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South African Jewry 20 Years Into Democracy

South African Jewry 20 Years Into Democracy

South African Jewry 12 20 Years Into Democracy

In December 2013, South was once again Another, thornier, question concerning world the focus of international attention following Jewry was what Mandela’s attitude had been the passing of its iconic former President Nelson toward . !e implications of this were of Mandela. Tributes poured in for this remarkable more than historical interest. Particularly since freedom fighter and statesman, and in due course the collapse of the Oslo peace process, there has world leaders began streaming into the country been a growing campaign to portray Israel as to attend his funeral. Just under twenty years an state essentially no di"erent from previously, they had similarly arrived from near the despised white minority regime in South and far to witness Mandela’s inauguration as Africa. !e comparison may be specious, but President of ’s newborn multiracial in a world where perceptions create their own democracy. realities, it has the potential to serious harm Mandela’s passing also placed the spotlight on the Jewish State. In no small part, the demise South African Jewry, at least so far as international of apartheid South Africa was hastened by the Jewry was concerned. For most of his career, international boycott against it, and those who he had been closely associated with members push the Israel-Apartheid equation believe that of the Jewish community, most notably in the it likewise holds the key to Israel’s demise. Had struggle against the racially oppressive apartheid someone of the stature of Nelson Mandela, the system. None of the country’s other ethnic white man more than anyone else associated with the communities came close to producing so high fight against apartheid, endorsed this canard, it a proportion of individuals who had helped him would greatly boost the credibility of those who 1 to realize his goals. !is in turn was part of the propagate it. broader phenomenon of , despite being part Mandela’s attitude toward Israel and his of the privileged white caste, producing a strikingly relationship with South African Jewry have been disproportionate number of those whites who did alluded to because in many ways they capture oppose apartheid. the ambiguous position of Jews in South Africa

THE JEWISH PEOPLE POLICY INSTITUTE 173 today. On the one hand, the awkward transition anti- and the struggle against it is only one from a society based on entrenched white component of the collective Jewish experience. privilege to one of multiracial democracy has Taken as a whole, in fact, the overall state of South been eased by the fact that individual Jews did so African Jewry twenty years into democracy is much to bring about the new order. Certainly, it remarkably healthy, arguably more so than at any has helped the to punch above time in the community’s 175 year-old history. !is its weight in terms of accessing government and may not be the case in bare numerical terms; the having input into public policy. On the other community reached its peak of around 120 000 the strongly entrenched culture of anti-Zionism, souls in 1970,2 and since then it has decreased by so typical of post-colonial African societies and more than a third. It is certainly true, however, for historical reasons particularly pronounced in in terms of the high levels of Jewish identity, the South Africa, places mainstream Jewry at odds correspondingly low rates of assimilation and with the government’s intermarriage and the burgeoning of Jewish standpoint and the views learning at all levels. Additionally, and despite the !e South of their fellow citizens in prevalence of anti-Zionist sentiment, South Africa African Jewish general. !e notion that has consistently recorded one of the Diaspora’s population is Israel practices a form of lowest rates of anti-Semitism. approximately apartheid and that the 75,000, out situation regarding Demographics and Distribution of a total and Palestinians largely population of mirrors the situation In global terms, the South African Jewish 52 million in pre-liberation South population is not particularly large. Nevertheless, Africa is now widely it still constitutes the twelfth-largest Jewish regarded as fact. It has community in the Diaspora and by far the naturally been assiduously propagated by anti- largest on the African continent.3 Despite losses Israel activists, who in seeking to undermine to emigration during the final quarter of the last the credibility of those who oppose them do century, it still comprises some 70-75,000 souls not scruple to feed into the inevitable vein of (out of a total population of 52 million). !is anti-white racial sentiment within the black figure has remained stable for at least a decade. population. Hence, by taking a stand on behalf Prior to World War II, the Jewish population of Israel, Jews increasingly risk being seen as was more spread out than it is today. While the supporters of apartheid, and indeed are regularly majority were concentrated in the main urban labeled as such in certain quarters. centers – , , , !is overview will explore these and related , , Bloemfontein and East questions, but at this point it must be stressed that London – a substantial minority lived in the

