As South African leadership indulges in state-sponsored antisemitism, it should remember the Jewish state’s unique contribution in the transition to post-Apartheid.
By David E. Kaplan
Attending from Israel the South African Limmud Conference in Johannesburg in 2016, I recall a presentation by the then Israeli ambassador to South Africa, Authur Lenk. He fended off questions from a deeply troubled audience about a rumor of El Al reducing its weekly flights between Israel and South Africa. There were animated exchanges reflecting how concerned people were. It would not only complicate travel arrangements for a community that has many family members living in Israel but it would also send a “depressing and distressing message” to a strong Zionist community of increasing isolation. The fear was as much psychological as geographic.
The anxiety in 2016 over flight reduction would end up in March 2024 of El Al suspending all flights to South Africa.
This termination of Israel’s national carrier flights that began in October 29, 1950, proved a metaphor for the flight path of diplomatic relations between South Africa and Israel, culminating with South Africa recent expulsion of Israel’s top diplomat in the country under the pretext of “violating diplomatic norms“. South Africa, who welcomes terrorists and their sponsors – Hamas and Iran – with red carpet fawning, declared Israel’s chargé d’affaires Ariel Seidman, persona non grata and gave him 72 hours to leave the country.
“Zionism” has become anathema to this South African government and its President, Cyril Ramaphosa, who probably is unaware that the South African Zionist Federation was established in 1898, the second country after the UK to do so, and one year after the first Zionist Conference in Basel in 1897. It predates the establishment of the modern State of Israel in 1948, and the establishment of South Africa’s ruling party, the ANC, in 1912.
AGE OF TRANSITION
All this I was pondering from my home in Kfar Saba, north of Tel Aviv and thought while South Africa offends, insults, demonizes, accuses and kicks out Israel’s diplomats, I thought back in time and to a place only a few kilometers north of where I live, to a complex called Beit Berl and the enriching contribution it made to the emerging new South Africa of the 1980 and 1990s.
Back then, if you by chance were to stroll along the stone paths of the wooded Beit Berl Campus outside of Kfar Saba in central Israel, you would have been surprised to overhear conversations in Xhosa, Tswana, Zulu or Afrikaans. Participants of every shade of colour from South Africa’s “Rainbow Nation” were attending a unique ‘Community Development & Leadership Training’ programme. Why unique?
Well, there was no other country in the world – besides Israel – providing this essential training for South Africa’s future!
SECRET STUFF
That it has been doing so without any fuss or fanfare may explain why so few Israelis or South Africans knew about it then or would even know about it today. Then it was a closely kept secret – a programme running since the dark days of Apartheid.
On the day in 1997 that a delegation of the Kfar Saba branch of the South African Zionist Federation in Israel (Telfed) visited the campus, the atmosphere was vibrant. Met with traditional South African dance and music, the 28th group of participants from South Africa was celebrating the near completion of their leadership course with a farewell cocktail party. Among the graduates of the Beit Berl programme at that time were over two dozen mayors of South African towns and cities including the present mayors of the country’s two largest cities, Johannesburg and Cape Town, as well as those from smaller towns like Randburg, George, and Grahamstown. Adding to that list was Port Alfred’s mayor, Eric Khuluwe who addressed us:
“Port Alfred is growing at an enormous pace as people are streaming in from the rural areas, seeking employment. The job situation is bleak and we are finding it an uphill battle to provide basic civic services. We have sixty-one local councils in my district and we need to involve as many people on the local level as possible in decision-making. This is the policy of the ANC government and is indicative of the nature of our democracy that empowers people to determine their own destiny. The Beit Berl three-week intensive course was excellent; it widened my horizons and provided practical guidance on team-management. I feel far better equipped to return to my city now and impact on its future.”
