of Israel, and look at issues confronting the group as White South Africans. 171 The Board consistently refused to comply with these requests, but not on the grounds that such statements would necessarily fail to represent the attitudes of its members. Rather, the Board argued that "there is no justification for dragging the Jewish community as such into the political arena." 172

On the other hand, the Board was also, at times, urged by the NP government to express its support for apartheid. Official Jewish representatives proudly recorded the Board's resistance to "taking the bait of endorsing the Government" and "its racial policies"173 The Board's failure to officially endorse apartheid was

170 Schwarz, "Jewish Modes of Opposition", p. 29. 171 Goldberg, Profile ofa Community: South African Jewry: ~r3?, 46. . . 172 Joseph Lelyveld, "SA Jews maintain silence on Apartheid , m Chapters.from South African History, Jewish and General, ed. Nathan Berger (Johannesburg: Kayor, 1982), P- 35. 173 Ibid.

- 65 - interpreted in some Afrikaner quarters as endorsement for the liberal end of the

SA political spectrum: Die Burger believed that the Board was merely giving the

Jew "permission to support any party he chose ... as long as it's not the National Party."174

While the political role adopted by the Board appears to have changed during apartheid, closer examination suggests that this is not necessarily so. At the start of the apartheid era, in 1949, the Chairman of the Board's executive council Mr ' S. Kuper, declared that

The Board of Deputies takes no part whatever in the party political struggle .... The Board is concerned only to protect the Jewish community against discrimination. The position of the individual Jew is, of course, entirely different. As a citizen it is both his right and his duty to play his part in the political life of his country. 175

This declaration became the long-standing leitmotif of the organised SA

Jewish community - that there was not, and should not be, a "Jewish vote" on controversial matters of national policy, except "where the rights and status of

Jews themselves may be directly threatened. "176 Racial policies would only warrant an official response if they were directed at the Jewish group. Over the years of apartheid, the Board repeatedly denied that it could speak politically for the Jewish people, protesting that Jews, like their fellow South Africans, held diverse political views. In the 1960s, the Board insisted that its purpose was to ensure Jewish survival, and not to challenge evil. 177 Declaring that it took no part in "the party-political struggle" and that the political domain was beyond its province, it reiterated that its only concern was the protection of "the Jewish

174 Shimoni, Community and Conscience, p. 24. 175 Goldberg, Profile ofa Community, p. 54. 176 Berger, "SA Jews maintain silence on Apartheid", P- 38. 177 Frankel, "The Road to Rivonia", p. 194.

- 66 - community against discrimination or any interference with their rights as citizens." The Board urged each Jew to exercise his or her political rights and duties in SA "in terms of his own viewpoint and party affiliation. " 178 In 1964, the

Board declared that the very idea of directing Jews to support any political program was "without justification."179

It was not until much later in the apartheid era, as the apartheid regime became less 'verkrampte' and relations between SA and the State of Israel improved, that the Board started to direct its members to act in a particular political manner. 180

In the early 1980s, the SAJBD's leadership advocated that the Board should

"cease conceiving of itself purely as a Jewish defence body and passive reflector of the Jewish public," and instead "assume the role of interpreting the Jewish conscience of the community, and of leading and shaping Jewish opinion." 181 In

June 1980, Arthur Suzman, Q.C. warned that

when the voice of legitimate protest goes unheeded, bombs will be heard ..... to confine our attention exclusively to specific Jewish problems is to lose sight of the far wider issues in which whether we like it or not we are immediately and intimately involved. 182 While not directly confronting the apartheid government, the Board urged "all concerned, particularly members of our own community, to co-operate in securing the immediate amelioration and ultimate removal of all unjust discriminatory laws and practices. based on race, cree d 1or co our. ,,]83

178 Shimoni, Jews and Zionism, p. 210. Simon Kuper, Chairman of the Executive Council was cited in SAJBD report dated May, 1949. 179 Frankel, Memories, Realities and Dreams, p. 194. . . 180 'Verkrampte' is an Afrikaans term, translating roughl_y as n_arrow, stnct and unenlightened. Its antonym is 'verligte. 'The gradual change in the Apartheid regime, from ~erkrampte to verhgte, also corresponds roughly with the movement from High to Low Apartheid. 181 Shimoni, Community and Conscience, p. 137. . ,, 182 Lelyveld, "SA Jews maintain silence on Apartheid , P· 39. 183 Lelyveld, "SA Jews maintain silence on Apartheid", P· 40.

- 67 - Only in the mid- 1980's did official Jewry begin to confront the apartheid government more directly. The Jewish press published a number of previously taboo statements. In an official capacity, the Board expressed opposition to Black pass law arrests, and to detention without trial. 184 The Board's congress, in 1987, declared that " is the principle cause of political violence in South Africa [and that] apartheid and racial prejudice are in complete contradiction to the teachings of Judaism."185

These changing statements cannot be cited to suggest that the SAJBD dramatically shifted its role during the apartheid era. The declarations of the

Board reflect a perennial argument as to the role of leadership in directing political action. Is the function of the Jewish official body to protect the Jewish group or to lead the members of the group toward greater good? At times, these roles may conflict. Many argue that those in the position to influence action, such as religious leaders, should initiate and encourage morally appropriate actions for group members. Others think leaders should be responsible only for representing constituent's wishes. The intertwining of politics and morality has always been a vexed issue. It is especially so for the Jews. Jews are both a religious and an ethnic community. Their political traditions may reflect not only their religious values and practices, but also their particular history. 186

Those elected or appointed to represent the Jews often lobby on the group's behalf, to ensure the preservation of the group. While this pattern is seen in many

. . . fi h J 187 minority groups, it can be traced back to pre-emancipation times or t e ews.

184 Ibid. 185 Shimoni, Community and Conscience, p. 138. 186 Seltzer, Jewish People, Jewish Thought, Part 4. 187 Ibid, p. 541.

- 68 - Although it may have evolved over time, the tradition of a small number of Jews mollifying the ruler of the land in which they live seems to have persevered. We have seen that for most of the apartheid era the SAJBD remained resolute in its refusal to express a political voice, on the grounds that its primary function was to ensure the well-being of the Jews in SA. Yet, in the 1980s, it embraced its duty to direct Jewish opinion. It seems unlikely that the Board decided to forgo its custodial role in order to "lead and shape" Jewish behaviour. Rather than re­ describing its job, the Board may have realised, thanks to well-honed Jewish

"antenna," that it was becoming necessary to challenge to the evils of apartheid precisely in order to secure the future well-being of the Jewish group in SA. As

Isaiah Berlin observed, "Jews [as a permanent minority] have ... been forced to study the majority with great care in order to survive ... Hence, the fantastic overdevelopment of their faculties for detecting trends."188

The political sagacity of a "united front" became increasingly questionable as the end of apartheid approached. The Board may have recognised that those Jews who had objected to apartheid in the past needed to be embraced. The Jewish record needed, at this time, to be diverse rather than united. From the way in which Jews now champion their participation in the anti-apartheid struggle, it seems that the Board correctly realised that it was in the interests of the survival of the Jewish community in a changing SA to begin expressing more liberal views and displaying a greater diversity of opinion. It seems, therefore, that the Board's statements throughout the apartheid era were fundamentally consistent with its traditionally accepted role, and may have no direct relationship with the political attitudes of its members. If the aim of official Jewish representation is to ensure

188 Joseph Dorinson, "Jewish Politics: The Art of Survival", in America's Ethnic Politics, ed. Joseph Roucek and Bernard Eisenberg (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1982), P- 240.

- 69- the group's safety and security, the political actions adopted may not reflect the core political values of the group.

It is more likely that the changing pronouncements of the SAJBD at this time reflect a change in what the Board judged to be in the best interests of Jewish well-being, and not necessarily a change in the political convictions of the group or its members. We should not rely simply on the group's public statements to gauge the Jewish community's political values. Referring to the early apartheid era, Schwarz acknowledges that "the silence of the officially elected representatives of the South African Jewish community was deafening ... whatever might have been the attitude of individual South African Jews."189 The pitfalls of relying on official "Jewish voices" as a barometer of Jewish opinion are well illustrated in SA, and also in a recent incident elsewhere in the Diaspora.

Commenting on Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's proposed disengagement plan for the West Bank, Arye Mekel, Israeli Consul-General in the U.S. stated that

"American Jews largely support ....the realignment plan .... and those who don't will be kept quiet so that the global Jewish community can maintain a united front." 190 While a "united front" may be advantageous to those lobbying on behalf of the Jewish group, it can make it difficult to access the diversity of the group's political values.

A similar problem applies in relation to the pronouncements of Jewish religious leaders as an indicator of the Jews' political orientation. Presumably, the imperatives of presenting a "united Jewish front" in SA are no less important here.

As noted, activism by individual Jews was discouraged and suppressed by the

189 Schwarz, "Jewish Modes of Opposition", p. 28. 190 Gal Beckerman, Jerusalem Post, June 15, 2006, P· 6.

- 70 - official SA Jewish community. Religious leaders, on the other hand, might be expected to provide moral guidance to their congregants in accordance with a

"Jewish code of ethics." In SA, citing the traditional rabbinic principle of dina d'malchuta dina ("the law of the land is the law") as justification, rabbis mostly shied away from any criticism of apartheid. The more Orthodox the rabbi the ' more likely he was to condone apartheid. However, according to Suttner, it was in reality "the assimilation of local conditions" which determined each rabbi's position on apartheid, rather than halacha. 191

Each Jew was directed to vote according to his conscience. The Board repeatedly stated its conviction that the duty of Jewish organisations was to protect the community rather than direct it politically, and Jewish clergy, for the most part, adopted an approved custodial role. It Not only did Jewish leadership, both lay and religious, recognise the benefits of a united Jewish voice for the community, they also recognised the flipside: if Jewish clergy were to express a political view in a sermon, or en passant, it would be taken to constitute a "Jewish voice." One community leader explained that "[i]f the Anglican bishop attacks apartheid ... no-one says he is talking for all the English-speaking people. But if a rabbi did it, there would be the immediate assumption that he was stating the o f1icia,i: • l position . . o f th e J ews. ,,192

As recently as 1987, the late Bernard Casper acknowledged that

"in South Africa we (Jews) are a small, identifiable foreign body."193 Many South

Africans, both Jewish and non-Jewish, acknowledged that when a Jew spoke, he

191 Suttner, Interviews with South African Jewish Activists, p. 614. Halacha_ (Jewish law) c~n be traced back to the Torah, and can be seen as a "timeless, transcendent and immutable Jewish [moral] benchmark." 192 Berger, "SA Jews maintain silence on Apartheid", P· 36. . . . ,, 193 Milton Shain and Sally Frankental, "South African Jewry, Apartheid and Poht1cal Change , Patterns ofPrejudice, 25: I (1991), p. 70.