174 THE JEWISH PEOPLE POLICY INSTITUTE smaller country towns, and in scores of cases degree of actual practice varies widely) and its were su#ciently numerous to establish formally strong support for Zionism. constituted congregations. !e larger country In addition to the dominant Eastern European centers also had active Zionist, women’s, youth component, the community comprises a and welfare organizations. After the war, however, significant minority of German-Jewish origin, Jews began relocating to the cities, initially for largely descended from refugees from Nazism economic and educational reasons, but with this who arrived in the 1930s. Since the war, additional exodus in due course generating a momentum of diversity has been provided by 4 its own. Today, not only have most of the country originally from the Greek island of , most communities closed, but even in the cities the of who had first gone to Northern and Southern Jewish population has declined sharply, sometimes Rhodesia (today’s and ). Israelis, by as much as 90%. According to the 2001 census whether as permanent residents or transient and available communal records, two thirds of the workers, have likewise Jewish community – an estimated 50 000 – live emerged as a distinct in Johannesburg and 20% in Cape Town (16 000). !ree out of grouping within the four of its Durban and Pretoria together account for 3000 community. more, and around the same number are spread members have out in the remainder of the country. Because of the high rate Lithuanian of emigration by younger roots, the result In 1950, the SAJBD appointed an itinerant people from the mid- of a huge whose brief was to pay regular visits to the 1970s, the profile of influx between declining pockets of country Jewry no longer the Jewish community 1880 and 1930 able to employ a religious minister and teacher. today is a relatively aged !is position has been held since 1993 by Rabbi one. According to the Moshe Silberhaft, whose brief has been expanded 2001 census, 20% of its to visit the small Jewish communities in such members were over 65, Southern African countries as Namibia, Botswana, as opposed to just 5% 5 Mauritius, Zimbabwe and Swaziland. nationally. !e same proportion, however, were A noteworthy feature of South African Jewry is under the age of twenty, their numbers swelled by that an estimated three out of four of its members the typically larger families within the burgeoning have Lithuanian roots, the result of a huge influx religious sector. !ese age profiles vary from from that country and neighboring territories in place to place. !e median age in Johannesburg the period 1880-1930. !is common heritage helps and Cape Town is lower than that of Durban and to explain what can be said to most characterize Pretoria, while in Bloemfontein, East London and the community, namely its strong attachment Port Elizabeth, Jews over fifty now constitute the to traditional Orthodox (albeit that the large majority.6

THE JEWISH PEOPLE POLICY INSTITUTE 175 Education and faculty members adhere to such precepts varies widely. While a non-coercive stance is A striking feature of South African Jewry is how maintained regarding di"erent levels of religious many of the youth are being educated within observance, non-Orthodox and secular streams of the system. Over 90% of those religious instruction are rigorously excluded. of school-going age are found in Johannesburg !e SA Board of Jewish Education, the largest body and Cape Town, and more than four out of five of its kind in the Diaspora, is directly responsible of these attend a Jewish school (the majority for the educational and financial policies of of the remainder attend private colleges). In the King David Schools. It has over 90 a#liates Johannesburg the largest school system comprises countrywide, including the United Herzlia the three King David schools, whose combined Schools, College, Academy, Shaarei student body comprise just under 60% of those Torah Primary and Hirsch Lyons in Johannesburg being educated under and !eodor Herzl in Port Elizabeth. ! e latter’s Jewish auspices. !e student body today is 90% non-Jewish, but a As a result of in basic Jewish-Zionist education is provided for the the growth Cape Town cater for over city’s remaining Jewish youth. In Durban, whose of Orthodox 80% of Jewish school- Carmel Jewish day school had to close in the late- observance in goers. !e remainder by 1990s, a new, more religiously focused school was Johannesburg, and large attend the more established at the beginning of 2012. a wide array religiously focused Phyllis of religious Jowell Jewish Day School As a result of the growth of Orthodox observance schools has and Sinai Academy or in Johannesburg, a wide array of religious schools emerged private institutions. has emerged. Ideologically, they range from the Ultra-Orthodox Johannesburg , where the !e ethos of the King greater emphasis is on Kodesh studies – exclusively David and Herzlia schools is o#cially defined as so in the upper age groups – to the more Mizrachi ‘broadly national-traditional’7, that is, that the and Zionist-oriented Yeshiva College, the second specifically Jewish content of its curricula is a largest system after King David. Somewhere in synthesis of Zionism (including the teaching of between are Hirsch Lyons, Torah Academy (under modern and literature) and the auspices of Lubavitch), , traditional . Regarding the Yeshiva Maharsha and Shaarei Torah. With the latter, it has meant in practice that the outer forms exception of Bais Yaakov girls’ high school, all of how the schools are run have been governed provide a Jewish and secular education from pre- by Orthodox norms, such as in modes of daily school through to matric, for both boys and girls worship and the observance of , (who are educated separately from early primary and Yom Tov, but the degree to which students school level).

