A South African politician has called for a local Jewish community school to be deregistered over the fact that nearly a quarter of the school's graduating students make aliyah and join the IDF.
Member of the Provincial Legislature (MPL) Aishah Cassiem made the controversial statement about Herzlia High, a Cape Town Jewish school, on June 15 in the Western Cape Provincial Parliament.
“It is insulting for the DA [Democratic Alliance] provincial government to condemn the war in Ukraine but do nothing with regard to this school which is aligned to the apartheid state of Israel and encouraging learners to partake in apartheid," Cassiem said while dressed in her signature Palestinian keffiyeh.
Jewish groups denounce Cassiem
In a statement Tuesday, The Simon Wiesenthal Center, a prominent Jewish group denounced the statement Cassiem made. "The Simon Wiesenthal Center is denouncing the call by a South African politician who has called for Herzlia High, a Jewish community school in Cape Town, to be deregistered after it emerged that up to 22% of the school’s pupils go to Israel the year after school to join the IDF," the group said.
Daniel Bloch, executive director of the Cape South African Jewish Board of Deputies, said to JNS, “The Cape SAJBD is deeply concerned by the EFF’s latest public attack on members of the Herzlia Board, displaying photographs and names on social media.
“The Cape SAJBD will not stand by and allow this political grandstanding to continue. It is a shameful attack on the largest and most prestigious Jewish school in the Western Cape. We will continue to support Herzlia and its leadership and will fight the ANC, EFF and all other organizations’ reprehensible attempts to deregister the school.
"This is just the latest unsuccessful attempt by anti-Israel lobbyists to bully and intimidate the Cape Town Jewish community."
BDS in South Africa
South Africa Rugby announced in February that the Tel Aviv Heat team was no longer invited to a March 24 competition. The decision came after pressure from the South African BDS Coalition, an affiliate of the Palestinian BDS National Committee that promotes the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israel.
Last July, South Africa's Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor said that Israel should be classified as an apartheid state and that the United Nations General Assembly should establish a committee to verify whether it satisfied its requirements, Al Jazeera reported.
"The Palestinian narrative evokes experiences of South Africa's own history of racial segregation and oppression," she added. The comments and accusations were reportedly made at the second meeting of the Palestinian Heads of Mission in Africa, held in Pretoria, one of South Africa's capital cities.
Jacob Gurvis/JTA contributed to this report.