- 71 - was talking both as an individual and as a group representative; whereas when a non-Jew spoke he was talking only for himself. Any political statement from the bima (pulpit) would therefore be likely to evoke punitive action and distress for the group.

From a moral perspective, in light of the devastating effects of discrimination experienced by the Jewish people, the failure of SA Jewish clergy to speak out earlier than other religious groups seems worthy of condemnation. If we are to understand Jewish political behaviour, however, we need to acknowledge that other religious groups had different, and perhaps, greater, motivations to make anti-apartheid statements than did the Jews. In every Christian denomination in

South Africa, apart from the Dutch Reformed Church, Blacks constituted the overwhelming majority of the total membership. 194 With the Black Consciousness movement of the 1970s, a Black theology of liberation emerged, supplanting

White missionary religion. As this new theology developed, primarily amongst the

Black ministers and congregants of the various Christian churches, the Churches were placed under increasing pressure to speak out against the inequalities of apartheid. Rabbis and their congregations were not directly exposed to Black theology. Also, unlike the Christian clergy, rabbis were not alleviating the suffering of their own congregants by criticising the dictates of apartheid. 195

In fact, Jewish congregants sometimes exerted pressure on their rabbis to be cautious. Rabbi David Sherman recounts that he

194 Allister Sparks, The Mind ofSouth Africa (London: Mandarin Press, 1990), p._285. Sparks suggests that the Black proportion of some Churches in SA reache~ as much as eighty percent. The Dutch Reformed Church (DRC) was the official Church of the Nat10nal Party, and blacks were barred from its congregations. . . 195 Also, the Black education initiatives set up by church groups are often lauded m post-apartheid SA. Such initiatives, although doubtlessly praiseworthy for all so~s of reasons, do not neces~anly imply a commitment to liberal values. The motivations of the vanous churches which established schools may have been proselytising in origin.

- 72 - could not refrain from bringing into my sermons criticism of the apartheid laws. These sermons were generally approved of by my congregation, but not without some trepidation. Mothers would come to me and say, 'Rabbi, we agree with your views on these matters, but what you say can be dangerous.' Then, expressing their anxieties in personal terms , they would point out, 'The worst that could happen to you would be to be sent back to America where you would be hailed as a hero, but if my son tries to act out what you say he will go to jail.' 196

Also, personal hardship could result when rabbis expressed opposition to apartheid. In the mid-1950s, Reform Rabbi Andre Unger was deprived of his permit of residence by the Minister of the Interior following his repeated criticism of apartheid. Unger was not supported by the SAJBD, which declared that the rabbi did not speak for his own congregation nor for SA Jewry. Rabbi Benzion

Isaacson, quoted earlier, tells of similar experiences.

The pressure to remain silent was strong for most religious leaders, just as it was for communal leaders. 197

A concern for self-preservation, rather than political conviction, may indeed direct Jewish political behaviour. This does not necessarily mean that political sagacity directs political orientation. Dorinson believes that, far from eradicating

Jewish liberalism, political sagacity may have only temporarily dulled its cutting edge. 198 However, unless we find evidence of the expression of residual liberalism, such suggestions amount to little more than the apologist's stock-in- trade.

196 David Sherman, "My Encounter with Apartheid: A Reform Rabbi's Viewpoint", Jewish Affairs, (Autumn 1997), p. 74.

197 Berger, "SA Jews maintain silence on Apa~hei?,", P· 36, 198 Dorinson, "Jewish Politics: The Art of Survival , P· 24o.

- 73 - Chapter 6

Jewish Activism and the Community's Response to Activists

The high number of Jewish activists is often cited to support the claim that political liberalism is a general Jewish phenomenon. Despite the disapproval of the community and the danger they faced, an unusually high proportion of anti­ apartheid activists in SA were Jewish. This alerts us to the possibility that some aspect of the Jewish condition may have pushed SA Jews toward the left of the political spectrum. However, this pattern cannot, per se, be used to assert differential liberalism among SA Jews. The bulk of Jews in the Diaspora have always been "mainstream," and the situation in apartheid SA was no different, since at no stage were most Jews radical. 199 Indeed, the Jewish community's reaction to the activism of some of its members warns us against such a conflation. Precisely for this reason, any attempt to understand the political values held by Jews needs to reckon with the disproportionate number of White activists who were Jewish. We need to look at the nature of the community's criticism of

Jewish activists, to shift our focus from its existence to its essence. In order to understand Jewish political values we may benefit, once again, from looking at the shadows of political behaviour, radical as well as mainstream.

Jewish involvement in radical movements across the Diaspora is well­ documented, with Jews prominent in a range of radical movements since the late nineteenth century. Jews were involved in the Russian revolutionary movements of the 1870s and their numbers increased beyond demographic expectations until '

199 Theodore Draper, American Communism and Soviet : The Formative Period (New York: Compass Books, 1963), Introduction.

- 74 - well into the twentieth century. Jewish involvement in Marxist and Communist movements in the West was commonplace, and is frequently cited by Jews and their enemies alike. 200

The prominence of Jews in radical anti-apartheid movements in SA was also conspicuous. During the period of high apartheid, those involved in anti-apartheid activities were either "banned," imprisoned without trial, or placed under house

201 L' f . . . arres t . 1sts o activists were published prominently in the media, with frequent reference made to the large number of "Jewish sounding names. "202 During the infamous Treason Trial conducted from the mid to late 1950s, of 156 defendants, only 23 were white. Fourteen of these were Jewish. Only seven were Coloured.203

Jews were not only disproportionately represented amongst the accused: they also dominated the defence counsels of this and numerous other trials. Throughout the apartheid era, Jews also were well-known sponsors of the legal costs of defendants.

Jews continued to dominate the White involvement in such "illegal" activism in many ways throughout the apartheid era, and this fact is frequently cited by

200 Ibid. 201 Under South Africa's apartheid laws, people, meetings, organisations, and publications could be banned. "Banning" originated in an amendment to the 1929 Riotous Assemblies Act, and was extended by the 1950 Suppression of Communism Act. A typical banning order would restrict an individual to a particular magisterial district, require them to report regularly to the police, prevent them from associating with more than one person at any time (including family members), and prevent them visiting various public places and educational institutions. Additionally, nothing the banned person said or wrote could be quoted in the press or used for publication. There was no avenue for appeal against a banning order. 202 Berger, "SA Jews maintain silence on Apartheid", p. 35. 203 Under apartheid, the South African population was divided into four groups: Black, White, Indian, and Coloured. The Coloured group included people of mixed Bantu, Khoisan, European and sometimes Malay descent. Arbitrary tests determined if an individual was to be labelled either Coloured or White, and members of the same family could be allocated to different racial groups. Coloureds were forced to live in separate townships , and could be evicted from homes and suburbs their families had resided in for generations. Although they were better provided for than the Black population, Coloureds received a markedly inferior education to Whites, and were denied voting rights between 1950 and 1983. Coloureds played an important role in the struggle against apartheid.

- 75 - those who seek to defend the SA Jewish record. 204 While the vast majority of Jews complied with apartheid, 40 per cent of Whites involved in leftwing, liberal and

· · 205 un d ergroun d orgamsatlons m· SA were Jewish. Since only two per cent of the population was Jewish, this represents a twenty-fold over-representation in radical/activist movements.

Jews were frequently "warned that any attempt to stand against the apartheid juggernaut would serve only to reawaken the neo-Nazi brand of antisemitism that slept within the soul of the National Party."206 However, it is apparent that such warnings did not stop many individual Jews from opposing apartheid, often vociferously and at great risk. The significant number of Jews involved in anti­ apartheid movements is well-known and often cited by all segments of the South

African political spectrum. As Shimoni attests, despite the group's failure to take an official stand against apartheid, Jews were considered to be confirmed liberals by the Afrikaner government, to the extent that their position "was regarded as inimical to legitimate Afrikaner aspirations, and to the apartheid program aimed at ensuring. . contmue d w h"1te supremacy. ,,207

The strong record of Jewish participation in radical anti-apartheid movements, then, must be accounted for in any useful explanation of SA Jewish political behaviour. However, we need to proceed with care and precision. Liberalism and radicalism should not be conflated, nor are they mutually exclusive. Liberalism has changed dramatically over the years. Classical liberalism was "laissez-faire" in its focus on limited government and the rule of law, church-state separation ,a

204 Suttner Interviews with South African Jewish Activists, Afterword. 205 James Campbell, "Beyond the Pale: Jewish Immigration and the South A~rican Left", _in Memories Realities and Dreams: Aspects ofthe South African Jewish Experience, ed. Milton Shain and, Richard Mendelsohn (Jeppestown: Jonathan Ball Publishers, 2000), p. 99. 206 Frankel, "The Road to Rivonia", p. 193. 207 Shimoni, Community and Conscience, p. 55.

- 76 - free market and the protection of individual liberties, whereas liberals today recognise the need for state intervention and welfare to protect individual rights and well-being. 208

While liberalism is described in terms of the values it upholds, radicalism is usually described in terms of its forms of expression. Radicals are willing to press political action toward the extreme. Radicalism is based upon dissatisfaction with the status quo, and the desire for significant political and social change. Extreme political behaviour can emerge from the Left of the political spectrum (as in radical Socialism) or the Right (as in Fascism and ). However, while liberalism and radicalism are distinct political phenomena, there is some justification for viewing left-radicalism as a "braver" relation of liberalism in apartheid SA.

If we look at the events following the of 1960, it can be suggested that the apartheid government "radicalised" liberal behaviour. SA is frequently referred to as a democracy, but, in reality, it was not. In order to demonstrate liberal values, radical activities were often required.