176 THE JEWISH PEOPLE POLICY INSTITUTE !at so high a proportion of the youth attends next five years, 211 cited ‘personal safety concerns’ Jewish schools testifies to the robustness of as being the most, or one of the most important the community’s Jewish identity, but it is not reasons for wishing to do so.8 the whole story. In large part, it is also due to !ere is little doubt that had this dire situation the widespread lack of faith in the quality of continued, the high rates of Jewish emigration government educational institutions. In addition prior to the turn of the century would have to their Jewish content, the Jewish day schools continued apace, imperiling the very existence of also provide a high standard of secular education, the Jewish community. What has been a critical as shown by their consistently impressive levels of factor in reducing the crime threat to manageable academic achievement. !us, the schools provide levels has been the extraordinary success of the the best of both worlds – private school-quality Community Active Patrol (CAP) initiative. CAP secular education combined with a thorough provides supplementary policing in areas where exposure to Jewish religion, history, language and Jews are concentrated literature – but of course the financial pressures through a partnership !e are formidable. When to this is added the cost of between the community private health insurance and additional security overwhelming and security professionals. majority of one gets some idea as to the pressures that !rough this, vehicles people are under to maintain First World living those thinking manned by well trained of emigrating standards in a society where basic state services and equipped security are increasingly inadequate. cite personal personnel constantly safety concerns patrol specifically Safety and Security designated areas of Johannesburg 24 hours Nowhere has the inadequacy of state services per day, reacting to every been so pressing a problem as in the area of report of criminal activity or even suspicious maintaining law and order. Since the political behavior received by members of the public. CAP transition, South Africa’s levels of violent crime, was instituted at the behest of the Community including murder and rape, have consistently Security Organization (CSO), a Jewish civil defense been amongst the highest in the world. Statistics body set up under the auspices by the SAJBD in relating to car hijackings and home invasions have 1993, with the involvement of the ’s likewise reached unprecedented levels in the post- O#ce. !e original purpose of the CSO was solely 1994 era. A survey on attitudes within the Jewish to protect the Jewish community against anti- community conducted in 1998 (see below) found Semitism, but ten years later it was realized that that of 267 respondents indicating that they were it was predatory crime and not anti-Semitism fairly or very likely to leave South Africa within the that posed the greatest threat to Jewish well-

THE JEWISH PEOPLE POLICY INSTITUTE 177 being. One especially harrowing incident which discipline, involving cost-saving amalgamations helped to trigger the CSO’s strategic shift into of di"erent organizations, the elimination of public policing was a home invasion where an wasteful duplication of services and the pooling armed robber calmly helped himself to food in of resources such as sharing premises and the kitchen while the four year-old Jewish child administrative services. !us, in Johannesburg, he had just shot lay bleeding in the next room.9 welfare now largely falls under the umbrella of CAP was first instituted in the heavily Jewish the Johannesburg Jewish Helping Hand and Burial suburb of Glenhazel and adjoining areas in 2006. Society (Chevra Kadisha) which, in addition After the first year, violent crime in the area had to its traditional charitable support for needy dropped by 79%.10 !e success of the model saw community members oversees the running of the it progressively implemented in other areas where Jewish aged homes Sandringham Gardens and Jews were largely based, Our Parents Home, the Arcadia Jewish Orphanage and with comparably (now largely catering for children from broken !e moves impressive results. It homes), the Society for the Jewish Handicapped, countrywide would be no exaggeration Jewish Community Services and the Jewish have resulted in to say that the success Women’s Benevolent Society, amongst other, huge savings for of the CAP initiative has smaller, organizations. Organizations responsible the community, transformed the position for the civil rights, security and Zionistic side of and ensured the of Jews in Johannesburg, communal life as well as for services of a more sustainability of not to mention that cultural or research nature are based at the the cradle-to- of their non-Jewish Beyachad communal center. !ey include the SA grave services neighbors as well, and Jewish Board of Deputies, SA Zionist Federation, given the community a Israel-United Appeal-United Communal Fund, new lease on life. Women’s International Zionist Organization-SA (WIZO-SA), Union of Jewish Women, SA Union of Communal Infrastructure Jewish Students and the CSO. and Finances Rationalization initiatives have been implemented with similar success in Cape Town, Durban, Even more than education, providing adequate Pretoria and Port Elizabeth. Fundraising in welfare services for the growing number Cape Town largely falls under the United Jewish of needy members of the community has Campaign. Similarly, the local branches of the placed a formidable burden on the Jewish SAJBD, Zionist Federation, WIZO-SA and CSO, communal infrastructure. One of the ways in together with various smaller organizations, share which the challenge has been met is through the same premises, in Hatfield Street, Gardens. a rigorous process of rationalization and fiscal Just across the road is the city’s main Jewish

