On 27 October, Robert Bowers entered the Tree of Life Synagogue in Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh, with his AR-15 rifle and proceeded to gun down more than a dozen Jews at their Sabbath prayers. Eleven people died. Shortly before this, Bowers had posted the following comment on social media, ““HIAS likes to bring invaders in that kill our people,” he wrote, “I can’t sit by and watch my people get slaughtered. Screw your optics, I’m going in.” The reference was to the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society’s, a Jewish-headed refugee resettlement agency.
Robert Bowers – Tree of Life Synagogue murderer
There are innumerable cyber trolls who use social media platforms to propagate antisemitic hatred. What made Bowers different was that rather than continuing to denounce Jews for this supposed ‘evil’, he decided to do something about it. Moreover, he made his intentions clear: He was ‘going in’. This was blatant incitement to violence.
Earlier this year, I shared a panel with several visiting experts from the US at a conference on religious freedom, hosted by the American Consulate. At the end of my presentation, I was asked what defined incitement to violence. The Americans explained that in order for them to act on a threat, it had to be imminent and direct and they included an onerous list of conditions for what would constitute incitement. Tragically, no one recognised that Robert Bower’s threat was real and that it would result in 11 dead bodies on the synagogue floor following his announcement that he was there ‘to kill Jews’.
Woe to us all in South Africa if we similarly ignore such warnings. And yet, there seems to be a sense of lethargy in our country when it comes to responding decisively to threats of violence against individuals in our society.
In 2014 Tony Ehrenreich, ANC Cape Town City Councillor and Chairperson of COSATU in the Western Cape, posted an explicitly threatening comment about the SA Jewish Board of Deputies and other “Zionist supporters”, inter alia declaring that the time had come “to say very clearly that if a woman or child is killed in Gaza, then the Jewish Board of Deputies, who are complicit, will feel the wrath of the People of SA with the age old biblical teaching of an eye for an eye”. There was nothing ambiguous about this threat. He made this inflammatory statement it at an extremely volatile time when there were heightened tensions over the emotive issue of the Gaza conflict. South Africa was awash with acts of antisemitic abuse and intimidation, whether against Jewish individual or against Jewish institutions. It was in such a fraught and volatile context that a government leader incited tit-for-tat vigilante violence against the representative body of SA Jewry. It took the Human Rights Commission four years to make a determination of Hate Speech against Ehrenriech.
As we learned with Bowers this week, one can never know what the intention behind the threat is.
We also need to recognise that whether or not Ehrenreich himself intended to act on his words, a pronouncement of this nature, particularly by someone in his position, could easily have inspired others to take him at his words. People holding public office are positioned to influence mind-sets, for good and for bad, and any incitement to cause harm on their part has the potential to trigger action, with potentially devastating consequences.
Tony Ehrenreich is just one of the many individuals, several of whom like himself held public office, who have made threatening and demeaning comments about South African Jewry. A casual overview of what is being said about Jews in the social media will soon reveal how regularly antisemitic tropes are surfacing. Many people, it would appear, do not see anything wrong in alleging that Jews exploit and cheat the rest of the population through their clandestine control of the economy, media etc, that responsibility for wars, disease, depressions and other global disasters should be laid at their door.
Tony Ehrenreich
What is of even greater concern is that casual calls for Jews to be expelled from the country, or even massacred outright, are becoming more and more frequent. For example, in response to an EWN article on the Pittsburgh atrocity in which I was quoted, a comment was posted on twitter noting: ‘I think we must kill jews in sa…’ (sic).
By demonising individuals or a minority group in society, it has the effect of dehumanising them. This coupled with blatant calls for violence as advocated by Tony Ehrenreich (as well as by fellow Cosatu representative Bongani Masuku, who likewise was found guilty of inciting hatred and harm against the Jewish community) is dangerous and irresponsible.
Jews know only too well that the Holocaust did not start with gas chambers and mass firing squads, but with words. We are thus acutely aware of the danger of threats and the possible outcomes of incitement to violence. For that reason, our community will not stand silently by when a Bongani Masuku threatens our Jewish university students, nor will we look the other way when a Tony Ehrenreich threatens us with `Eye for an Eye’ revenge attacks.
If there is one lesson we should heed from this horrific massacre in Pittsburgh, it is that words should not be dismissed and taken lightly. As Genocide Watch’s Dr Gregory Stanton said, “Sticks and Stones May Break Your Bones, But Hateful Words Can Kill You.’
Wendy Kahn is National Director of the SAJBD, a position she has held for 12 years. Prior to this she was an elected leader of the Board and it’s Vice Gauteng Chair.
Her career started at Eskom where she worked with middle management leadership development after which she was a founder and Executive Director of the He’atid Leadership Programme for 14 years taking South African leaders to Israel on various programmes to learn from its many models of development.
Her work at the SAJBD is around protecting our community’s civil liberties, protecting the community against antisemitism, representing the community to and building relations with the broader South African society.
Fewer names inspire as much respect, recognition and awe as the moniker, ‘Mandela’.
The Mandela family name is iconic. In the annals of history, the name Mandela will be synonymous with human rights, endurance, fortitude and reconciliation. Brand Mandela is universal and inclusive, conciliatory and noble. Nelson Mandela remains one of the world’s greatest human rights advocates and South Africa’s most beloved son.
His grandson, Mandla, is quite different to his legendary grandfather.
Was the grandfather disappointed already with his grandson?
A polarizing figure in South Africa, Mandla Mandela is no stranger to controversy and is proof that there is such a thing as bad press.
Grandson Mandela is a frequent flier in the news headlines.