Cheap Black labour was essential to the SA economy, but, as Blacks, labourers were considered foreigners in apartheid SA. Prime Minister Hendrik Frensch

Verwoerd maintained that "like Italians working as miners outside Italy, they will have no political rights outside the homelands; their position will be that of honoured guests."209 These "honoured guests" were considered to be residents of a designated "Bantustan." They were obliged to carry "passes" (documents issued by the apartheid government) at all times. Townships sprung up all over the

208 Levey, "When did the Liberalism of American Jews ~merge?", pp. 4-5. 209 Brian Lapping, Apartheid: A History (London: Paladm Press, 1987), p. 182.

- 77 - country to house those workers, and most townships were little better than squatter camps.210 The NP government considered Sharpeville a model

. 211 Th' . towns h1p. 1s was mevocably altered on 21 March, 1960, when Sharpeville police opened fire on a peaceful protest against pass laws, resulting in sixty-nine deaths. Nonviolent opposition to apartheid was now effectively driven underground, with the introduction of numerous laws. 212

An armoury of laws had already been constructed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining apartheid. Any activity that threatened to undermine the principles of Separate Development could be efficiently responded to, with punitive legislation. As new ways of opposing apartheid sprung up, government legislation was passed to block the latest avenue of protest. Over the years, Black

Nationalists, in tum, changed their strategy, moving from non-violent protest to guern·11 a strugg1 e. 213

In elaborating his general theory of Jewish political behaviour, Medding acknowledges that, in apartheid SA, to "oppose racial inequality ... [was] to propose the radical restructuring of society ... What in other societies would be moderate and even mainstream liberal responses in matters of race, [became] in

South Africa radical threats to the system."214 Despite this acknowledgement, in describing SA Jewish political action to support his claim that Jews are not inherently liberal, Medding looks only at mainstream politics. His analysis does

210 Ibid, p. 183. 211 A township was a residential area reserved for non-whites (principally black Africans and Coloureds, but also working class Indians), usually built on the periphery of towns and cities. Unlike other townships, which were essentially undeveloped, Sharpeville had electricity and running water. 212 Shimoni, Community and Conscience, p. 63. In the aftermath of the "Sharpeville massacre" the government banned the African National Congress (ANC) and the newly-formed Pan Africanist Congress (PAC). 213 Sparks, The Mind ofSouth Africa, p. 235. 214 Medding, "Towards a General Theory", p. 326.

- 78 - not include the political action of Jewish radicals, even though he acknowledges that radical activism was one of the few available 'outlets' for liberal responses.

Since liberal values include tolerance and the upholding of minority rights, liberals in apartheid SA needed to oppose the status quo and express a desire for political and social change (both of these being radical actions). Thus, radical behaviour may in certain circumstances reflect liberal values. In some situations

(and I would suggest SA is one such situation) we need to study radical action, while acknowledging that it does not constitute a "mainstream" response. We need to consider the nature of the values expressed through such behaviour if we are to understand the political orientation of the group. Also, although we cannot automatically conflate mainstream and radical political activity, we do need to account for Jewish radicalism as a political phenomenon. Medding's account of

SA Jewish political behaviour does not explain why Jews in SA were, proportionately, more likely than non-Jews to enter the realm ofradical activism.

The high number of Jewish anti-apartheid activists is repeatedly noted by Jews today in order to pre-empt accusations of Jewish moral culpability.215 The South

African Jewish Museum, for example, includes prominent displays featuring

Jewish activists. Colin Tatz, however, reminds us that official SA Jewry under apartheid dissociated itself from the anti-apartheid struggle.216 He points to the silence of community representatives, religious leaders, and professional associations. Worse, he cites the many ways in which mainstream Jews condemned anti-apartheid activists. According to Tatz, Shimoni, Suttner and others, the South African Jewish community "excoriated" and "denounced" those who spoke out against the horrors of apartheid. Those who were considered

215 Letters to the Editor, Australian Jewish News, September 5, 2003. 216 Tatz, "One-eyed Vision".

- 79 - "unrepresentative of their community" are now praised, and embraced. From a moral perspective, the official Jewish response to activists to which Tatz and others refer is, indeed, disturbing. However, Jewish political orientation, rather than Jewish morality, is the issue here. In order to gauge the political values of the

SA Jewish group, we have to look at the motivation for the community's criticism of activists, and not only at its existence.

Here, it is worth revisiting the infamous . In July 1963, leaders of the underground arm of the ANC were arrested at a farm owned by Arthur

Goldreich (a Jew) in Rivonia near Johannesburg. Of the seventeen arrested, five were white. All five were Jewish. In a reprisal which crushed the revolutionary movement, those captured were charged with treason along with and a sixth Jew, Harold Wolpe, who had been arrested elsewhere. The Rivonia trial, as it came to be known, has been compared to the American Rosenberg case in its impact on local Jewry. 217 Like the Rosenberg trial, as well as the South

African Treason Trial of 1956, Jews were disproportionately represented amongst the defendants. 218The State Prosecutor for the Rivonia Trial was also Jewish.

Percy Yutar, an Orthodox Jew, had overcome the prejudices of government departments to "serve the State in one of its most important functions ... a tribute not only (to Yutar) but to the Jewish community."219 As an aside, the existence of

Jews at such high levels on both sides of the courtroom in the Rivonia trial - defence and prosecution - should remind us of the variety of available Jewish responses to oppression. For Frankel, Yutar epitomizes the shtadlan, or Court

Jew, who ingratiates himself with the ruler of the host country in order to secure

217 Shimoni, Community and Conscience, p. 67. 218 David Y. Saks, "The Jewish accused in the South African Treason Trial," Jewish Affairs, 52: I (Autumn 1997), p. 43. 219 Shimoni, Community and Conscience, p. 66.

- 80 - not only personal riches, but the protection by the ruler of the entire Jewish community. This pattern presents a challenge to the historical explanation of disproportionate Jewish liberalism, since it is apparent that Jewish history provides a variety of "role models" and established patterns from which Jews can choose. If liberalism can be seen as emerging from the Jewish tradition, so, too, can behaviour like Yutar's.

Claudia Braude, a harsh critic of mainstream SA Jewry, accuses the Jews of seeking "to deflect Afrikaner Nationalist antisemitism through conspicuous displays of loyalty to the apartheid regime."220 Braude, like Medding, sees the official Jewish response and the community's condemnation of Jewish activists as responding to the perceived threat of Afrikaner antisemitism.221 Both view Jewish behaviour as constructed to appease and impress the apartheid regime, and as possibly insincere. Braude has scathingly attacked Yutar, and the SA Jewish community who failed to criticise his actions. In the previously cited controversial piece, published in a popular daily newspaper in Johannesburg in 1997, she suggested that Jews under apartheid behaved ingratiatingly and immorally in an attempt to deflect Afrikaner Nationalist antisemitism. It is confusing that having acknowledged Afrikaner antisemitism, Braude ignores its strength. Instead, she blames Zionism (with its directive that Diaspora Jews focus on the State of Israel) and Jewish acculturation to the immoral "values and ideology of apartheid" for the silence. o f t h e Jewis . h commumty . an d its. 1ea d ers. 222

22° Claudia B. Braude, "A Cure for Fear?", Mail and Guardian, June 6, 1997. James Campbell, Beyond the Pale (Campbell, 2000), p. 97. Campbell discusses the reaction of the SA Jewish community to Braude's accusations. 221 Claudia B. Braude, "From the Brotherhood of Man to the World to Come: The Denial of the Political in Rabbinic Writing under Apartheid", in Jewries at the Frontier: Accommodation, Identity, Conflict, ed. Milton Shain and Sander L. Gilman (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1999). 222 Ibid.

- 81 - Many Jewish opponents of apartheid did feel ostracised and condemned by the community.223 Can this be used per se to infer that the community was not liberal and that it held views contrary to those expressed by the activists? It seems not.

The reaction of the Jewish community to Yutar's enthusiastic prosecution, of

Mandela and of the Jewish activists, was, also, mixed. Despite being applauded in the synagogue of which he was an active member for his achievements, Yutar recounts that he and his family were, too, "subjected to countless humiliations. "224

If we look at the pronouncements made by the group officially or privately about activism, we see that, frequently, the focus of Jewish condemnation was not liberal conviction per se, but the act of a Jew drawing attention to himself and his group. When we look at the interviews conducted with activists who incurred the disapproval of the group, it is notable that when they recount their experiences, they seldom recall their views being attacked. Rather, they were urged not to rock the boat or to be too visibly "different." Most interviewees suggest that they were cautioned to act against apartheid silently and within the law, and not to draw attention to the community. One columnist tells a SA Jewish joke to explain the warnings. Two Jews stand before a firing squad, when, at the last moment, one wants to ask for a blindfold. "Don't make trouble" says the other. 225 Just as "a group of influential Jews ... urged President Roosevelt not to appoint Felix

Frankfurter to the Supreme Court because they believed it would intensify

223 Suttner, Interviews with South African Jewish Activists, pp. 187-217, 600. 224 Frankel, "The Road to Rivonia", p. 196. 225 Lelyveld, "SA Jews maintain silence on Apartheid", p. 36. Writing in 1965 for the New York Times, Lelyveld reminds his readers that SA Jews seem driven by "the impulse for silence .... rather than [by] any particular ideology."

- 82 - antisemitism in America," it seems that the zitterdick (nervous) syndrome, as identified by Dorinson, exists across the Diaspora. 226

The political directives which emanated from the Jewish community reflect the desire for obedience and silence, rather than any ideological conviction. With this motivation in mind, it is foolhardy to infer "illiberal" Jewish political values from the observation that Jews tried to stifle criticism of apartheid. Therefore, while SA

Jews may be deserving of the moral condemnation directed at them by many, such as Braude, their pronouncements must be seen in context before they can be used to infer illiberal Jewish political values. SA Jewish behaviour does demonstrate a

"characteristic minority group response": namely, fear. We cannot, however, presume that the political values held by Jews are, likewise, merely characteristic of any minority. Fear may confound "authentic" political expression.

Medding suggests that micro-political concerns will be prioritised over macro­ political concerns in directing Jewish political behaviour. He may be correct.