178 THE JEWISH PEOPLE POLICY INSTITUTE cultural and educational campus, housing the So far as questions of Jewish identity and a#liation Cape Town Holocaust Centre, SA Jewish Museum were concerned, the findings of both studies were and . Also on site is the Great encouraging. Over 90% of respondents saw their , premises of the country’s oldest Jewishness as being either very or fairly important. Jewish congregation, the Cape Town Hebrew In the religious sense, two-thirds classified Congregation (established 1841). themselves as ‘Traditional’, that is that they were An inevitable result of this downsizing has been not fully observant in the Orthodox sense but that the Jewish communal service sector can their a#liation was to Orthodox no longer employ community members on the and modes of worship. Of the remainder, 14% scale that it once did. In a country where the classified themselves as ‘Strictly Orthodox’, 7% unemployment rate is at around 35%, this is no as Reform/Progressive and 12% as Secular/Just minor disadvantage. Previously, working for the Jewish. Mirroring these community had provided a niche for a significant attitudes was the low Surveys have proportion of community members, particularly rate of intermarriage. found high levels those without special skills or qualifications. !at 94% of respondents of attachment being said, the rationalization moves countrywide who were or had been to Israel – have resulted in huge savings for the community, married had been married approximately and ensured the sustainability of the cradle- to other Jews, i.e. those 80% have close to-grave services provided by its communal born Jewish or converts friends or infrastructure. In any case, the main reason for to Judaism whether via 12 relatives there smaller sta"s across the board is simply one of Orthodox or Reform. technological advances, which have rendered so 4% of the respondents many secretarial and such like positions obsolete. were converts, the split between those converted under Reform and under Orthodox auspices being roughly 50:50. Religious A"liations, Zionism Both surveys found high levels of attachment and Jewish Identity to Israel. Approximately 80% had close friends In 1998 and 2005, two important surveys were and relatives there and the same proportion had conducted on Jewish attitudes toward, amongst visited at least once. Just over half claimed to feel other things, religion, Zionism, politics and a strong and one-third a moderate attachment the current state and future of South Africa.11 to Israel, which was also one of the top countries !e findings were based on responses to would (hypothetically) various questions received from one thousand immigrate to.13 community members drawn proportionately from In broad terms, Johannesburg is the hub of Jewish Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban and Pretoria. religiosity while Cape Town is characterized more

THE JEWISH PEOPLE POLICY INSTITUTE 179 by its active Jewish cultural and intellectual life. At Yad Shaul, Emunah Ladies Beit , Yeshiva the most recent count, there were just over sixty Maharsha, Lubavitch Yeshiva Gedolah, active Orthodox synagogues in Johannesburg, Beit Midrash and Ohr Somayach). 40% of Jewish considerably more than at any time in the city’s youth attend one or other of the religious schools, history, despite the Jewish population being much which have a sizable Kodesh component in their smaller than it was at its height. One reason for this curricula. !e number of pupils enrolling in these proliferation is the phenomenon of ‘shtieblization’, schools, most of them products of large Dati that is, the establishment of small, independent households, continues to grow.14 congregations based in converted residential Most Orthodox congregations are a#liated to the properties and sometimes just in a room or two Union of Orthodox Synagogues, which maintains in an o#ce block. Ten of these congregations fall the O#ce of the Chief Rabbi and the Johannesburg under the Chabad-Lubavitch movement alone, and whose Kashrut Department oversees while others include the production and distribution of kosher traditional Lithuanian- products. !e role of the Beth Din in Johannesburg Johannesburg style ‘Mitnagdim’, Israeli and Cape Town and Cape Town includes dealing with questions of Sephardi and Mizrachi. conversion, adoption, divorce and Dinei Torah. both have three !is competition Progressive notwithstanding, the Progressive (Reform) Judaism falls under the congregations traditional ‘big shuls,’ with auspices of the SA Union for Progressive Judaism. while there seating capacities of 500 Johannesburg and Cape Town both have three is one each and upwards, continue Progressive congregations while there is one in Durban, to hold their own. Over each in Durban, Pretoria, Port Elizabeth, and East Pretoria, Port time, certain shtiebls (the London. Only 7% of South African Jews now Elizabeth, and original Ohr Somayach consider themselves to be Reform/Progressive. !e East London , for example) have Progressive community is also a relatively aged one. grown to the point where According to the 2005 survey, 71% of its members are they are more or less on a over the age of 45 compared to the national average 15 par with the larger mainstream synagogues. of 56% and 36% amongst the Strictly Orthodox. !is in turn points to the central weakness of the In addition to places of worship, religious learning Progressive movement in South Africa, namely its centers have proliferated. !e Johannesburg failure to produce its own educational institutions to Yeshiva Gedolah, established in 1974, has since match those established under Orthodox auspices. produced a sizable proportion of the country’s Nevertheless, there continues to be an active religious leadership (including the current Chief women’s movement (the United Sisterhood, which Rabbi Dr. ). Other significant maintains a proud tradition of charitable work in adult learning institutions include the both the Jewish and general community), as well as a