He has been the subject of much derision from his family for his moving his late grandfather’s remains from their peaceful resting place without consulting the family. The family laid criminal charges of tampering with a grave and South African High Court Judge, Judge Lusindiso Phakade, ruled in favour of the complainants and ordered Mandela to exhume and rebury the body.
Courting Trouble. While the grandfather found himself in court fighting for the rights of his people, the grandson Mandla Mandela, appeared in courts fighting members of his own family.
Criminal allegations were again levelled at the younger Mandela when he was charged with pointing a firearm and assaulting, a man. He was found guilty of assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm. Mandela’s private life could also rival a soap opera. Tales of annulment and affairs, blazing arguments and paternity suits abound and after converting to Islam, Mandela married his fourth wife.
Who’s Next? The Four Wives Of Mandla Mandela.
Soap opera shenanigans aside, where Mandela does create concern is his penchant for importing conflict into South Africa.
Mandla Mandela is an extremely divisive figure in South Africa. While his grandfather was a symbol of peace and reconciliation, the younger Mandela has aligned himself with a movement that is at once, anti-dialogue and normalization, anti-peace and flagrantly anti-Semitic – BDS. In short, Mandla Mandela has become a poster child for this movement that advocates terrorism and states the end of the Jewish state as its goal. This is, of course, wrapped up in the seductive language of concern for human rights.
BDS are well aware of the power of “Brand Mandela” and trot him out in order to gain legitimacy. Mandla Mandela is happy to be gaining headlines for something other than his unsavory exploits. And so, it is a match made in heaven.
Nelson Mandela’s position on the Middle East is well documented.
In the spirit of engagement, he spoke to Arafat and while supporting the national aspirations of Palestinians stating that “we cannot be free until the Palestinians are free”, he astutely added that he could not conceive of Israel withdrawing if Arab states did not recognize Israel within secure borders.
This has not yet happened!
By comparison, Mandla Mandela is not carrying on the family tradition, choosing instead to endorse slap-happy would-be terrorist teenagers like Ahed Tamimi who endorse violence. “Whether it is stabbings or suicide bombings or throwing stones, everyone must do his part and we must unite in order for our message to be heard that we want to liberate Palestine,” said Tamimi on a Facebook live transmission filmed by her mother.
Instead of condemning these calls for violence and murder, Mandla Mandela intends to award her for her “bravery, resistance and being a symbol of hope for millions.”
Mandla Mandela
Purveyor of Lies
Mandela has drunk the BDS Kool-aid and has accused the State of Israel of practicing “the worst version of Apartheid”. He has drawn these conclusions without any engagement with the Jewish state. But he knows where his bread is buttered – and statements like these are useful when it comes to shoring up Muslim votes in areas where South Africa’s ruling ANC party may not enjoy much support.
Instead of standing for justice, he is fanning the flames of hatred and divisiveness in a country where race relations are growing increasingly tense and anti-Semitism is rising. Unlike his grandfather who advocated dialogue, understanding the other side, and who very importantly recognized that Zionism is the national liberation movement of the Jewish people.
Mandla Mandela steadily advocates for breaking off bilateral ties between Israel and South Africa and backs this up with vicious accusations like the one below:
“Freedom loving people all over the world and activists in the International Solidarity Movement that stood by us in our darkest days of the anti-apartheid struggle are looking to South Africa for leadership in the call to isolate Apartheid Israel for its crimes against humanity and continued pogrom of Palestinians, many of whom have been shot, maimed or killed indiscriminately. They don’t spare the elderly, women or young children.”
Devious & Deceitful.He that should know better, Mandla defiles the Mandela surname when he falsely declares Israel “to be the worst apartheid regime.”
By inciting this kind of hatred and importing conflict into South Africa, Mandla Mandela has effectively removed the African state’s ability to try and broker peace between Israel and the Palestinians and is sowing dangerous division at a time when the country desperately needs unity. The elder statesman Mandela would be horrified.
On 1st May 2018 the citizens of Addis Ababa received an unusual visitor. Israeli president Reuven Rivlin touched down in Ethiopia becoming the first occupant of his office ever to make an official visit to the country. In his wake came a bevy of business people, NGO’s, government officials, and even Ethiopian-Israeli popstar Estrada. The event was just the latest in several Africa-Israel related initiatives over the last few years, including three trips to the continent by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. President Rivlin joked that he was “returning the visit of Queen Sheba to King Solomon” and much like the original biblical visit, key items on the agenda included trade, culture and security.
President Reuven Rivlin at the “Impact for Good” conference in Ethiopia (Copyright: GPO/Mark Neiman)
Some pundits have tended to view this diplomatic engagement as something new or unusual. However, relations between Zion and ‘Wakanda’ actually have a considerable pedigree and also extends to the African American community. As the process evolves it is worth knowing some of the history.
Although Africa- Israel relations go back to the bible, the story really picks up around the late 1890’s. At the time, both Africans and Jews were the wretched peoples of the earth, victims of anti-Semitism, slavery, colonialism, racism and dispersion. It is therefore unsurprising that solutions in the form of Zionism and African Nationalism evolved simultaneously. The founder of Zionism, journalist Theodor Herzl, wrote in his seminal book, Altneuland (1902), “Once I have witnessed the redemption of the Jews, my people, I wish to also assist in the redemption of the Africans”. In African intellectual circles, the idea of a national Jewish liberation was a popular one. For instance, the founder of Pan-Africanism Marcus Garvey, referenced the Jewish national experience when he asserted that “many white men have tried to uplift them, but the only way is for the Negroes to have a nation of their own is like the Jews, that will command the respect of the nations of the world with its achievements.”