However, macro-political concerns do not simply evaporate. In particular, it should not be assumed that macro-political concerns cease being liberally oriented even where micro-political interests may be best served by supporting an opposing political direction. Since many variables affect the readiness of groups and individuals to express their political beliefs openly and honestly, political behaviour may not accurately reflect political values or convictions. Political action in environments such as apartheid SA is likely to be an unreliable indicator of political conviction. In restrictive environments, bravery, independence, and a willingness to take risk may also be required for authentic political action. Once again, it seems that SA Jewish political behaviour can offer only limited insight

226 Dorinson, "Jewish Politics: The Art of Survival", p. 242.

- 83 - into the political values of SA Jews. Political values and political behaviour need to be considered separately.

- 84 - Chapter 7

The Problem of Comparison

Our expectations of Jewish behaviour under apartheid emerge from the conventional wisdom that Diaspora Jews tend to be differentially liberal in political orientation. It is worth emphasising again that "differential liberalism" is a comparative term. The conventional wisdom assumes that Jews are more likely than comparable (socio-economic and ethno-religious) minorities to vote contrary to their socio-economic status and interests. Unlike other ethno-religious groups, in many places, Jews have continued to exhibit a left-liberal orientation despite their often rapid upward mobility and affluence. So surprise is registered when, in

South Africa, Jews seem to have behaved in the same way as other groups and minorities, demonstrating "characteristic minority group behaviour - a phenomenon of self-preservation performed at the cost of moral righteousness. "227

The question is whether SA Jewish behaviour is, in this respect, representative of

Diaspora Jewish behaviour or whether it is, indeed, anomalous.

Comparison with Other Minorities

The conventional wisdom does not suggest that Diaspora Jews are uniformly or consistently liberal in every election, in every instance of party identification, or on every policy issue, only that they tend to be more liberal in many of these respects than most other minority groups and their national population. Further, based on a range of survey and multivariate analyses, we expect that this differential Jewish liberalism will persist even after controlling for various socio­ demographic variables (such as education, income, occupation, and residential

227 Shimoni, Community and Conscience, p. 276.

- 85 - area). These political expectations, however, tend to be based on the assumption that Jews are as free as the groups with which they are compared to express their political values. We assume that all groups are equally able to act out their political values in their political behaviour. This assumption may be challenged in the SA context.

There is also the problem of establishing which groups, if any, might meaningfully be compared with the Jewish case in SA. There were various White minority sub-groups in SA, the largest community being Portuguese. However, none of the White minority communities were organised as cohesively as the

Jews, neither was any perceived as similarly prominent. While exact comparisons are not available, the community that most resembles the Jews in terms of ethnicity, religion, and even cohesion was the smaller Hellenic (Greek) community.228 Its political record shows "no collective stand ... against apartheid," and Greeks as individuals were not disproportionately represented in anti­ apartheid movements.229 On the limited information available, when compared to other White minorities, the Jewish "track record" in SA suggests more liberal behaviour than other minorities.

Comparison with other Jewish groups

It is also difficult to compare SA Jewish behaviour under apartheid with the behaviour of Jews in other Diaspora communities, since few Jewish groups have lived in countries where the main target of institutionalised discrimination is a group other than their own.

228 Ibid, p. 268. 229 Ibid.

- 86 - Jews have, however, been placed in roughly comparable situations before: consider, for example, the responses of American Jews in the South during the desegregation crisis that followed the Civil War in the late nineteenth century. In general, although Southern Jews were more supportive of desegregation than the rest of the white community, "fear of provoking anticipated retribution overwhelmed the impulse to take a brave stand against the prevailing white consensus." 230 Just as in apartheid SA, American Jews in the South complied with their states' discriminatory measures, supporting (at best) a gradual transition toward racial equality. However, in contrast to the American South, where prominent Jews were sometimes involved in conservative pro-segregation political movements ( although, it should be noted, less than might be predicted from their population percentage), in SA, Jews were very seldom identified with the political Right.

Comparison with English-speaking Whites

In most of the available studies, however (and these are limited), SA Jews are not compared with Jews in other Diaspora communities, nor are they compared with other ethno-religious SA minorities. Most comparisons of SA Jewish behaviour look at the Jewish group against the mainstream White SA population. In fact,

Jewish political behaviour is usually studied not in relation to the entire voting population, but only in relation to its English-speaking segment. It is with this section of the SA White population that Jews are best "matched" on a range of socio-economic and other factors. When Leveson and Sherman note that the Jews of SA were "content to accept the norms and even the prejudices of the wider

230 Ibid, p. 269.

- 87 - white society," they are referring to the norms and prejudices of English-speaking

Whites in whose midst the SA Jews acculturated.231

It is difficult to establish with any certainty where the majority of Jews in SA positioned themselves politically under apartheid, as little hard data are available. 232 During the period of apartheid, various political parties were

"legally" available for SA Jews to support. The National Party championed

Afrikaner nationalism and apartheid. The United Party, while usually regarded as

"centrist" in the SA context, was committed to White supremacy, albeit with less ideological conviction than the Nationalists. Although eager to dismantle the unnecessary laws that constituted "petty apartheid," the United Party still upheld many of the principles of apartheid and separate development. Blacks would be represented by Whites in Parliament, and would be allowed to own land only in certain designated areas. The Progressive Party emerged later, in 1959. It vigorously opposed racial discrimination to the full extent of the law. It was the most liberal of the parties sanctioned throughout the apartheid era, and expressed

"stronger opposition to racial discrimination and willingness to progress, albeit in controlled stages, toward an ultimately non-racial democratic dispensation." 233

The short-lived Liberal Party was multiracial, and in favour of universal suffrage, but could not function when the National Party passed increasingly restrictive laws governing interracial political activities. While various other parties existed, many, such as the Labour Party, were also forced to disband over the course of the apartheid years. Essentially the political choices available to law-abiding Jewish

231 Marcia Leveson, "Insiders on Outsiders: Some South African Jewish Writers", and Joseph Sherman," Between Ideology and Indifference: The Destruction of Yiddish in South Africa", Memories, Realities and Dreams : Aspects ofthe South African Jewish Experience, ed. Milton Shain and Richard Mendelsohn (Jeppestown: Jonathan Ball Publishers, 2000). The concurrent assessments of these authors is cited by Shain and Mendelsohn, Introduction, p. l 0. 232 Medding, "Towards a General Theory", p. 327. 233 Shimoni, Community and Conscience, p. 58.

- 88 - citizens of SA amounted to supporting the National Party, the United Party or the

Progressive Party.

Despite Colin Tatz's claim that "thousands of Jews ... voted for the Nationalist

Party and white supremacy", according to Schwarz's extensive research, "Jews voted for the United Party and [after the schism in the United Party,] for the liberals." He adds, "whatever might have been the reason for the voting patterns that emerged clearly in election after election, the truth is that Jews overwhelmingly and continuously voted against the governing National Party, more so than any other white group in South Africa." 234 If a pattern is discernable at all, it seems to be that Jews in SA in the early apartheid years at least

"gravitated around the conservative centre of the political spectrum, namely the

United Party, with a tendency for a growing segment to move somewhat left of centre to ... the new Progressive Party." 235 Although the situation changed somewhat after the uprising of 1976 - when Jewish support of the

Nationalists grew - as Jews "moved into the white laager", this change coincided with a shift by the party itself toward the centre. 236

Without reliable records of Jewish voting patterns, we can attempt to get some insight into Jewish political attitudes during the apartheid era by considering those parties with whom Jewish candidates were affiliated. If the allegiances of Jews who stood for election to Parliament or local council are used as an indicator of political preference, SA Jews seem to be positioned toward the left of the political spectrum. Jewish candidates were most likely to stand for the Labour Party, the

234 Tatz, "One-eyed Vision". Schwarz, "Jewish Modes of Opposition", p.28. 235 Shimoni, Community and Conscience, p. 57. 236 Barry A. Kosmin, Jacqueline Goldberg, Milton Shain and Shirley Bruk, Jews ofthe New South Africa: Highlights of the 1988 National Survey ofSouth African Jews, Report no.3 (London: Institute for Jewish Policy Research, 1999), p. 6.

- 89 - United Party and, later, its more liberal offshoot, the Progressive Party.

Candidates of the National Party received very limited support from Jews, far less than they received from other whites, even on the rare occasion that a Jew stood as a NP candidate in a predominantly Jewish electorate.237 Only one Jew became a

NP Member of Parliament during apartheid, representing an electorate without

Jews.23s

Party affiliation records are also available as indicators of political orientation m SA. According to Shimoni, in the 1950s and early 1960s, very few Jews supported the National Party.239 Dubb's study of Johannesburg Jewry found that

Jews in the late 1960s were most likely to support the centrist United Party (28 per cent). Seventeen per cent of Johannesburg Jews supported the Progressive Party and fifteen per cent the National Party. Jewish membership of the United and

Progressive Parties was the same, with six per cent of Jews joining each opposition party. By the mid-1970s, however, Jewish party allegiances had changed. As many as 21.3 per cent of Jews supported the National Party, with

18.9 per cent United Party supporters, and 16.6 per cent for the Progressive Party.

This increased support of the National Party by the Jews seems to fit the logic of Medding's model: Jews will become increasingly conservative in their political behaviour as the Right becomes less antisemitic. At the time of increased NP support, the National Party had lost its extreme racist element, when the Herstigte

Nasionale Party broke away from the Nationalists. According to Medding, Jewish political support will move to the Right as the threat of antisemitism recedes. At the same time, the threat to Jews from "below" (in Medding's terms) was at its

237 Shimoni, Community and Conscience, p. 57. 238 Ibid, p. 57. 239 Allie A. Dubb, Jewish South Africans: A Sociological View ofthe Johannesburg Community (Grahamstown: University, Institute of Social and Economic Research, 1977). Shimoni, Community and Conscience, p. 125.

- 90 - greatest and most "real" at this point, smce SA Blacks were increasingly organised and powerful. Black groups had become increasingly aligned with

African states, which may have been capable of affecting policies toward Israel.