180 THE JEWISH PEOPLE POLICY INSTITUTE Zionist youth group (Netzer). form of verbal abuse or hate mail. !is was true even in 2009, which as a result of the fall-out from Anti-Semitism and Anti-Zionism Operation Cast Lead in Gaza was the worst year on record in terms of anti-Semitic activity in South South Africa has the unwelcome distinction Africa. Only three cases that could be classified as of being associated with perhaps the most ‘physical harassment’ were recorded, and none of notorious display of public anti-Semitism in damage and desecration to Jewish property. By modern times, namely the 2001 World Conference contrast, that same year in the , Against Racism (WCAR). Held in Durban under there were 79 recorded cases of violent assault and the auspices of the United Nations, the NGO- 63 of damage and desecration (including to 17 component of this event was hijacked by radical synagogues). anti-Israel groupings and turned into a vehicle for South Africa’s low anti-Semitism rates must in demonizing and de-legitimizing the Jewish state. It part be attributed to the also, inevitably, spilled over into displays of more country’s strong multi- !e WCAR had general anti-Semitism, such as in the distribution cultural ethos and zero- little impact on of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (a banned tolerance attitude toward one of the most publication in South Africa). all forms of racial, ethnic or encouraging Curiously enough, even the WCAR had little religious-based prejudice. aspects of impact on one of the most encouraging aspects Specific legislation and South Africa of South Africa today, namely its consistently institutions have been today, namely low rates of anti-Semitism. As measured by set up specifically to its low rates of actual acts intended to cause harm – examples protect groups and anti-Semitism range from assault to verbal abuse, hate mail, individuals from unfair the distribution of anti-Semitic literature and discrimination on the vandalism – the annual figures recorded in the basis of race, religion, ethnicity, gender or other country are strikingly low when compared with such unreasonable grounds. !ese include the those of other major Diaspora communities. Since Bill of Rights in the Constitution, the SA Human the beginning of the century, the annual total of Rights Commission, Equality Courts and media anti-Semitic incidents jointly logged by the SAJBD regulatory bodies that balance the right to and CSO has seldom exceeded fifty, as opposed to freedom of expression against the Constitutional between 500 to well over a thousand in the UK, prohibitions against “hate speech”. It was largely , France and . Aside from bare as a result of the input and representations of numbers, the relatively innocuous nature of anti- the SAJBD, in fact, that the anti-hate speech Semitic activity is noteworthy. Overwhelmingly, clauses were included in the new, post-apartheid it is of a non-violent nature, usually taking the Constitution.16

THE JEWISH PEOPLE POLICY INSTITUTE 181 A second reason for South Africa’s low anti- warning that the transition to majority rule would Semitism rates is the demise of the threat once mean the end of South Africa’s close ties with the posed by the extreme right wing of the white Jewish state was when Mandela met with Yasser population following the transition to democracy. Arafat shortly after his release from prison in 1990. Prior to 1994, it was from this quarter that most !e Palestine Liberation Organization had been anti-Semitic activity emanated and about which a stalwart ally of the ANC during the struggle the Jewish community was most concerned. Now era, and the subsequently published photograph a marginalized fringe group, white rightists largely of the two leaders warmly embracing sent shock confine their activities to bewailing their lost waves through the already jittery ranks of South cause via the Internet, in the course of which the African Jewry. Jews had now to adapt to the downfall of the white man is routinely attributed reality that the likely future government had to the pernicious close ties with Israel’s most implacable foes and machinations of Jewish negative attitudes toward Israel itself. Exacerbating A second reason communists/capitalists/ the situation was the uncomfortable reality that why anti-Israel liberals. Israel and South Africa had had close ties with one sentiment in 17 At the time of another, including in the military sphere. government writing, South Africa Two factors shielded the Jewish community to a circles remained is experiancing an large extent from the implications of this historical largely dormant unprecedented wave of legacy during the 1990s. One was the impressive during the early virulently anti-Semitic proportion of its members who had fought against transition years invective, particularly apartheid, often at a heavy personal cost. !is had was the Oslo in the social media, as a created some awkward moments for the Jewish peace process result of the conflict in leadership during the apartheid era, with pointed Gaza. It remains to be questions being asked in high places about where seen whether this ugly new discourse, which blacks Jewish loyalties lay, but after 1990 the community are now almost as likley as Muslims to be guilty of has to a great extent shared in the reflected glory spreading, is the harbinger of an altogether more of those who had taken a stand. (To illustrate this, dangerous new era for South African Jewry. government representatives who have spoken !e mounting hostility to Israel in the mainstream at SAJBD congresses, including all four post- political, academic and media culture has indeed 1994 presidents, have never failed to make some become very troubling. mention of these contributions). Much more troubling to the Jewish community is A second reason why anti-Israel sentiment in the mounting hostility to Israel in the mainstream government circles remained largely dormant political, academic and media culture. An early during the early transition years was the Oslo peace process, which had been launched just