Model for Africa
Thus, the idea of Jews having their own state was viewed with favour by early Pan-Africanists. Garvey championed what was known as “Black Zionism” and Liberian diplomat/journalist Edmon Wilmot Blydenreferredto “that marvelous movement called Zionism” as a model for African emancipation.
The impact of this sentiment would find its way into the civil rights movement in America. Hence the words of Martin Luther King Jr: “When people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews You’re talking anti-Semitism”. The real impact of these ideas, however, were in Africa, where newly independent African states were being created in the 1960’s. History and ideology combined, becoming a compelling driver for co-operation and understanding between the two groups. Kwame Nkrumah President of Ghana expressed it best in 1961, when he said:
“We understand one another, Jews and Negroes. We were both oppressed for a long time and now we both have our own independent states.”
Time for Ties. Israeli Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Avigdor Lieberman (r) listens to a group of local farmers in Nairobi on September 6, 2009. Lieberman and a large business and military delegation began a five-nation Africa tour on September 2, 2009 stopping in Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Ghana and Nigeria.
It was more than just commonalities between national ideologies, however, that drove the early Africa-Israel relationship. At the beginning of the 1950s, the new-born Jewish state found itself with few friends. The soon-to-be independent African states provided Israel with an opportunity to shore up its diplomatic defenses. Israel made an attractive diplomatic partner in Africa. As such, a small country, Israel, was in no position to be an agent of neo-colonialism. In fact, having recently overthrown the British, Israel was a good example of a successful liberation struggle.
Moreover, African state builders appreciated the Zionist institutions that had brought about the creation of the country, and they sought to adapt them for their own projects. The Pan-Africanist journalist George Padmore, for instance, believed that Africa’s development could be fostered using organised infusions of funding from the African-American Diaspora, along the same lines as the United Israel Appeal In the defense sphere, early Zionist military formations were the inspiration for the concept and structure of Umkhonto we Sizw (MK), the armed wing of the African National Congress (ANC).
Israel’s Helping Hand. Israeli drip irrigation educational programme in South Africa. (Photo – Israeli MFA)
In planning MK, Nelson Mandela leaned on the experience of anti-apartheid activist Arthur Goldreich who had fought as a member of the Palmach, the elite military wing of the Haganah in Israel’s War of Independence. Goldreich, who escaped from a South African prison at the time of Mandela’s arrest, and settled in Israel, had drafted the military code for Umkhonto we Sizw. After he went underground in 1960, Mandela also credits “The Revolt” by Menachem Begin as being among the books he used in planning the ANC’s guerilla campaign against the Apartheid government.
When ANC leader Walter Sisulu visited Israel on his five-nation tour, he flew on Israel’s national carrier El Al. It was the only the airline in the world that would take the black South African passenger, since the Apartheid government had denied him a passport. Israel also contributed to building the defense infrastructure in many other African countries, especially training their military and police. The first pilots of the Kenyan and Tanzanian Air Forces were all trained by Israel; and it was Israel that built Ghana’s first naval academy.
Finally, African states and Israel shared many of the same developmental challenges. President Julius Nyerereobserved in 1957 that, “Israel is a small country… but it can offer a lot to a country like mine. We can learn a great deal because the problems of Tanganika are similar to Israels.” This resulted in a vast array of joint projects across the continent including construction, agriculture, aquaculture, health care, hydrology, youth movements, regional planning, engineering, community services and many others. John Tettegah, Secretary General of Ghana’s Trade Union movement, said his visit to Israel had “given me more in eight days than I could obtain from a British university in two years”. Some of the more interesting projects included giving assistance in building the parliament in Sierra Leone and the creation of Ghana’s Black Star line shipping company.
Health and Wealth of a Nation
To ensure the ongoing success of these initiatives, many Israelis came to live in Africa to assist with programmes, particularly in health care. Through these engagements, a specialist eye clinic was established in Sierra Leone and social work training provided in Machakos, Kenya. Many African citizens, in turn, went to Israel to study at its tertiary institutions, including the Weitzman Institute, the Hebrew University, and the Mount Carmel Centre which was dedicated to training women in the developing world.
Societal cohesion was also on the agenda. Kenya’s President Jomo Kenyattaargued that, “You have built a nation with Jews coming from all corners of the world; we want to build a unified Kenya of a multitude of tribes joined together through Harambee (working together)”. By 1965, most major Africa leaders had visited Israel, coming from the Central African Republic, Chad, Dahomey (Benin), the Congo, Gabon, Gambia, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Madagascar, Uganda, Mali and Upper Volta (Burkina Faso). Israel’s friends included President William Tubman’s, Liberia (who had voted for the establishment of the state in 1947 at the UN) and Emperor Haile Selassie’s Ethiopia.
Forging Ties. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem with Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta. The Israeli and Kenyan leaders signed a joint statement that will foster cooperation on water and agriculture.
By 1973, Israel had established relations with 32 African states. Many opened embassies in Israel of which ten were based in Jerusalem, well before America had the idea. Included on this list were those of the Ivory Coast and Kenya. Israel also gained observer status on the Organisation of African Unity (OAU). It was the golden age of ‘Wakanda & Zion’.
Not everyone, however, was delighted by the increased Africa-Israel co-operation. The power of the Arab states in international diplomacy was growing, and their official policy position on Israel was annihilation. Watching the growing African-Israel relationship with concern, they did what they could to impede it. Championed by Egypt, they attempted to ferment anti-Zionist rhetoric onto the agenda of multi-lateral bodies such as the OAU.