Superficially, Jewish party affiliation changes at this time would boost Medding's claims that Jewish "support for the dominant forces of the regime itself (would increase) as long as the threat to Jewry (it presents) becomes less apparent."240

Electoral surveys over the 1960s and 1970s suggest that the percentage of Jews supporting the National Party rose "progressively from 24.3 to 27.1 to 31.3 per cent."241 However, if we look at the timing of the Jewish move toward the Right, we see that it coincides with a general shift amongst the English-speaking electorate, away from an unravelling and weakened United Party. In the 1974 election, only 12.5 per cent of Jews said they had voted NP. Seventy per cent of

English-speaking Whites at this time supported the National Party, and thirty per cent the Progressive Party.242 The Jewish move to the right was rather more modest than what we might expect given the general rightward trend among the non-Jewish, English-speaking White electorate at the time.

A caution to bear in mind in comparing SA Jewish political behaviour to that of other groups relates to the use of the term "minority" in the SA context. SA

Jews are "a predominantly English-speaking community ... a minority within a minority - the English-speaking minority - which is itself a minority within the white group which is, in tum, a minority within the South African population. "243

We can readily perceive the obvious confusion in this statement. When SA Jews are compared with English-speaking Whites, they are not being compared with

240 Medding, "Towards a General Theory", p. 321. 241 Shimoni, Community and Conscience, p. 126. 242 Ibid. 243 Hoffman and Fischer, The Jews ofSouth Africa, p. 6.

- 91 - another minority, or even with a cohesive group. The English-speaking segment of the SA White population may constitute a minority in numerical terms (only 9 per cent of the total population), but as English-speakers constituted around forty per cent of the enfranchised White population, English-speaking Whites do not constitute a minority in the same sense as the Jewish group.244

The English Language as a Political Act

Another aspect that bears importantly on the comparative question is language.

English-speaking Whites are differentiated from the rest of the White SA population, in that their (English) language already signifies a liberal political orientation, independent of other factors. Using the English language in SA is itself a political act. In most countries where it serves as lingua franca, English can also be viewed as the language of the social elite.245 However in South Africa, in addition to this perception, English-speaking has long been associated with liberal politics. For the Afrikaner (the "implementer" of apartheid and conventionally "right wing"), English is the language of his previous oppression.

When SA was colonised by the British in the 1820s, the English language was imposed upon the Dutch who had already settled there. Even in rural areas populated predominantly by the Dutch (and using an emergent Afrikaans),

English was enforced as the official language of government and education. For the Dutch/Afrikaner, English became "die vyand se taa/," the language of the enemy. The Boer War exacerbated this hostility. The ongoing British stranglehold on the SA economy further cemented it. Nearly all banks, department stores, petrol stations, cinemas and wholesale dealerships were run by the British, who

244 Giliomee, The Afrikaners, p. xiii. 245 Penny Silva, ": Oppressor or Liberator?" (2003) available www .ru.ac.za/affiliates/dsae/MAVEN .HTML, accessed 4/8/07.

- 92 - conducted business in English. It was therefore not surpnsmg, that when the

National Party came to power in 1948, Afrikaans was the chosen language of government. Although English and Afrikaans were officially afforded equal status, state resources were allocated to the development of Afrikaans, with

English given lower priority, and African languages completely ignored. The restrictions of the apartheid system were worded and enforced in Afrikaans, with apartheid itself an Afrikaans term. Brian Lapping has pointed out that

"Afrikanerising" of South Africa by the National Party involved confronting a powerful English alliance, laden with economic clout, technological skill and investment networks, in which Africans were enmeshed.246 The Afrikaners,

"embattled against the British enemy in front of them ... responded to the economic advance of Blacks as though it was a flanking movement threatening their rear. "247 English, for Afrikaners, became the language associated with "swart gevaar" (black danger) and ultimately of any political threat.

English was perceived in a very different way by Black groups in SA, although it remained associated with the left. It was introduced to Africans in the British mission schools. English rapidly became the language of "aspiration and empowerment" for Black South Africans. 248 English was the language of choice for the ANC and other liberation movements (rather than one of many African languages), and it has typically been seen by Black and White South Africans alike "as the language of liberation and Black unity."249 The strong association between Afrikaans and oppression, and between English and liberation, was reinforced by the of 1976. This protest was in part triggered by

246 Lapping, Apartheid: A History, p. 146. 247 Ibid. 248 Silva, South African English. 249 David Gough, "English in South Africa", A Dictionary ofSouth African English on Historical Principles, ed. Penny Silva (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996).

- 93 - the apartheid government's attempt to enforce Afrikaans as the language of instruction in Bantu schools. It is widely acknowledged that the English language press, although still subject to strict government control, was considerably more liberal, and less compliant with the strictures of apartheid than the Afrikaner press.

Reporters and columnists attached to the English press (including Jews) were regularly charged and imprisoned for their contravention of the Censorship laws, whereas this was rare in Afrikaner press circles.250

It can be seen that, in the context of apartheid SA, the very act of speaking

English conveyed political intent. By taking on English as their language on settlement in SA, the Jews were aligning themselves socially and politically with

English settlers rather than the Afrikaner. Given their Yiddish mother tongue, their Eastern European origins, and their initial settlement in rural areas where they were surrounded by Afrikaners, Afrikaans would have seemed an equally likely and possibly easier choice of language for the immigrant Jews.

The "liberalising" effect of the English language in the SA context is further revealed when educational status is considered. English speakers were most likely to attend English universities, such as the University of Cape Town or the

University of the Witwatersrand (in Johannesburg). These campuses (and other smaller English universities in SA) were widely regarded as "breeding grounds for liberalism."251 It may be noted that Jews were significantly better educated than any other segment of the population in SA. 252 They were, therefore, more likely than any other group to attend a tertiary institution, and to have been exposed to

250 Suttner, Interviews with South African Jewish Activists, pp. 153-168; Giliomee, The Afrikaners, p. 501. 251 Shimoni, Community and Conscience, p. 70. 252 Dubb, Jewish Population ofSouth Africa, p. 60.

- 94 - the liberalising influence of higher education. It is not surprising, then, that many

Jewish activists began their opposition to apartheid as students.253

What emerges from the acknowledgement of the (albeit loose) association between English and the "left" is a warning: if Jews are compared to English­ speaking Whites (of similar educational and socio-economic status) in terms of their political attitudes, they are being viewed against an already liberal background, and our judgment as to the liberalism or otherwise of Jews in SA must reflect this. Shimoni suggests that

the political preferences of Jews in South Africa tended to be much the same as those of English-speaking Gentiles of the same socio-economic status (with) factors such as family income and level of education ... more important determinants of political preference than the quality of their Jewishness.254

The political domain of English-speakers is, however, not representative of the entire spectrum of SA politics: the predominantly English-speaking electorates in which Jews lived (and voted) are already "comparatively liberal." In considering

Jewish political action in English-speaking electorates, we need to be aware that we have already shifted our gaze toward the (relatively) liberal end of the SA political spectrum. Even if Jews are found to be "the same" as the English­ speaking White group with whom they are compared, we are starting from a level of liberalism greater than the wider White population, and one which needs to be acknowledged. If we compare the Jews in SA with Jews elsewhere in the Diaspora with this shift in focus in mind, it seems that SA Jews are consistent with Jewish populations around the globe in terms of their position on the political spectrum: moderately left of centre.

253 Suttner, Interviews with South African Jewish Activists, pp. 169-220. 254 Shimoni, Community and Conscience, p. 56.

- 95 - Another caution to bear in mind when we compare Jews with White English­ speakers in SA is that different "threats" apply to the two groups. Therefore, while the political behaviour of the two groups may be the same, we cannot assume that they were equally free to express their political values. English-speaking Whites

(if they did indeed feel any residual loyalty to their colonial "homeland," Britain) had no conflict in opposing the Afrikaner proponents of apartheid. Afrikaners were always resolute in their enmity of Britain, and their opposition to British rule was a galvanising factor in their emergence as a group. For SA Jews, the situation was very different. The Afrikaner government, despite previously mentioned hiccups along the way, maintained unusually strong and supportive relations with the State of Israel throughout the apartheid era. From a Jewish perspective, for most of the apartheid era, opposition to the apartheid regime conflicted with support for Israel. 255

Shain and Mendelsohn note in their introduction to "Memories, Realities and

Dreams" that, in SA, Jews were "content to accept the norms and even the prejudices of the wider white society."256 Interestingly, however, others did perceive the Jews as entirely acculturated to these norms and prejudices. Jews were viewed by non-Jews as "kafjirboeties" (nigger lovers), with some justification. Although hard evidence to suggest that Jews were significantly more liberal than other whites is not available, Henry Lever, in the 1970s, studied the attitudes of Jewish and non-Jewish school age children to non-Whites.257 While acknowledging some degree of acculturation (in that Jewish children positioned

255 Helen Suzman, quoted in "Suzman cancels Israel visit after all", Jerusalem Post, June 21, 2006, p. 8. Shimoni, Community and Conscience: The Jews in Apartheid South Africa, pp. 27, 44, 52, 157, 210-211. 256 Shain and Mendelsohn, Introduction, Memories, Realities and Dreams, p. I 0. 257 Henry Lever, Ethnic Attitudes ofJohannesburg Youth (Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press, 1968), p. 192. Also "The Jewish Voter in South Africa", pp. 428-440.

- 96 - non-Whites lower on a social hierarchy than they positioned Whites), Lever concluded that "Jews are more favourably disposed towards Natives, Coloureds and Indians than are the members of any other white group ... (and are) ... consistently more tolerant than any other group in their attitudes to non­

Whites."258 Dan Jacobson thought Jews were "more sympathetic to the underdog" than their non-Jewish English-speaking peers, while Hoffman and Fischer state that there is little doubt "that Jews are in general more tolerant .. .in their racial relations than most whites."259 Dubb's studies also showed that Jews (in the late l 96Os,at least) were significantly more liberal than their white non-Jewish peers with regard to measures of "petty apartheid."260 Although the political behaviour of Jews in South Africa was much the same as that of English-speaking non-Jews, and even with the awareness that our comparison group is already skewed to the left, we still find significant differences between the attitudes of SA Jews and

English-speaking non-Jewish South Africans.