182 THE JEWISH PEOPLE POLICY INSTITUTE before the first democratic South African almost all to some degree anti-Zionist. elections and which many believed would yield While South Africa’s own transition was still in due course a similarly successful negotiated underway and a parallel process apparently taking settlement to the one that had been achieved place on the Israeli-Palestinian front, it was rare for in South Africa. So long as the two sides seemed ‘Struggle’ veterans to come out in public against to be making progress toward reaching this goal, Israel. A year into the Second Intifada, however, o#cial criticism of Israel was muted. However, this situation changed when Ronnie Kasrils, a whenever the peace process ran into di#culties, senior member of the ruling party’s armed wing as was the case during Binyamin Netanyahu’s first in exile and at that time a Cabinet Minister, term of o#ce, the stance unfailingly adopted was launched what came to be called the ‘Not in that it was Israel that was to blame. my Name’ campaign during a parliamentary Jewish leaders thus found that their relationships debate on the Middle East. !e initial aim of with government were to a large extent hostage this movement was to the ebbs and flows of the Middle East peace to persuade “South E#orts have process. !is was not so bad so long as there Africans of Jewish been made was a peace process, but all this changed with descent” to endorse a to divide the the launch of the so-called “Second Intifada” in 1200-word Declaration community into September 2000. Since then, the South Africa- of Conscience which ‘good’ and ‘bad’ Israel relationship has been cool at best, and the blamed Israel almost camps over Middle East issue has been a continual bone of exclusively for the the Israel contention between the ruling party and the conflict. South African issue Jewish leadership. Jewry as a whole A second way in which the demise of Oslo was stunned by this negatively impacted on the Jewish community unprecedented attempt, was in how what had once been an asset, emanating from the highest level of government, namely the many Jews who had fought against to divide the community into ‘good’ and ‘bad’ apartheid, in many ways became a liability. camps over the Israel issue. !ey were also Jewish anti-apartheid activists had fallen into shocked by the sheer virulence of the invective two broad categories – traditional liberal and employed by Kasrils, a flamboyant, in many hard left. !e former, who generally campaigned ways unstable personality whose reaction to against apartheid from within legally permissible the community’s outrage against him was 18 parameters (such as in Parliament), were to become progressively more abusive. !e supportive of Zionism or at least neutral about it. petition campaign attracted only a few hundred Jewish leftists – and overwhelmingly, these tended signatures, but the list included many well-known to be committed Communists – were by contrast figures from the freedom struggle. !e extent

THE JEWISH PEOPLE POLICY INSTITUTE 183 to which this has undermined the e"ectiveness Yossi Reshef at Wits University, led by members of e"orts to counter the country’s culture of of the Student Representative Council; a anti-Israel bias – and in particular, the equating nationwide boycott against a Jewish-owned toy of Israel and its policies with apartheid South store chain because of its support for the Jewish Africa – cannot be overstated. A perception National Fund; a boycott campaign against has been fostered that Jewish dissidents against Ahava cosmetics, which in part operates in Zionism are equivalent to white who, the West Bank and an attempt to prevent the for reasons of conscience, took a stand against company from performing the apartheid system even if it meant being cast in Israel. While these and other initiatives have out as traitors by mainstream Afrikanerdom. to date resulted in more noise than concrete Ever since, anti-Israel groupings in South Africa achievements, there is a danger of their creating – they include movements like BDS-SA, Stop an environment where any engagement with the Jewish National Israelis, no matter how innocuous, will be seen Fund, Open Shuhada as being simply not worth the trouble by those BDS activists Street and the Palestine otherwise uncommitted on the whole question. exploit Solidarity Committee A concerning trend is the increasing readiness anti-white – have exploited to the feeling within of BDS activists to exploit anti-white feeling maximum the presence within the black population as a way of the black of anti-Zionist Jews population smearing those Jews who oppose them. !e within their ranks, not rhetoric adopted against Israel now largely as a way of least because of the alibi smearing those mirrors the protest rhetoric that characterized they provide against the popular discourse against apartheid. In Jews who accusations of anti- oppose them this scenario, Jews emerge as the modern-day Semitism. equivalent of the racist and oppressive white Anti-Israel groupings establishment of yesteryear, people who were have of late become more aggressive in their complicit in propping up the former regime determination not just to malign the Jewish and who now support the same hateful system state but to sabotage all forms of interaction against the Palestinians. How far this thinking between South Africans and Israelis, be it in has penetrated was shown by the chanting of the academic, cultural, economic or political the notorious ‘Struggle’ song ‘Shoot the Boer’ sphere. More recent boycott initiatives include: by black demonstrators at Wits University in campaigning against a water purification August 2013, only with the wording changed to research partnership between the University of Dubula e’Juda – ‘Shoot the .’19 Johannesburg and Ben Gurion University; the Working with limited resources in a generally disruption of a recital by Israeli-born pianist hostile milieu, the Jewish establishment has