These were backed-up by punitive economic actions. The first serious attacks in these forums were taken in the early 1960s but were strongly rebuffed by the African states. As Julius Nyerere, expressed, “We are not going to let our friends determine who our enemies are.” Besides the risk of losing their friendship with Israel, African leaders were apprehensive about Arab inference in their domestic affairs, and they had bitter memories of the sub-Saharan slave trade.
Coming To Cameroon. Israel agricultural training in Cameroon.
Recalling the Slave Trade
At one point during a UN debate, a Saudi Arabian delegate accused the Ivory Coast of “selling out” to Israel, to which the Ivorian delegate responded, “The representative of Saudi Arabia may be used to buying Negroes, but he can never buy us.” So, despite Arab pressure, African delegations helped put Israeli representatives on boards of the World Health Organisation and UNICEF. In return Israel was a regular backer of anti-Apartheid resolutions at the UN, eventually having the most votes against Apartheid of any western nation.
Notwithstanding this success, however, all was not a bed of roses in the Israel-Africa relationship, and by the late 1960s, the relationship became strained. Much of this had to do with the familiar problems that bedeviled the field of international aid, including the lack of large-scale capital and effective technical transfer, solutions for long term sustainability and some focus shift by Israel to other continents such as South America. This was added to a relentless Arab propaganda machine urging all countries to end ties with Israel. The situation began to take its toll and in the wake of the Six Day War, four countries cut ties.
Pouring Oil on Troubled Waters
The real change, however, started in October 1973 when Arab nations, led by Egypt, launched a surprise attack on Israel on the holiest day of the Jewish year, Yom Kippur. Although the attack would eventually fail, it introduced a new powerful weapon into the world of diplomacy: the global oil boycott.
The Arab states threatened any country which had relations with Israel with an oil embargo. They also promised aid to those African countries that broke ties with Israel. The strategy sent the oil price rocketing, leading to a global economic crisis, but proving strategically successful.
The combination of economic coercion and continuous propaganda added to the already strained Israel-Africa relationship. This was too much for African states to bear and they began abandoning Israel en masse. President Senghor of Senegal stated the situation plainly: “The Arabs have the numbers, space and oil. In the third world, they outweigh Israel.” By the end of 1973, Israel found itself with only four official friends in Africa. The golden age of ‘Wakanda & Zion’ was over.
Turning A New Leaf. Growing lettuce in Senegal using Israeli drip-irrigation (Photo: MASHAV)
This situation remained as such until 1978 and the signing of the world’s first Arab-Israeli peace with Egypt. Although it took time, Africa-Israel relations began to slowly be restored. Israel now has as many as forty diplomatic relationships in Africa with growing security, development and trade ties. Israel is looking for friends in Africa and observer status at the OAU while the continent is looking to take advantage of Israeli technology in development and security. There remain threats to the relationship with countries like South Africa and Morocco in the vanguard against Israeli interests on the continent.
Despite this, a new chapter in the saga of ‘Wakanda & Zion’ is evolving, and if all goes well, perhaps we may be on our way to a new Golden Age.
Seeing Eye To Eye. In 2012, the Israeli Embassy initiated a project involving free cataract operations for dozens of Cameroonian patients in Bamenda, as a result of which – their eyesight was restored. Likewise, plastic treatments were offered to patients who had suffered from disfiguring facial burns. The project involved eye specialists from the Hadassah hospital in Jerusalem, a donation of medical equipment from “Eye From Zion” NGO and support from the MFA’s MASHAV division.
Benji Shulman, Executive Director South Africa Israel Forum, is from Johannesburg, South Africa. He has a master’s degree in Geography and has worked in a range of fields in the Jewish community including education, advocacy, environment and outreach. He loves radio and has a hosted numerous shows on 101.9 ChaiFm in the last decade.
By Ben Swartz, National Head of the South African Zionist Federation (SAZF)
The ‘Smart’ Way to Go
Shannon Ebrahim’s sympathies to BDS “activism” and their political agenda are well known by most. So, it may surprise this virulently anti-Israel freelance journalist to realise that her solicitude for the plight of the Palestinians is shared by most Israelis and this is borne out by the myriad of Israelis who demonstrate their concern in the most practical way imaginable: care of the sick (especially children), the elderly and women.”
Face of Fury. Venomous anti-Israel journalist Shannon Ebrahim.
This fact is not always realised by her when she targets Israel either by implication or overtly, and places that country in the cross-hairs of her ire. Strangely she chastises a democracy, which Israel is, and her opponents are not. *In her latest article, those that she champions as victims of “colonialism” in fact bear the trappings of colonial Middle Eastern oligarchies that hold their people hostage. Libya, Syria, and Saudi are brutal dictatorships, far more than even those of Egypt or Jordan. “Parliaments” in Iran, Morocco, and on the West Bank are not freely democratic. In all of them, candidates for office are either screened, preselected, or coerced. Daily television and newspapers are subject to restrictions and censorship; “elected” leaders are not open to public audit and censure. Death, not voters, brings changes of rule in the Middle East.
Ebrahim talks of Mandela: does she know he encouraged peace and went to Israel himself and that Ramaphosa is on record supporting dialogue? She mentions the “progressive nations” taking a stand but does not name them. I am curious to know who they might be.
True freedom and democracy that the people of the Middle East do indeed deserve and from which the entire world would benefit – demands cultural tolerance, widespread literacy, and free markets, something few of them have with the notable exception of Israel.
Only in secular Israel can one find free speech and liberality of custom and religion, much more so, than say, in Saudi Arabia, Iran, or Palestine. Coexistence is found in Israel, very rarely so in the Arab world.