This brings us to a second point. There is a discrepancy between the expressed attitudes and political behaviour of SA Jews. Jews were perceived to be associated with the left-liberal side of the political spectrum in SA by both White and Black

South Africans. Lever, Jacobson, and others cited above found a significant difference between the political attitudes of Jews and English-speaking South

Africans. Yet, as Shimoni demonstrates, Jews did not behave more liberally than

English-speaking South Africans or any other group. Why did SA Jews behave politically much the same as other Whites when their attitudes were significantly

258 Ibid., see also Shimoni, Community and Conscience, p. 55. 259 Dan Jacobson, "Growing up Jewish" in Shain and Mendelsohn, Memories, Realities and Dreams, pp. 20-21; Hoffman and Fischer, The Jews of South Africa, p. 8. 260 Dubb, Jewish South Africans.

- 97 - different? Why, also, did others in South Africa perceive Jews to be more liberal than other Whites when their behaviour was no different?

I contend that answering these questions should begin by acknowledging the differences between political values and political action. As we have seen, the opportunity for Jews to accurately and freely express their political convictions may have been restricted in the SA context. It seems sensible to acknowledge that

"micro-political interests" affect Jewish behaviours, as suggested by Medding.

However, "micro-political interests" may not affect Jewish political values to the same extent. We have seen the pressures placed upon the Jews by the apartheid regime, and by the leadership of the Jewish group itself. If we acknowledge this, we must ask whether Jewish political behaviour can reflect Jewish political attitudes to the same extent as does the political behaviour of the wider community with whom we compare them, and further challenge the assumption that political values can be extrapolated from political behaviour. It cannot be assumed, in a situation of fear, that the overt political behaviours chosen by the group or its individual members accurately express political attitudes. Pragmatic self-preservation, rather than conviction, may be the motivation for political action. Although political values cannot reliably be inferred from political behaviour, we can still attempt to get a handle on these values. The "traditional" liberal Jewish political attitudes (which were revealed in the limited studies cited above) may have been expressed in actions other than those conventionally noted and considered to be "political."

Shimoni suggests that "there may be a grain of truth" in the oft-cited aphorism that most SA Jews "spoke like Progressives, voted for the United Party and hoped

- 98 - that the National Party would remain in power."261 I suggest that this quip should alert us to the possibility that Jews in apartheid SA demonstrated the legacy of

"traditional" Jewish liberalism. Why, if the Jews hoped that the National Party would maintain power, did they not vote for that party, when voting occurred by secret ballot? Why did the Jews feel the need to "talk Progressive" in Jewish circles if they were not voting accordingly? Perhaps there is something in the argument that being liberal has become a part of Jewish identity, and that to present oneself as "illiberal" to one's fellow Jews would be "politically incorrect."

It is in these and other shadows of political behaviour, such as the way Jews reflect upon their political actions, that much can be inferred about the political values they hold.

261 Shimoni, Community and Conscience, p. 58.

- 99 - Chapter 8

Beyond Overt Political Action

To say that SA Jews endorsed liberal values even though they behaved illiberally would amount to little more than apologetics if discomfort or some other expression of liberal leanings could not be discerned in SA Jewish behaviour. I suggest that in order to assess whether Jews in SA were liberal in their political values, we need to examine political events beyond the overt and the mainstream.

We need to look at the "shadows" of Jewish political activity.

We need to be innovative. Beyond officially sanctioned and mainstream behaviour, were thwarted or suppressed attitudes expressed elsewhere? How did

Jews themselves feel about their chosen political action? Shimoni's suggestion that SA Jews were "a community with a conscience" offers valuable guidance here, and we may gain insight into SA Jewish political values by considering how

SA Jews themselves reconciled any conflict between their political values and their political behaviour.

First, then, let us consider the variety of ways in which thwarted or suppressed attitudes found expression. In SA, while expressing politically liberal views was politically risky, it was within the bounds of political acceptability to demonstrate support for various liberal initiatives (such as welfare concerns and civil liberties). 262 For example, one could fund a Black kindergarten or employ a Black lawyer with less trepidation than one could criticise second-rate Black education or the infamous Pass Laws. It seems that the Jews of SA did in fact express their

262 Goodman, Jerusalem Report, p. 29.

- 100 - belief in these "softer" (at least in the SA context) liberal dimensions, even as they held back on more overt political pronouncements.

According to Schwarz, most Jews in SA were "liberals" who wanted an end to discrimination, and supported civil liberties for all, but did not support the armed struggle. Rather "they wanted law and order to be maintained, and they wanted economic progress for blacks because they believed such progress would destroy apartheid .. .they wanted change through peaceful process."263

There has been a tendency among those studying the politics of SA Jews to look at two extremes of political behaviour: resistance and compliance. It is considered by many today that unless

the law was openly flouted, if the armed struggle was not openly supported, if an individual were not in prison or in exile, then that individual did not really oppose apartheid .... Overlooked here is the fact that however much it might be argued that the law was illegitimate, it was nevertheless enforced by the courts, applied by the police, and prosecuted by the public service.264

Most who argue for the liberalism of SA Jews cite a legendary list of activists, including the Bemsteins, Slovos, Firsts, Goldbergs and Suzmans. Most who argue against the liberalism of SA Jews cite the reaction of official Jewish bodies to the self-same list: one of discomfort, fear and dismissal. The problems that may arise from any study that focuses on the extreme aspects of political behaviour are highlighted in James Scott's Weapons of the Weak. 265 While the primary focus of

Scott's work is the political activity of Malaysian peasants, he observes that "most subordinate classes throughout most of history have rarely been afforded the luxury of open, organised, political activity (since) such activity was dangerous if

263 Schwarz, "Jewish Modes of Opposition", p. 28. 264 Ibid. 265 James C. Scott, Weapons ofthe Weak: Everyday Forms ofPeasant Resistance (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, I 985).

- 101 - not suicidal." He comments on a pervasive, and indeed romantic, tendency to devote "much attention .... to organized, large-scale, protest movements", thus ignoring "activities [unless] they [are] menacing. "266

While the situation of the Jews of SA cannot be considered entirely

"subordinate," Jews were a minority in a country dominated by an authoritarian, and potentially harsh, Afrikaner White "majority." Open defiance in SA was indeed "dangerous if not suicidal." We have seen that the precarious position of the Jews (whether real or perceived) might have led to their reluctance to express their political values openly. Scott, citing Colin Gordon, reminds us that

the binary division between resistance and non-resistance is an unreal one. The existence of those who seem not to rebel is a warren of minute, individual, autonomous tactics and strategies which counter and inflect the visible facts of overall domination, and whose purposes and calculations, desires and choices resist any simple division into the political and the apolitical. The schema of a strategy of resistance as a vanguard of politicization needs to be subjected to re-examination.267

Perhaps it is in our attempts to view political activity in terms of this binary division that we lose many of the nuances of SA Jewish political behaviour. Israeli journalist Hirsch Goodman highlights the need for observers to be prepared to broaden their definitions of what is considered "oppositional" and to be careful about what is assumed to constitute anti-apartheid action. Goodman refers to the way in which he, as a six year old living in SA, began to "fight apartheid" by fabricating notes which allowed his family's domestic servant to spend time with her husband. By the time he left SA in 1965, "to fight apartheid was to go underground and, to all intents and purposes, become a terrorist."268 By linking

266 Ibid, p. xv. 267 Ibid. 268 Goodman, Jerusalem Report, p. 29.

- 102 - these "soft" and "hard" anti-apartheid activities, Goodman reminds us to be wary of resorting to binary oppositions in our descriptions of political behaviour in the

SA context.

The way in which individuals, and indeed organisations, behave, is multi­ faceted and frequently ambivalent. SA Jews did not behave consistently in all aspects of their lives. Liberal families such as Goodman's are described as

very typically Jewish [living] in a cocoon of family, day-school, [and] Habonim .... one discussed dialectical materialism, socialism and the challenges facing the proletariat in the evening, and woke up to Gracie's breakfast and ironed socks in the morning. There seemed to be no inherent contradiction.269

Goodman's example is not unusual. SA Jewish "official" life also often presents as bizarre. Although Harold Wolpe's much-publicised activism earned an

"offensive, sanctimonious reproach" from the Board of King David Jewish

School, the school - apparently, unsolicited - informed his wife that school fees would be waived until she was in a position to pay.270 It is very difficult, then, to place South Africans on a political spectrum: some aspects of their behaviour may be categorically "right-wing," others just as emphatically "left."

Scholars readily accept that subtle, inconsistent and opportunistic resistance was the path taken by many Black political leaders in SA. Inspired by Gandhi and the conservative black American leader Booker T. Washington, these leaders hoped that Black advancement would occur within the framework of segregation, rather than through confrontation with the system. In this "quietism," Black leaders were also influenced by the British. White missionaries, in their school systems, and White liberals, in the SA parliament, were their mentors and "in fact,

269 Ibid. 270 Shimoni, Community and Conscience, p. I 06.

- 103 - the reference point for the black intellectual elite with its bourgeois aspirations."271 The British mentors advised patience and moderation, maintaining that Black militancy or unruliness would provoke resistance within the White establishment and would delay Black advancement.

Just as this form of activism is acknowledged for Blacks, it needs also to be acknowledged as a political avenue for Whites, who had even more to lose from protest, and far less to gain. My argument is that there were subtle strategies of resistance available to the Jews in SA, and that, as an organised community, they accessed some of these strategies. At its twenty-sixth congress in the mid-1970s,

Arthur Suzman stressed that the SAJBD did not see itself as a participant in the political landscape. However, he urged Jews to exercise what he called "pragmatic idealism": Jews should express their own political voices in accordance with the teachings of Judaism ( each) in the particular sphere of life and activity in which he is engaged.272 This hints at some expectation or at least acknowledgement by the

Board that Jews would, and even should, engage in the "domestic politics" available to them in SA.

If the standard view that Jews are more liberal than their non-Jewish counterparts is correct, we would expect to see Jews participating in this "soft" political liberal behaviour to a greater extent than non-Jews. Unfortunately, the evidence in this regard is, at present, largely anecdotal. It seems, however, that

Jews fulfilled this expectation in a variety of ways, under the auspices of the

Board and also as individuals.