184 THE JEWISH PEOPLE POLICY INSTITUTE fought hard against the boycott and had some a meeting in June that there was no such travel success. Notably, after extensive lobbying ban, but subsequently contradicted this when and multiple submissions to the relevant addressing the virulently anti-Israel Congress parliamentary committees, it persuaded of SA Trade Unions. !e ensuing controversy government to overturn a Cabinet decision was fanned further by Avigdor Lieberman’s ill- regarding how Israeli products originating in considered comments that SA Jewry faced an the West Bank were to be labeled. Previously, imminent pogrom and should hasten to make it was required that such goods be identified .20 Cabinet has as “Products Originating from Occupied since issued a statement South Africa Palestinian Territory”, wording so politicized as stating unequivocally still has full to constitute a virtual government hechsher for that no ‘travel ban’ is diplomatic boycotting those products. !e final wording in force, but events on relations with adopted was the essentially descriptive and the ground contradict Israel, but in politically neutral “West Bank: Israeli goods/ the o#cial position. reality there East : Israeli goods”. !eoretically, South has been Africa still has full Understanding just where South Africa stands on very limited diplomatic relations the question of maintaining relations with Israel is interaction for at with Israel with a South further bedeviled by the contradictory messages least a decade in that regard being put out by government African Embassy in Tel spokespeople. It sometimes appears that there Aviv, but in reality there is a tug-of-war underway between those who has been very limited in favor of maintaining the status quo and interaction in this sphere for at least a decade. those agitating for ties to be severed altogether. !e controversy over the so-called ‘travel ban’ Jews and the Wider Society illustrates this well. It emerged in early 2013 that Deputy Minister of International Relations At the time of writing, South Africa is shortly to Ebrahim Ebrahim had issued a memorandum hold its fifth general elections since the transition prohibiting government representatives from to democracy. In the inaugural elections in April visiting Israel until such time as progress was 1994, the Jewish vote was divided between the made in ending its occupation of Palestinian liberal Democratic Party (56%), the National territory. For some time prior to that, attempts Party (31%) and the eventual winners, the African 21 to get even lower level political representatives National Congress (11%). Since then, Jews have to visit Israel had been stymied, in certain cases voted almost entirely for the Democratic Alliance at the last minute. Minister of International (DA – the successor to the Democratic Party), Relations Maite Mashabane assured the SAJBD in which, under the leadership of the charismatic

THE JEWISH PEOPLE POLICY INSTITUTE 185 Jewish lawyer , became the O#cial the racial divisions in the population, with the Opposition in 1999. Ten Jews served as MPs in minority white, and mixed-race groups the 400-seat National Assembly in the first post- overwhelmingly supporting the DA whereas apartheid parliament, mainly as members of blacks support either the ANC or other, smaller, the ANC. !at number dwindled steadily until black ethnic parties. !ere is also an increasing only one remains, the veteran anti-apartheid tendency by some ANC leaders to exploit the activist Ben Turok (who has since announced his legacy of anti-white resentment to shore up their imminent retirement from politics). However, for power base, something that would have been the first time this century, at least two new Jewish unthinkable during the Mandela years. MPs are likely to take their seats after the election, !ere has been a much stronger emphasis on as representatives of the DA. One of them, Michael charitable and social upliftment work outside Bagraim, is a former national chairman of the the confines of the Jewish community in the SAJBD. It remains to be post-apartheid era. Apartheid resulted in seen whether this heralds Apartheid enormous socio-economic inequalities between a renewed era of Jewish the privileged white minority and the rest of the resulted in involvement in political enormous population, and Jewish leaders, from the late a"airs. 22 socio-economic Chief Rabbi Cyril Harris through to business inequalities; !e ruling African magnates, communal professionals and existing Jewish leaders National Congress, social outreach organizations have taken on the have taken on which currently controls challenge of ensuring that Jews do their part the challenge of a fraction under two- in redressing those imbalances. In addition to redressing those thirds of the 400 seats in organizations like Afrika Tikkun, which were imbalances the National Assembly, founded specifically as Jewish-led initiatives aimed will almost certainly at redressing the imbalances in society caused win this year’s elections by apartheid, most of the traditional Jewish comfortably once more, but most likely with communal bodies – they include the SAJBD, SA a reduced majority. Popular discontent over Zionist Federation, youth movements, Jewish multiple cases of public corruption, nepotism, National Fund and women’s Zionist groups – have poor service delivery and wastefulness by included general social outreach amongst their government representatives has grown in recent ongoing activities.23 years, often manifesting in violent protests. It Once it became obvious that the unraveling of the remains to be seen whether the DA can capitalize apartheid system was irreversible, South African on this by making meaningful inroads into the Jews in the main welcomed the change and sought ANC’s mainly black support base. !e reality to play a constructive part in bringing about is that South African politics largely reflects the new democratic order. !is commitment