From 1986 until that evening in 1997, over twenty South African Members of Parliament, as well as hundreds of local government officials and ministers of provincial councils had passed through Beit Berl. Patrick Adams, in charge of Emergency & Disaster Management for the Cape Metropolitan Council in Cape Town, had this to say:
“The course was very professional. I am in charge of Reconstruction & Development programmes in the Western Cape region, and my team is currently immersed in running numerous housing and community projects. Not only have I learned a new dimension of problem solving, but I have also been exposed to the problems in Israel and enjoy a greater understanding of the issues here.”
UNDERCOVER OPERATION
What would seem inconceivable today in 2026 seemed routine back then 1997. Fascinated, I began to research on the genesis of this wonderful programme of South Africa/Israel cooperation and enriching partnership and learned that it all began in the undercover world of the early 1980s when clandestine contacts took place between progressive Israelis and the anti-Apartheid forces in South Africa. The Israeli powerhouse behind the project was Prof. Shimshon Zelniker, who masterfully manoeuvered between South Africans, Americans and Israelis, a fascinating amalgam of colourful characters that included Hollywood stars, Jewish politicos, civil rights activists, freedom fighters and donors. A professor of political science at Beit Berl and UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles), Zelnicker, was a member of Shimon Peres’ advisory team in 1982.
“I was given responsibility for third-world policies, and my first mission was making positive contact with leaders of the struggle in South Africa,” said Zeiniker.
COLOURFUL CHARACTERS
The players in this unfolding theatre of clandestine operations spread across three continents. In South Africa, Clive Menell of Anglovaal paved the way by bringing on board Archbishop Benjamin Tutu. Soon other internationally renowned personalities like Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden joined the circle, as did Ethel Kennedy, who twisted the arm of a reluctant Tutu into meeting with the Israelis. This was the turning point, for what followed was a secret meeting in South Africa between a delegation of Israelis representing anti-Apartheid sentiment and prominent Blacks, such as Albertina Sisulu and Ntatho and Sally Motlana.
“We came out of the meeting with a clear mandate for action. Armed with an understanding that there would be no political manifestos and no pictures of politicians kissing each other, but a programme geared solely to assisting in the struggle, we approached Jews in the United States for support. In Israel, Yossi Beilin, Alon Liel, Ruth Baron and myself, among others, spearheaded the programme to be called the Israeli and South African Centres for International Cooperation” (ICIC) and would be based at Beit Berl.”
CLANDESTINE RECRUITMENT
“The early days saw us,” explained Zelniker, “pounding the pavements in South Africa for some twenty months recruiting support and participants. The success of the operation was predicated on our ability to keep it under wraps.”
Asked how that was possible, Zelniker replied:
“You know how porcupines make love? Very carefully.”
The first group of twenty arrived in 1986 representing three constituencies:
– Soweto,
– the Cape Coloured community and
– Women’s groups.
“We brought in the Histadrut (General Federation of Labour) to help in the initial training,” said Zelniker. “After the success of that first group, it was easier to obtain more funding. We approached very prominent, radically anti-Israel, Black leaders in the U.S. and received their blessing. Individual Jews donated large sums of money in the full knowledge that they would receive no recognition, and the American Government very quietly also assisted us in funding.”
Zelniker’s shuttling to-and-fro between Israel and South Africa was not without risk.
“My associate Ruth Baron was also detained. There were many ways the South African Authorities could have derailed the programme and they made it crystal clear that physical intimidation could be escalated. We were worried about the graduates being whisked away on their return from Israel for interrogation and intimidation, which on occasion did happen.”
Despite all the harassment, including infiltration by the South African Bureau of State Security (BOSS), the programme flourished. At one point in the late 1980s, Thomas Friedman of the New York Times bumped into a group of Black trainees in Tel Aviv. He thought he had uncovered the scoop of the century:
‘ANC and AZAPO forge secret ties with Apartheid’s ally!’
“He telephoned me and said, ‘this is sensational. What’s it all about?” When I explained to him the need for secrecy, I thankfully managed to persuade him that the programme and South Africa’s future were far more important than his ego. He dropped the story.”
THE NEW AGE
It was only a year or so after Mandela’s release in 1990 that the programme’s profile entered the public domain.