271 Sparks, The Mind ofSouth Africa, p. 236. 272 Shimoni, Community and Conscience, p. 134.

- 104 - As mentioned before, a major part of the SAJBD's infrastructure was devoted to welfare work. The welfare was not confined to Jews. The Union of Jewish

Women, for example, maintained charitable and self-help schemes throughout the apartheid era. 273These included "an organisation aimed at making all South

Africans better acquainted with one another [as well as] creches in Black townships [and] multi-racial workshops for teachers."274 Such schemes were relevant, as the apartheid government's introduction of state- rather than missionary-based education dramatically reduced Black literacy. In the Eastern

Cape, which had a significant number of missionary schools, Black literacy levels were at around 80 per cent prior to the introduction of the National Party's Black education initiatives. Although no figures allowing direct comparison exist, by the end of the apartheid era only 20 per cent of Black adults were functionally literate.275 Other Jewish organisations such as ORT were also actively involved in extending help to Blacks disadvantaged by the apartheid system.

Given the privileged status and the economic success of the Jews, we can assume that opportunities to express liberal values arose m their individual capacities, both professional and personal. In their personal capacities, many Jews were involved in "the strengthening of [through] service-providing organisations." 276 For example, the Mayibuye night schools (providing adult education to illiterate blacks) were founded and run in major part by Jews. 277

273 Kosmin, Goldberg, Shain and Bruk, Jews ofthe New South Africa, p. 6. 274 Hoffman and Fischer, The Jews ofSouth Africa, p. 5. 275 Ross, Concise History ofSouth Africa, Chapter 5. lt is interesting to note that the economic ramifications of this policy ,which resulted in an appallingly limited educational status for the vast majority of South Africa's workforce, was to play a significant role in the ultimate demise of Apartheid. 276 Suttner, Interviews with South African Jewish Activists, p. 618. 277 Sparks, The Mind of South Africa, pp. 196, 224-225. Hendrik Verwoerd (considered by many to be the foremost architect of Apartheid) wanted to counter the influence of the English missionaries whose attitudes were considered dangerously liberal and aspirational. He asserted that " Bantu education should stand with both feet in the reserves and have its roots in [Bantu society]. There is

- 105 - Jewish individuals also started SA 's first primary health care project, in the Black homelands. In their professional capacities, many Jews exercised subtle apolitical forms of resistance. Jewish lawyers (as mentioned above) frequently represented both Black and White defendants in state trials. The defence of those accused in the Treason Trial (Black and White, Jewish and non-Jewish) was funded by members of the Jewish community. Jewish lawyers were disproportionately represented amongst White lawyers working in pro-bono organisations, such as the Legal Resources Centre. 278 Jewish trade unionists helped to set up the fledgling Black trade unions, and Jewish law firms often employed Black lawyers.

Nelson Mandela (who often says that he remembers the Jews as "more broadminded on matters of race and politics") secured his first job with the firm of

Lazar Sidelsky. 279

no place for [the Bantu] in the European community above a certain level of certain forms of labour. .. What is the use of teaching the Bantu child mathematics when it cannot use it in practice? Education must train people in accordance with their opportunities in life, according to the sphere in which they live." Parents of Black children were not eligible for state subsidies unless their children attended the reformed schools. The school system was consciously used to reiterate the ideology of apartheid, and government grants to Church schools ceased once the law ensuring state-funded education was passed. The introduction of state- rather than missionary-based education had dramatic effects on Black literacy. In the , which had a significant number of missionary schools, Black literacy levels were at around eighty per cent prior to the introduction of the National Party's Black education initiatives. Although no figures allowing direct comparison exist, by the end of the apartheid era only twenty per cent of Black adults were functionally literate. It is interesting to note that the economic ramifications of this policy were to play a significant role in the ultimate demise of apartheid.Services to education by Jews such as Franz Auerbach have been acknowledged elsewhere (see Suttner, Interviews with South African Jewish Activists, p. 537). 278 Nelson Mandela, at the opening of Cape Town's Jewish Museum said that" [t]here was a time when no lawyer in this country was prepared to take our cases, when only Jewish lawyers would defend us", referring to those who aided Mandela's then-outlawed African National Congress. Available http://www.jewishsf.com/content accessed 17 November, 2007. According to David Saks, although "one never finds mention of the Jewishness of such great anti-apartheid lawyers as Issie Maise ls ( a former president of both the South African Jewish Board of Deputies and Zionist Federation, by the way), Sydney Kentridge, and many others, the Jewish minority produced proportionately far more anti-apartheid lawyers than any other white , and as the example of Maise ls ( and many others) shows, by no means all were anti-Zionist ultra-leftists whom the majority of the community cold-shouldered." Available Mail and Guardian online http://www.mg.co.za/articledirect, accessed 17 November, 2007. 279 Suttner, Interviews with South African Jewish Activists, p. 52. Tatz, Arnold and Heller, Worlds Apart: The Re-Migration of South African Jews, p. 116.

- 106 - Many Jewish doctors (both as trainees and qualified doctors) worked voluntarily in under-funded Black hospitals, and their considerable contribution is noted in such (non-Jewish) institutions as the Museum in Cape Town.

Jewish journalists, writers and academics left a legacy of work which challenged the very presumptions upon which apartheid was built. 280 Jewish writers such as Nadine Gordimer and Dan Jacobsen and artists such as Irma Stem and Lippy Lipshitz, contributed to the arts in numbers and impact well beyond the

Jewish presence in the population. In theatre, Taubie Kushlick, Cecilia

Sonnenberg, Rene Ahrenson and Barney Simon promoted indigenous theatre and brought political issues and black actors to the fore. Jewish playwrights, writers, and musicians were all involved in township workshops. Lewis Nkosi (a Black writer) notes that "Jews tempered [the] harsh social order of apartheid with a tenuous liberalism and humane values ... whatever cultural vitality Johannesburg enjoyed was contributed to by this Jewish community."281

Even after the astonishing revelations of post-apartheid South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, SA Jews, qua individuals, have rarely been accused of perpetrating inhumane actions. 282 On the contrary, they have a strong record of participation in attempts to mitigate the brutality of apartheid. We can consider such Jewish involvement as "social liberalism": a liberation struggle that does not rely on political agitation. It occurred in SA under the auspices of non­ party institutes such as the Institute of Race Relations. Groups like the Institute, the (a woman's protest group), and various others conducted research

280 Mark Sanders, Complicities: The Intellectual and Apartheid (: University of Natal Press, 2002). 281 Frankel, "The Road to Rivonia", p. 192. 282 Schwarz, "Jewish Modes of Opposition", p. 30.

- 107 - into the social plight of the Black South African, and promoted dialogue and limited protest (within the confines of the law) in SA. While the leadership of these organisations were predominantly non-Jewish English-speaking South

Africans, Jews were involved in "numbers disproportionate to the size of the

Jewish population."283

It has been noted that Jews who emigrate from SA are more likely than migrants from other Diasporas to become active, in a voluntary capacity, in local welfare organisations. For example, Australian non-denominational organisations such as Oz Harvest, along with Jewish organisations such as , have long observed this pattern. There is every reason to think that the Jewish "social responsibility," so strongly expressed in their new country, was played out in SA as well. 284 In order to evaluate this observation with any degree of certainty, SA

Jewish migrant participation in voluntary work would need to be compared with

SA non-Jewish migrant participation. The migrants' motivations for doing voluntary work would need to be discussed and assessed. These measures are not currently available. However, anecdotal evidence from volunteer organisations in neighbourhoods well-populated by SA Jewish and non-Jewish migrants in Sydney suggests that a significant discrepancy exists. 285 This phenomenon may be the legacy of the "domestic politics" of Jewish SA. The demonstration, by ex-South

African Jews, of a well-developed sense of social responsibility does not in any way address the issue of Jewish moral culpability, but it needs to be kept in mind in making pronouncements about Jewish liberal or illiberal attitudes.

283 Shimoni, Community and Conscience, p. 60. Suttner, interviews with South African Jewish Activists, pp. 616-619. 284 Personal conversations with Oscar Shub, of Oz Harvest, Melinda ltkowic (volunteer) and Ilan Buchman (Head of Crisis Services) of JewishCare, among others. 285 Personal discussion with various representatives of Mission Australia, Anglicare and The Ted Noffs Foundation, at a seminar organised by MHCC, Sydney, November 2006.

- 108 - Apart from the South African who frequently spoke out against apartheid, and the many Jewish students who were actively and prominently involved in the various campaigns organised by National Union of

South African Students, such as the End the Conscription Campaign, it seems that the majority of SA Jews shied away from overt political action. 286 When Jews opposed the hardship of others, it was usually not through political action or confrontation, but through softer and "safer" initiatives. Rather than speak out to uphold social justice, they attempted to ameliorate the suffering caused by that injustice. The controversy over whether the radical actions of the many Jewish anti-apartheid activists should be included in our judgement of SA Jewish liberalism has already been discussed. While the high number of Jewish activists must be accounted for, the lack of support these activists received from official

Jewish bodies is undeniable. But whichever position one adopts in that regard, I suggest that any consideration of SA Jewish political values does need to take into account the high proportion of Jews involved in acts of "quiet" opposition. Many examples of Jewish participation in "soft" measures designed to undermine, if not overthrow, apartheid are acknowledged by those who attack the moral and political conduct of SA Jews, as well as those who defend it.287 Considering these measures in light of the framework that Scott uses to look at peasant resistance, then we might appreciate that it is not only those who are disempowered who may resort to subtle strategies to express themselves against a powerful regime. It may be that those who are empowered, but do not feel safe to express that power, also need to resort to such measures.

286 Suttner, Interviews with South African Jewish Activists, pp. 169-220. 287 Tatz, "One-eyed Vision". Letters to the Editor, Australian Jewish News, August 29, 2003.

- 109 - It is important to note that the SA context not only shaped the way in which

Jews felt able to express themselves politically; it also shaped the way in which they were likely to do so. The first settlement of Jews in SA before the Lithuanian wave was British. These Jews brought with them a particular set of ideas about political behaviour. This was in tum reinforced by the government of the new settlement, which adopted a British style of Parliament, and a British attitude towards the way things were done politically.288 Allister Sparks has suggested that as a result of the British foundations of South African political institutions, a culture of "quietism" (referred to before in the consideration of British influences on Black political activity) emerged in SA. This can be contrasted with, for example, the American political model, of lobbying.289 The way in which SA

Jews can be seen to resort to these types of subtle political actions may be a further sign of Jewish acculturation to the English-speaking White group in SA.