186 THE JEWISH PEOPLE POLICY INSTITUTE to participating alongside their fellow citizens to participate fully in the a"airs of the wider in nation building, social upliftment and the society. !e future, as ever, is uncertain. Many fear safeguarding of the institutions of democracy that the endemic corruption and mismanagement, continues to underpin how the Jewish leadership not to mention racial polarization and popular sees its role today, twenty years since the transition anger, that has come to characterize so much of to majority rule. South Africa, its many problems public life today is a harbinger for South Africa’s notwithstanding, remains a politically and being just another failed African state in the not- economically stable democratic society, where to-distant future. !at being said, South Africa diversity is respected, minority rights protected has confounded the doomsday predictions of the essential human rights and freedoms strictly naysayers many times in the past. With its robust upheld. For the Jewish community, it has provided economy, resilient democratic structures, rich a safe, tolerant environment in which Jewish life in natural resources and sophisticated First World all its richness and diversity has been able to thrive, infrastructure, there is every reason to hope that it while at the same time allowing Jews as individuals will continue to do so as it begins its third decade of multiracial democracy.

THE JEWISH PEOPLE POLICY INSTITUTE 187 Endnotes !inking through a Paradox about Security”, in British Journal of Criminology, Vol. 53, No. 6, November 2013. 1. Essentially, Mandela was a “two-state solutionist” 10. Ibid. who recognised the legitimacy of both Jewish and Palestinian national aspirations. !is writer’s book 11. !e first conducted by the Institute for Jewish Policy Jewish Memories of Mandela (SA Jewish Board of Research, in association with the Kaplan Centre for Deputies-Umoja Foundation, 2011) discusses these Jewish Studies and Research in Cape Town, and the issues. second by the Kaplan Centre alone. 2. Dubb, A A, !e Jewish Population of South Africa – 12. Bruk, ‘!e Jews of South Africa’, loc. cit. !e 1991 Sociodemographic Survey, Kaplan Centre 13. Ibid. !e number of Jews from South Africa who have for Jewish Studies & Research, Cape Town, 1994, p7. made Aliyah is believed to be between 20-25 000. !e table provides figures showing the growth and decline of the Jewish population according to o#cial 14. ‘Rise in Jewish day-school enrolments’, SA Jewish census figures for the period 1880-1991. Report, 18/5/2012 3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_population_ 15. Bruk, Shirley, ‘!e Jews Of South Africa: Highlights of by_country#Countries the 2005 Attitudinal Survey’, Jewish A"airs, Vol. 61, Rosh Hashanah 2006. 4. !e phenomenon of small-town and rural Jewry relocating to the larger urban centres is, of course, 16. Kessler, S, ‘!e South African Constitution and the not unique to South Africa. Input of the Jewish Community’, Jewish A"airs, Vol. 56, No. 2, Winter, 2000. 5. Rabbi Silberhaft’s work is the subject of a unique piece of contemporary Jewish travel literature, !e 17. See in this regard Polakow-Suransky, Sasha, !e Travelling Rabbi – My African Tribe (Moshe Silberhaft, Unspoken Alliance: Israel's Secret Relationship with with Suzanne Belling, 2010). Apartheid South Africa. Random House, 2010. 6. ‘!e Current State of the Jewish Community’, 18. For a full account of this episode, see Pollak, Joel, presentation by David Saks, Associate Director of !e Kasrils A"air: Jews and Minority Politics in Post- the SA Jewish Board of Deputies at the 43rd biennial Apartheid South Africa, Juta Academic, Cape Town, conference of the SAJBD, 28 August 2005. 2009. 7. Shimoni, Gideon, Jews and Zionism – !e South 19. “Fury at singing of ‘Shoot the Jew’ at Israeli musicians African Experience, 1910-1967, Oxford University concert”, Pretoria News, 3/9/2013. Boer’ is a common Press, Cape Town, 1980, p182. term for white Afrikaners. 8. Jews of the ‘new South Africa’: Highlights of the 1998 20. http://www.jpost.com/Diplomacy-and-Politics/ national survey of South African Jews, Institute for Liberman-hits-back-at-South-African-FM-says- Jewish Policy Research, in association with the Kaplan her-comments-were-anti-Semitic-330475 Centre for Jewish Studies & Research, JPR Report No 21. Jews of the ‘new South Africa’: Highlights of the 1998 3, 1999, p20. national survey of South African Jews, Institute for 9. Marks, Monique, Steinberg, Jonny, ‘!e Labyrinth Jewish Policy Research, in association with the Kaplan of Jewish Security Arrangements in Johannesburg: Centre for Jewish Studies & Research, JPR Report No 3, 1999, p23.

188 THE JEWISH PEOPLE POLICY INSTITUTE 22. Rabbi Harris’ booklet ‘Jewish Obligation to the Non- Jew’ (Tikkun Publications, No 1, 1996) was primarily aimed at encouraging Jewish social outreach in the wider society. 23. !e SAJBD has published two books on this subject, Reach – Jewish Helping Hands in South Africa ( ) and Jubuntu (2013).

THE JEWISH PEOPLE POLICY INSTITUTE 189

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