“In 1993, we introduced a rural community development programme in the former homelands, and it was then that we came out into the open,” revealed Zelniker.
The participants had such interesting stories revealing the enormity of the challenges they faced in South Africa. Thabisile Msezane from Boksburg, who ran a daycare centre related that:
“…in the Boksburg area there were no schools and children loitered aimlessly in the streets wasting away their lives. Each day I noticed a little boy roaming around the shopping centre where I bought milk. He would ask me for money to buy food. I thought:
“What kind of future does this child have? As I was starting a day care centre, I wanted to enroll this kid and so went in search of his parents. I was directed to a shabby compound behind a farmhouse, where I found them. While speaking to the boy’s father, the child spread the word amongst his friends telling them he was going to school. By the end of my conversation, I had enrolled another twelve children. Today I have 150 pupils, some of whom walk a distance of twelve kilometres to get to the school.”
Trevor Ngwame, a councilor from Johannesburg, was all praise for Israel’s ‘Beit Berl Programme’.
“We are dealing with the legacy of apartheid – no jobs, lack of housing and poor education. My approach is to offer people hope, and motivate them to organize themselves. We have seen how successful Israelis have been in overcoming insurmountable odds. Like South Africa, Israel has never been short of problems and yet it manages to advance amazingly. This is what we want to do. Of course, Israel’s problems are very different, and in the South African context we must ensure that people see a light at the end of the tunnel. I am not naïve to believe that matters are going to fall into place overnight. While the government must deliver the goods, the people also must rise up to the challenge and they need the tools to it. This programme has been a tremendous help in this regard.”
Reflecting on his role, Zelniker’s expressed to me:
“As a Jew, I have learnt that liberation is not simply about taking the people out of the ghetto. It means taking the ghetto out of the people. To say that I am proud of this programme would be an understatement.”
In the years that followed, this writer, together with fellow South Africans living in Israel became actively involved in the project offering home hospitality and engaging with the participants. One of the South Africans living in Israel taking a keen interest in the project was architect and artist Prof. Arthur Goldreich, who years earlier had been recruited by Nelson Mandela to join uMkhonto weSizwe, the paramilitary wing of the African National Congress. Arrested during a raid at Lilliesleaf Farm, he would later escape from the Old Fort prison in Johannesburg, flee to Israel where he became a prominent figure at the famed Bezalel Academy in Jerusalem. Such were the personalities that were involved in the Beit Berl project that had as its primary goal – to help the new South Africa emerge from the darkness of Apartheid.
Today, in 2026, I reflect back to those encouraging days of partnership as I observe what is tragically playing out presently in South Africa. Rather than focus on uplifting its people after three decades after Apartheid, the South African government is focused on:
– falsely accusing Israel of genocide
– expelling Israel’s diplomats
– sabotaging Israel’s offers of its expertise in agriculture and water management.
Worst of all it is fueling antisemitism like what transpired earlier this month when Johannesburg’s prestigious private girls’ school, Roedean, cancelled a scheduled tennis match against players from King David – a Jewish day school. It was revealed that some parents at Roedean argued “that the school should align with the government’s anti-Israel stance.” Little wonder what is unfolding has been characterized as “State-sponsored antisemitism.”
We have seen how and where unchecked vitriol leads to – the murderous attack at a synagogue in Manchester in October 2025 and the massacre on Sydney’s iconic Bondi Beach on the 14 December. Can anybody say they would be surprised if a terrorist against Jews was to occur in South Africa?
All this I reflected on and wondered where are all those graduates of Kfar Saba’s Beit Berl Programme today? What contribution did they make and what impact did they have on the lives of fellow South Africans?
And what would they think of how their country has so turned against the Jewish state that had voluntarily helped them to help South Africa and remains ready to help?
Feature picture: Participants from South Africa on the Community Development & Leadership Training programme at Beit Berl, Israel with members of the South African community and South African embassy staff in 1997. (Photo: D.E. Kaplan)
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