We see in Israel spirited debate, home-grown criticism and differing advocacy from Left and Right. Israeli newspapers and television reflect a diversity of views, from rabid Zionism to almost suicidal pacifism. There are Arab-Israeli legislators and plenty of Jewish intellectuals who openly write and broadcast in opposition to the government of the day – a freedom not available in Palestine.
Where The Truth Lies
It is patently obvious from hateful rhetoric daily fed to compliant populations that wars in the Middle East are not fought to return the West Bank or Gaza, but to finish off what Hitler could not.
Israel, its GNP, free society, and liberal press, is a wound to the psyche, not a physical threat to the Arab world. Israel did not murder the Kurds or Shiites. It does not butcher Islam’s children in Syria. Yet both the victims and the perpetrators of those horrendous crimes by Muslims against Muslims answer “Israel” when blame is sought!
Any honest assessment will show that the blame lies elsewhere. As has been demonstrated in many countries in Africa, Israel has the ability and a willingness to alleviate hunger, drought, disease and other social ills for the Palestinians and the people of Africa.
Instead of accepting the willingness of Israel to play a peaceful role in the region, Ebrahim defines herself as the saviour of the Palestinians. She cries out that she is against racism, colonialism, ethnic cleansing, police states and anti-Semitism but she advocates for those who do.
But the goal of the current Palestinian leadership is the colonial conquest of another people’s country. That country is the State of Israel, the homeland of the Jews legally, historically and emotionally.
Mahmoud Abbas has explicitly rejected Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state. The Palestinian Authority indoctrinates its children to terrorism. The insignia and maps show that the land they demand for a state includes the whole of Israel.
Telling The Truth. The very ‘idea’ of Israel is unacceptable.
Therefore, what the anti-racist, anti-colonialist, anti ethnic-cleansing, pro-democracy Ebrahim, the ANC, and the newspapers of the INL, players whose reputation rests on a proud record of balance and fairness, should condemn is this Palestinian agenda and not point fingers at the only constitutional democracy in the entire Middle East.
Palestinians should see in its policy toward Israel their future hope, rather than their present despair. Israel is based on true democracy that can evolve to the benefit of all those in the Middle East and bring deserved peace to everyone who lives there, rather than resort to race, religion or language that more often cannot. If the Palestinians really wish to become accepted as a participant in peace, then regular elections, a free press, an open and honest economy, and religious tolerance alone would do what suicide bombers and a duplicitous terror-supporting leader could not.
Addressing the Issues. Article’s author and National Chairman of the South African Zionist Federation, Ben Swartz.
Ben Swartz is the National Chairman of the SAZF. He is also the Co-chairman of SAFI (South African Friends of Israel), a SAZF initiative.
To mark the 70th anniversary of the birth of the State of Israel, the editorial board of Jewish Affairs, a journal published under the auspices of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies since 1941, decided to devote the Rosh Hashanah 2018 issue of the journal to the topic. Contributions, particularly personal memories relating to the founding and early years of the Jewish state, were invited, and people, both from the local Jewish community and former community members now living abroad, took up the invitation. The result was a true landmark issue of the journal, one providing much original material and many fascinating new insights into Israel’s establishment and the noteworthy role that South African Jews played in its birth and early struggle for survival.
‘Fighters and Founders’
The first section features first-hand accounts of South Africans (mainly, but not exclusively Jewish) who participated in the tumultuous early months of Israel’s existence, when the fledgling Jewish state was faced with critical challenges from both within and without its borders. All of them volunteers, they included soldiers, kibbutz workers and medical personnel. The section includes the memories of six South African Machalniks – foreign volunteers who fought in the Israeli War of Independence – namely Leslie Marcus (as recorded and written up by Leila Bloch), Eddie Magid (based on extracts from a recent biography on him by Michael and Suzanne Belling), Ellie Isserow, Audrey (Benedict) Meyersfeld, Henia Bryer (by Veronica Belling) and Elie Zagoria (with an introduction by David Solly Sandler). Marge Clouts records what it was like to work on a kibbutz in the years 1948-9.
Leslie Marcus (left) and Mike Isaacson as Mahal volunteers serving in Moshe Dayan’s battalion in 1948.
Some excerpts:
Says Leslie Marcus: “My late brother Sam had a clothing shop, so I got a few shmattes together in a suitcase. There was a fellow called Solly Levin (from Claremont kosher butchery) who had a car; he came and fetched me at six the next morning and took us to the airport.
There were two of us, me and Max Korensky from Paarl. I had never been on a plane before It took us four days to get to Israel We had to stop every four hours to refuel. When we landed…we were taken straight away to some camp in Haifa. Two days later I was in the army, fighting. I was all of 21 but I was ready for it.
There were 32 of us in our unit of various nationalities. I was second in command. There were eight South Africans. We were the first to go into battle. Why did we go into battle first?
Because we were the most trained.”
Marge Clouts who spent two and a half years in Israel soon after the founding of the state records: “The excitement of landing in Israel was intense. We did not land at Lod (now Ben Gurion Airport) but on some very small airstrip. We were then transported by truck to the army base at Tel Levitsky. A few days later, in Tel Aviv, we visited the welcoming and comforting South Africa office. The kibbutz they found for us was called Bet Keshet, a four-year-old basic settlement of about seventy Sabras located in the foothills of Mount Tabor in the lower Galilee. The settlement had recently been traumatised by the deaths in an ambush of seven of its leading members.
Our first Sunday at Bet Keshet we heard the church bells of the monastery on Mount Tabor, and at the same time the ominous sounds of distant gunfire.”
“One Sunday Morning in May 1948…”
Part II looks at perspectives from Diaspora Jewry in the period leading up to Israel’s establishment. Glenda Woolf’s memoir of how Bloemfontein Jewry celebrated the inauguration of Israel’s independence is reflective of how South Africa’s fervently Zionistic Jewish community will have greeted the much longed and hoped-for occasion.