For lsmar Schorsch, however, Jewish "quietism" is less a gradual immersion (or acculturation, as Sparks sees it) than it is a pragmatic and "calculated policy of cooperation with established authorities. "290 This is in keeping with Joseph

Dorinson's view of Jewish politics in the Diaspora: "enlightened self-interest combined with the defense of group life."291

Attempts to explain the way Jews express their political values have often looked to the past. We have seen that historical theorists attempt to account for current behaviour in terms of the group's particular history or collective experience. For example, Litt suggested that American Jews, resentful of their

288 The Westminster system of government modelled after that of the , as used in the Palace of Westminster, the location of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It includes a three-winged government system, with legislative, executive and an independent judiciary. 289 Sparks, The Mind ofSouth Africa, pp. 47-51. 290 Ismar Schorsch, On the History ofthe Political Judgment of the Jew, Memorial Lecture 20 (New York: Leo Baeck Institute, 1977), p. 9. 291 Dorinson, "Jewish Politics:The Art of Survival", p.241.

- 110 - ethnic subordination by mainstream Protestants, channel their energies into charitable initiatives directed at other disadvantaged Americans. Catholics, however, responded to their subordination by protecting and conserving the social and economic gains they had achieved. According to Litt, the differences in responses between groups arise from aspects intrinsic to the particular communities concerned. Levey suggests that the direction and character of minority group politics is mediated by the group's "cultural reservoir."292 I would suggest that aspects extrinsic, but particular to, a community, also act to mediate that community's political responses. The Jewish "cultural reservoir" offers many response options. The particular response selected to express their political values in the restrictive environment of apartheid SA is likely to have reflected the circumstances that the Jews experience in that particular Diaspora.

When political action is expressed, its mode of expression depends not only on the traditions of the group, but also on the current circumstances of the group and its various members. Some forms of political expression may be circumstantially restricted, but there are others which are opened up, in any particular situation.

Traditions are shaped by current circumstances, and a cultural "reservoir" is (by definition) open, to accommodate new influences. The behaviour of SA Jews should be viewed - and compared with the behaviour of Jews elsewhere - with this in mind. SA Jews were well equipped financially, and were unusually powerful in their country's professional and commercial domain. This may have opened philanthropic avenues through which they could express their "residual liberalism," in a manner unthinkable at any previous stage of their particular history. Zedakah (or social justice) has long been integral to the Jewish religion,

292 Levey, Explaining American Jewish Political Liberalism, p. 86.

- 111 - as Litt asserts. However, it may not always have been as "easy" for impoverished

Diasporan Jews to express their liberalism through the avenue of or welfare as it was for the wealthy Jews in SA. The values expressed by Jews may remain constant, even as their forms of expression become increasingly "apolitical."

Perceiving threats to their micro-political interests, as Medding would have it,

Jews today may not need to take the same risks to express the same values that they once did. Their greater socio-economic status may have given the Jews opportunities to express their political values in ways which do not carry the same risks as overt political action. As the circumstances of Diaspora Jews change, we need to look to broader forms of expression in order to assess political values.293

We also need to study how Jews reflect on their chosen forms of political expression. SA Jewry's choice, to remain "within the law of the land," is especially interesting in light of the particular history of the Jewish people. In many works on the Holocaust, the moral culpability of the "bystander" is debated.

As Martha Gellhom suggests, perpetrators claim that since they were only obeying the law of their land, they are in possession of their "password to forgiveness" and therefore "untroubled by regret. "294 It cannot be said of organised Jewry in SA that it was untroubled by regret. Shimoni, at the end of his major work on the Jews of SA, refers to the conscience that troubled "the community's leaders, lay and religious."295 Although Shimoni is at pains to resist declaring this conscience to be in any way morally redemptive, he details elsewhere in his work the many instances where this communal conscience surfaced. For example, he reports that "throughout the apartheid years all the

293 Kaplan, Jewish Roots in the South African Economy. 294 Martha Gellhom, MARTHA GELLHORN: ON THE RECORD (May 24, 2004). Available www .bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/documentaries/features/martha-gellhom.shtml accessed November 14, 2007. 295 Shimoni, Community and Conscience, p. 276.

- 112 - contentions of the liberal or radical critics had been thrashed out with great pangs of conscience in innumerable debates within the councils of the Jewish Board of

Deputies itself. "296

As Shain and Frankental point out, the Jews of SA "like all whites .. .learnt to live with their consciences." 297 We need to look at the way in which Jews expressed their "consciences", and compare this expression with that of other relevant groups. Such a study remains to be done, and would depend on the availability of reliable information, such as interviews and records of the meetings of representative bodies of the various groups. Revealingly, Shimoni suggests that the Jewish conscience, where it found expression, was liberal in nature. The

Jewish conscience was preoccupied with the plight of "the underprivileged and oppressed Black majority" rather than that of the Afrikaner's struggle for a land of his own.298

296 Ibid, p. 109. 297 Shain and Frankental, "South African Jewry, Apartheid and Political Change", p. 64. 298 Shimoni, Community and Conscience, p. 29.

- 113 - Chapter 9

Conclusion

In this thesis, I have considered an apparent political anomaly: the South African

Jewish experience. While we have come to expect that Jews in the Diaspora will display an uncommonly liberal political orientation in various ways, records of the political actions of the Jews of South Africa contradict our expectations. South

African Jews rather displayed "characteristic minority group behaviour - a phenomenon of self-preservation performed at the cost of moral righteousness."299

In grappling with this inconsistency, I have considered vanous theories attempting to explain disproportionate Jewish liberalism. Amongst these is Peter

Medding's theory, which suggests that SA Jewish behaviour should not surprise us, since Jews are not universally or inherently liberal at all. In considering various aspects of the SA Jewish story, I have argued that the SA Jewish experience does not, in fact, support this pivotal aspect of Medding' s theory.

If SA Jewish behaviour is viewed in context, the extent of discemable Jewish liberalism may be greater than it first appears. We need to acknowledge that in

SA, Jewish political behaviour is usually viewed against a "liberalised" English backdrop. Even with this "shift" in mind, we still see that Jews hold more liberal political attitudes than those with whom they are compared. Available measures of Jewish political behaviour, however, do not apparently support this finding: when we look at overt forms of political expression, we find that Jews, especially

299 Ibid, p. 276.

- 114 - in their official capacity, did not behave significantly more liberally than the

English-speaking White group with whom they are usually compared.

I have considered various reasons for the possible discrepancy between the political values held by Jews and Jewish political behaviour in apartheid SA. The widely-acknowledged fear of Afrikaner antisemitism is only one of the factors limiting Jewish freedom of political expression. The "controlling" aspects of a cohesive community have also been considered. Considering the many ways in which these factors limited free political expression, by the Jewish group and by

Jewish individuals, we cannot assume that, in SA, Jewish unwillingness to oppose the apartheid regime was due to a "lack of liberalism."

SA Jewish behaviour is a poor guide, and perhaps a necessarily poor guide, to the political values of SA Jews. The "threats" that Medding acknowledges shape political behaviour also limit the authenticity of the political response.

At the risk of being misconstrued as an apologist for South African Jewry, I have attempted to show that standard measures of political action cannot be used in isolation in SA to provide insight into the political values held by Jews. Certain overt political behaviours may have been perceived as likely to unleash Afrikaner wrath, and may have been accordingly avoided by the Jews. However, by focussing on the negative aspects of the SA Jewish experience, we may neglect the positive ones. As a result of their particular strengths, alternate avenues for political expression were open to the SA Jews. These avenues may not have been as easily accessed by the groups with whom the SA Jews are compared. It is perhaps in these alternate ways that SA Jews felt safe to express their political values.

- 115 - The purpose of this thesis has not been to judge the political morality, wisdom or courage of SA Jews. Rather, it has been to advance empirical analysis of the record of SA Jewish politics, by drawing attention to the complexity of interpreting a case such as this. In judging whether SA Jews also exhibited a commitment to liberal values, many aspects of the SA Jewish record need to be considered. One of South Africa's foremost artists, William Kentridge, has created a body of work which attempts to make sense of "indirect complicity with injustice." His work concerns itself with "ambiguity, contradiction, uncompleted gestures and uncertain endings [in which] recognition and deception are intertwined." 300 Explaining his focus, he cites a simple finger-shadow game, where the event exists on

multiple levels: a pair of hands crossed and wagging; and a shadow which is two things [at once] a shadow of two hands ... and a shadow of a bird or butterfly ... what is fundamental is that we understand both. 301

I do not presume to ponder the moral implications of SA Jewish political behaviour during apartheid. Martin Luther King's assertion that "the ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort but where he stands in moments of challenge and controversy" serves to remind us that when we compare the political behaviour of Jews in SA with Jews elsewhere, we need to consider the ways in which different communities have been challenged.302 To date, the binary divisions of "left" and "right," or right and wrong, have been the

300 Gary Dufour, William Kentridge: Shadow Quartet (Perth: Art Gallery of Western Australia, 2004), p. 1. It is interesting to note that William Kentridge is the son of Sydney Kentridge, the noted assistant lawyer for the defence in the Treason Trial of the l 950's, in which many Jews were amongst those accused. The artist is also the grandson of prominent SA Jewish Member of Parliament and communal leader, Morris Kentridge. 301 Ibid, p. 2. 302 Martin Luther King, Jr, available http://www.brainyguote.com/guotes/guotes/m/martinluth 109228.html accessed November 1, 2007.

- 116 - focus of most considerations of SA Jewish political behaviour. Those who cite SA

Jewish behaviour as proof that Jews are not differentially liberal or who variously condemn or excuse SA Jews, are well advised to look into the "shadows" of

Jewish activity.

Political values are analytically and experientially distinct from political behaviour. While a community's conscience may not constitute moral redemption, it must be taken into account in any attempt to explain political action. 303 It is imperative to investigate, compare and assess the multiple levels of SA Jewish political responses if the SA experience is to meaningfully inform our understanding of modem Jewish liberalism.

303 Omer Bartov, Mirrors ofDestruction: War, Genocide, and Modern Identity (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).

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