“It’s not easy being a Jew in South Africa” was the title of a column I wrote a little over five years ago on this platform. Given my bias towards optimism and my love for the country, and especially for its people, it was difficult to write. This is likely the reason that I have forgotten about it – until this week, when a friend sent me the link.
Given the accuracy, he thinks that I am some sort of prophetic genius. I would like to think so too, and I would – if the predictability was something that most Jews had identified.
Five years ago, I wrote:
“It is not easy to be Jewish in South Africa. Not with an African National Congress (ANC) government that has institutionalized antisemitism. Not when the ANC openly embraces the Hamas terrorist organization, which has vowed in its charter to hunt down every Jew (while hiding behind rocks) and kill them.
“It’s not easy to be a Jew in South Africa when history is being rewritten to exclude the Jewish contribution to the anti-apartheid movement.
“It’s not easy to be a Jew in South Africa when Israel is constantly singled out as being the only country to deal with the apartheid government, when in fact the oil that fueled the racist government came from the Arab countries in the Middle East.
“It is not easy to be a Jew in South Africa when the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is portrayed as a one-sided, one-dimensional colonialist story of oppression much like apartheid South Africa. And where it is not recognized that Jews are the indigenous people of the country and have been for thousands of years. And that maybe the conflict is more complex than portrayed.
“It is not easy to be a Jew in South Africa when the racist BDS movement has captured the government and works tirelessly to promote antisemitism.”
South Africa's lack of support amid the Israel-Hamas war
FAST FORWARD to October 7, 2023, when an estimated 2,000 members of the Hamas terror organization crossed from Gaza into southern Israel. They caught Israeli intelligence and the IDF off guard and “successfully” killed 260 young people at a music festival, tortured and slaughtered families in their homes, mutilated pregnant women by cutting the fetus off the body, raped young women in the presence of their younger brothers and families before killing them, murdered grandmothers and posted the acts on social media, and took around 200 civilians back into Gaza, where they are being held hostage. How many are still alive is unknown.
Entire families have been wiped out, and Israeli medical workers have spent the better part of two weeks trying to identify the remains.
The attacks were a body blow not just to Jews in Israel, but also to Jews around the world, who have not suffered at this level since the Holocaust.
With fewer than 15 million Jews left worldwide, seven million of whom live in Israel, the collective pain is something that is hard to describe.
Around the world, government leaders have reached out to their communities. They have spoken in synagogues, offered condolences, and expressed their love and support.
NOT IN South Africa.
It took the ANC nine days to mutter his condolences.
The silence spoke volumes. And although the president ultimately managed to offer a few unconvincing platitudes about loss of life on both sides, the damage was already done. The message had been received by South African Jews.
If that wasn’t bad enough, News24 broke the story that Minister of International Relations and Cooperation Naledi Pandor had made a call to the Hamas leader. It was denied initially. “Never,” said the president’s office, because it made no sense. But it was true, and once again the government was required to perform verbal acrobatics to explain why, despite having no diplomatic channels and notwithstanding the horrendous actions by Hamas, she had called to offer “support.”
She did not call her Israeli counterparts - the ones who were attacked.
If the silence hadn’t already delivered a clear message, the call to Hamas to offer support screamed it home.
South Africans on social media were no kinder. Never have I (or other Jewish South African commentators) experienced such blatant antisemitism. Aside from being blamed for the attacks (we apparently deserved what happened), the following are some of the messages I have received:
- You are a settler here in South Africa and should just leave. (Unspecified to where. Considering that we are accused of being “settlers” in Israel as well, the destination is unclear.)
- You are a settler and should be killed like settlers in Israel.
- Even babies in Israel are settlers. Not civilians.
- You are an apartheid apologist.
- You fought apartheid and funded the ANC so you get what you deserve.
- You killed Jesus.
- You are always the victim.
- You are always the aggressor.
- Jews always make things [up] about them.
- You are not even a real Jew.
- You are a bad Jew.
- You are not a good Jew, and just to prove who a good Jew is, I have been sent countless number of articles about “good Jews,” being the fringe who have rejected Israel.
- You should be gassed.
- Hitler was right.
- The Holocaust never happened.
- Why are Jews so dramatic?
A NUMBER of Jewish colleagues have removed themselves from social media because of the abuse and fear. Some have been threatened personally; others have had their businesses threatened.
What perplexes me most is that if the unspeakable violence perpetrated on Jews on October 7 is not seen for what it is, then I am not sure anything can be. If there is always a qualification to the murder, rape, and kidnapping; if Hamas is seen as a friend of the ANC and in need of “support,” then there is nothing that will convince government, social media users, and columnists to care. Saying that “all lives matter” is not a slogan they would have used in terms of the BLM movement, and yet, when it comes to Jews, it is a perfectly acceptable approach.
In its charter, Hamas makes it clear that it aims to hunt down and kill every Jew until ‘Palestine’ is free (of Jews), from the river to the sea. On October 7, 2023, the terrorist group proved that these are not just words.
For South African Jews, it also proved that as magnificent as our constitution may be and as wonderful as most South Africans are, we should expect very little from the ANC government. Whereas other political parties and friends have chosen to stand by the Jewish community, the ANC has made a very deliberate decision. It is one they will need to live with.
LATE ISRAELI prime minister Menachem Begin famously said, “I am not a Jew with trembling knees. I am a proud Jew with 3,700 years of civilized history. Nobody came to our aid when we were dying in the gas chambers and ovens. Nobody came to our aid when we were striving to create our country. We paid for it. We fought for it. We died for it. We will stand by our principles. We will defend them. And, when necessary, we will die for them again, with or without your aid.”
The ANC has reminded South African Jews who they are. Ironically, the ANC has made the community stand proud as both Jews and South Africans. It has awakened a small but formidable foe. Where many Jews once stood alongside the ANC and fought together with them for justice, they now stand on opposite sides of world history.
I forgot that I had seen this coming in 2018. Now I look forward to the general elections in 2024.
The writer is the South African author of three books. He is a featured weekly columnist on News24 and Jewish Report and is a talk show host on the Morning Mayhem. He is head of marketing and people at Synthesis Software Technologies.