“I remember waking up early one Sunday Morning in May 1948, and hearing, “Wake up. Quickly, get up. Today is a very special day. We Jews have our own country again. Soon we are going to shul to celebrate. The children must wear fancy dress. Hurry, we don’t want to be late.”
Glenda continues, “….The flag was raised. We sang Hatikva, and slowly a murmur of sobs came from here and there among the crowd. It was then that my mother said, “You must always remember this day. For the first time in thousands of years we Jews have our very own country. Your generation will be different to our generation.”
Veteran contributor and editorial board member Gwynne Schrire has made available the recollections of her mother, Mary, a stalwart worker for the women’s Zionist movement first in Kimberley and later in Cape Town. Florrie Cohen recalls her days on hachshara – an agricultural training programme for prospective olim – in the English countryside in the early days of World War II. As with all the memoirs in this issue, one gets a sense of the powerful spirit of idealism and self-sacrifice that underpinned the Zionist movement during those crucial years. Another veteran JA contributor, Cecil Bloom, evaluates the impact made on Zionism in the UK by Haham Moses Gaster, at the time a prominent figure in the Zionist movement but today largely forgotten.
The deeper significance of Eretz Yisrael in Jewish religious thinking, as well as how this history is being distorted by those driven by an implacable hatred for the reborn Jewish state, are the subjects of Part III of this issue. Artist and poet Abigail Sarah Bagraim reflects on the meaning of the Patriarch Abraham’s spiritual journey and connection to the Holy Land, a thoughtful piece complemented by one of the writer’s most recent paintings on Jewish religious for which she is justly renowned. (As will be recalled, another of A. S. Bagraim’s paintings, “The Welcoming of Shabbat”, graced the front cover of the Pesach 2018 issue of Jewish Affairs. The artist’s work can be viewed, and prints ordered, at www.abigailsarah.co.za).
We next have reprinted an address given by the late Chief Rabbi B M Casper on the spiritual and historical connection of the Jewish people to Jerusalem, an analysis that is both erudite and deeply felt. Finally, Rodney Mazinter, also a regular JA contributor, considers how contemporary antisemitism and hard-line anti-Zionism – to the extent that they can be separated at all – overlap with and inform one another. It is a sobering reminder that while Israel has to date emerged triumphant in its battle for survival, final victory in that struggle is still to be achieved.
Writes Mazinter: “Antisemitism did not just disappear with the end of World War II. Like most Jews, we got used to having ugly things said about us from time to time. Mostly we were lucky and grateful for the many Christian friends who stood up for us, and still do. But nothing prepared us for today’s misinformation, demonization of Israel, and the gut-wrenching anti-Israel, antisemitic hostility expressed by many students, professors, church members and even established “liberal” newspapers – and now, even Jews who act out their anti-Israel stance for whatever reason. The new form of bigotry against Israel is called the :new antisemitism” which replaces “Israel” with “Jew”…”
On a more positive note, Mazinter continues, “Meanwhile, venture capital continues to pour into Israel. The business world, the engine of growth, education and prosperity, is voting with its feet to seek investments in the only reliable country that constantly points the way for the future of humanity.”
The special “Israel at 70” issue of Jewish Affairs, as well as all previous issues of the journal from the beginning of 2009, can be freely accessed on http://www.sajbd.org/pages/jewish-affairs. Those with a particular interest in Israel are referred to the Rosh Hashanah 2017 issue, which likewise is very much focused on the Israel-themes.
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David Saks is Associate Director of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies and Editor of Jewish Affairs.
Feature picture: South African volunteers, engineers at the Sodom Camp, meeting with some of the 7th Battalion Infantry soldiers who walked down to Sodom through the waids and reached it a while before our jeeps did. First and second on left – Dov Golanty and Zvi Sikoler (Israelis), third on left – Hymie Kurgan (SA), extreme right – Sydney Bellon.
SA Jewish community pays Tribute to Mangosuthu Buthelezi on his 90th birthday
On Monday 8th October 2018 at Yeshiva College in Johannesburg, the Jewish community gathered to pay tribute to Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi in celebration of his 90th Birthday. The SA Jewish Board of Deputies, together with the SA Zionist Federation, SA Friends of Israel, and the Office of the Chief Rabbi – hosted the event of a man who has always been a warm friend of the Jewish community, not only in his home province of Kwazulu-Natal, but also at the national level.
At a time when standing up for Israel has become increasingly unfashionable, Prince Buthelezi’s staunch opposition to anti-Israel bias in the political arena, his advocacy of closer ties between Israel and South Africa, and his consistent support for a peaceful, negotiated solution to the Middle East conflict has earned him the gratitude of the South African Jewish community.
“Brothers in suffering”
Following South Africa’s first democratic elections in 1994, Buthelezi led his Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) to join the government of national unity, led by Nelson Mandela. Buthelezi would serve as Minister of Home Affairs until 2004 and continued to serve as both leader of the IFP and an MP, retaining his seat in the 2014 general election.
A less well-known fact is that Prince Buthelezi’s maternal great-grandfather was none other than King Cetshwayo kaMpande who was the king of the Zulu Kingdom from 1873 to 1879 and its leader during the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879. He famously led the Zulu nation to victory against the British in the Battle of Isandlwana. An even less well-known fact is that Prince Buthelezi played his illustrious ancestor in the 1964 blockbuster, “Zulu” which was Michael Cain’s first starring role in a major movie.
Prince Buthelezi has consistently refuted the baseless lie that Israel is an Apartheid state. As Chief Minister of the erstwhile KwaZulu Government, he visited Israel at the invitation of then Prime Minister Shimon Peres in August of 1985, where he met with Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir and former Foreign Minister Abba Eban, whose birthplace was Cape Town.
“I will never forget the words of Prime Minister Peres spoken to me in private, when he told me, “We are brothers in suffering”,” he later wrote.
“He (Peres) understood the shared pathos that linked our people. He understood that just as we suffered one another’s suffering, we should celebrate one another’s victories. It was a poignant moment, realising that he understood my struggle for South Africa.”
Prince Buthelezi wrote of KwaZulu’s appreciation to “the Israeli Government for providing agricultural aid, leadership training and assistance to women-led cooperatives in KwaZulu. We were deeply appreciative of the partnership that developed between the KwaZulu Government and the Government of Israel.”
In a later interview with the Israeli left wing Haaretz on the occasion of Shimon Peres’ 80th birthday, he emphatically refuted the lie of Israel being an Apartheid regime stating on the contrary, “It is a unique case of democracy.” He added that if he would be asked by the Palestinians for advice, “I would tell them to avoid violence and to prefer negotiations. Armed struggle and violence do not solve problems, only create them, and generate more violence.”
Forging Ties. South African Zionist Federation in Israel (Telfed) members Leon Charney and wife Menorah and Telfed Director, Sidney Shapiro meet with Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi on his official visit to Israel in 1985 at the invitation of Prime Minister Shimon Peres.
Honouring the Prince on his 90th, were stirring tributes by Avrom Krengel (President of SAZF), Chief Rabbi Dr Warren Goldstein, who delivered a Dvar Torah, Shaun Zagnoev (Chairman of SAJBD) and Ben Swartz (Chairman of SAZF), who recounted inspiring moments “we shared on our trip to Israel in 2014.”
Israel’s ambassador to South Africa, Lior Keinan, brought greetings from Israel, stating that “You have a place of honour not only in South Africa, but in Israel, too”
Buthelezi’s Boisterous Bash. An animated Yeshiva’ College honouring Buthelezi turning ninety (Photo Alon).
Presenting the Prince with a Menorah, Rabbi Avraham Tanzer (Glenhazel Shul and Rosh Yeshiva) noted that like the Menorah – “you bring light unto the nation.” Memory and melody meshed with the Grade 1 pupils, leading the entire gathering in the singing of “Happy Birthday”.
Illuminating.A ‘light unto his nation’, Buthelezi receives Menorah from Rabbi Avraham Tanzer (Photo Alon)
Poised at the Podium
Upright, defiant and proud, the ninety-year old prince, took more than a physical stand at the podium; he took a stand against the ANC – notably its skewered position on Israel.
“From the start, I disagree with the decision taken by the ANC to downgrade South Africa’s embassy in Israel. It is short-sighted and regressive. Moreover, it stands in opposition to our country’s role as a mediator for peace.”
Following the loud applause, he then regaled his long and enriching friendships with such Jewish families, as Arnold and Rosemary Zulman and Dr Mosie and Helen Suzman (anti-apartheid activist and politician), who “opened their homes and hearts to my family during the Apartheid struggle.”
Closing his address, Prince Buthelezi unapologetically asserted:
“I have no shame in telling the truth about Israel or about my friendship with the Jewish community. Indeed, I am proud.”
Tall and Proud. “I have no shame in telling the truth about Israel. Indeed, I am proud,” says Mangosuthu Buthelezi from the podium at Yeshiva College celebrating his 90th birthday with Johannesburg’s Jewish community (Photo Alon).Terri Levin
Terri Levin, Media Liaison Officer of the South African Zionist Federation contributed to this article. Edited by David E. Kaplan
As Beth Protea Retirement Home Celebrates 26 years it’s a story not about bricks and mortar but about people.
For the Young at Heart. The outdoor patio of Beth Protea
“What are you guys planning to serve for lunch?”
“Can you believe it? That was the first question asked by a bunch of South Africans at our first fundraising campaign in Haifa in 1985. We had no land to build on; we hadn’t raised a dime, and people wanted to know what we would serve for lunch,” relates Walter Robinson the founding chairman of Beth Protea, a retirement home in Herzliya primarily for the Southern African community in Israel. Dublin-born Robinson was quick off the mark.
“Well, if you don’t start donating, there will be no dining room in which to serve lunch!” replied the masterful fundraiser.
Nearly three decades later, and today himself a resident at Beth Protea, it is now Walter who asks:
“What’s for lunch?”
In October 2018, Beth Protea celebrates its 26th year.
Dynamic Duo. Joel Katz (left) and Walter Robinson
South Africans in Israel have every reason to be proud. For a community that was the first to establish an immigrant organization (Telfed); pioneered the concepts of Absorption Centers and acquiring property to rent to their new Southern African immigrants at below market rentals, as well as initiating and promoting housing projects from the city of Ashkelon in the 1950s to the town of Kochav Yair and the community village (Moshav) of Manof in the 1980s, it was only natural, that at the dawn of the 1980s, serious thought was given to leaders in the community for the wellbeing of their seniors.
At that time there was a group who were “toying with the idea” – mainly to cater for parents who were left behind in South Africa. The concept found little traction until Robinson made Aliyah (immigrated) from Cape Town in 1981. Well known and respected for his communal work back in his adopted South Africa, the ad hoc group roped him in and within a few months of his arrival in Israel, he was chairman of a steering committee. “They allowed me to unpack my suitcases first,” he bellows with a boisterous Dublin guffaw.
Right Man For The Job
Walter once nearly ended up in jail and was rightly proud of it!
The year was 1944 and Walter and his Zionist chums at the university in Dublin started a newspaper called the Dublin Jewish Youth Magazine. One day, Walter opens the evening paper, and “I see this MP, Oliver Flanagan, questioning whether the directors of the DJYM have a license to publish and whether our articles had been submitted for censorship as required by wartime regulations. Both were serious offences, carrying prison sentences. Of course the answer to both was – NO,” says Walter, delighting in his mischievous past. Flanagan was a notorious anti-Semite who in his maiden speech in the Irish Lower House the previous year, had urged the government “to rout the Jews out of the country.”
Well Flanagan was not about to “rout” Robinson. “The owner of the paper’s printers was a great friend of Prime Minister Eamon de Valera and so if the printer could not go to prison, neither could we.” Walter’s Zionism continued to soar, culminating nearly fifty years later in his finest communal achievement – the opening of Beth Protea in 1992.
“We quickly changed the focus – not a retirement home for prospective immigrants but for the community in Israel. People, who had quite literally rolled up their sleeves and helped build this country.”
Now it was time to build a home for them. However not just a home, “but one that’s DNA was South African,’ said Robinson, “a home that felt like home.”
Benchmark of Excellence
Robinson quickly roped in a younger feller “who had a knack of asking the most intelligent questions.” And so began the partnership between Walter Robinson and Joel Katz that would steer the Beth Protea project in its formative years.
Bricks and motor ‘sprouted’, and like the ‘protea’, started to grow. The architect was another South African, Gert Gutman and while still under construction, South Africa’s State President, F.W. de Klerk visited where he was wined and dined in a ‘dining room’ on a floor of cardboard over sand and mud and between mounds of rubble.
While in the throws himself in transforming South Africa, de Klerk predicted amongst the rubble “this South African community is transforming the landscape of Israel.”
How right he was.
Beth Protea in Herzliya became the benchmark of excellence in caring for seniors, and in a few years the name ‘protea’ resonated across the land as its ‘seeds’ sprouted with other retirement complexes carrying the brand name – such as Protea Village further north and Protea Hills near Jerusalem.
Entertainment nearly every night, residents enjoy an outside concert on the patio.
The Magnificent Many
Joel Katz would become the first chairman of the Management Board and at the official opening in 1992, the guest of honor was the President of Israel, Chaim Herzog who expressed:
“One is never surprised at the admirable level of volunteering and performance on the part of South Africans in Israel. You have done it again by establishing Beth Protea, a golden retirement home for those in their golden years.” Paying tribute to the volunteers over the years, Katz spoke of the “lonely few” that grew to become “the magnificent many.” This 1992 observation holds even more so today as “volunteers from all walks of life continue to give freely of their time, energy, expertise and of course, their generosity, to upholding Beth Protea as a glowing example of retirement living and private initiative,” says current chairman Michael Silver.
Sensitive to the initial apprehension that the project would become elitist and only available to the wealthy – a feature of most new retirements homes in Israel today – the founders were determined that Beth Protea would be a non-profit association and established a fund, Keren Beth Protea to assist those in financial need. This is what distinguishes a community project such as Beth Protea from commercial, profit-motivated senior citizen facilities. The total financial assistance given by Keren Beth Protea over the last 26 years, is in itself a revelation of beauty.
Out of Africa
Wanting to learn firsthand about Israel’s specialized health care of its seniors, Dr. Harriet Chapasuka, a doctor from a clinic in South Africa’s northernmost province Limpopo, visited Beth Protea. Her husband Pastor Reuben Chapasuka, is President of the Cape to Cairo Israel Mission with churches across Africa that welcomes the Blue & White flag of Israeli innovation and ingenuity flying in the African breeze. “When I visit Israel,” says Pastor Reuben, “I always return to South Africa not with Israel’s ‘holy water’ but Israel’s ‘holy ingenuity’.”
Harriet, who shares her husband’s desire of tapping into Israel’s expertise “for our people”, visited Israel to explore its best practices of health care that could be replicated in rural South Africa.
With so many of the residents and staff at Beth Protea being former South Africans, Dr. Chapasuka felt, “quite at home.” Taken on a tour by the Director Lynn Lochoff, she visited the three sections: independent, the assisted living, and frail care unit. She met doctors and nurses and learnt about Israel’s unique health system where everyone is covered.
She visited the art studio and was amazed to see many of the paintings and sculpture reflecting the memories of the artist’s South Africa. “We remain so connected,’ she remarked and hoped the connection will be strengthened, particularly in the field of medical health.”
And the best answer to the first question asked way back in 1985, Dr. Harriette Chapasuka answered it after a desert, “the lunch – WOW! I loved it.”
The South African Connection. Dr. Harriet Chapasuka who runs a family clinic in Limpopo South Africa engages in some ‘rigorous’ exercise in Beth Protea’s gym with Director Lynn Lockoff (right) before enjoying a sumptuous lunch in the dining room.
Living History
For this writer, it’s the residents that makes Beth Protea special. Having interviewed many of them over the years, they all represent a microcosm of the history of modern Israel. There was the late Julie Slonim ( née Levinson) who arrived in 1946 from Johannesburg and recalls the day Israel’s first Prime Minister, David Ben Gurion, declared Israel’s independence in Tel Aviv. Newly married to a lawyer, “we joined in the festive mood that had gripped the city and on Allenby Street’s Moghrabi Square, masses of people were dancing and shouting. Later we went to the fashionable Café Pilz overlooking the sea where we danced on the tables and our partners lifted us into the air.”
Reality set in on the drive back home to Haifa “where we were shot at by Arab snipers. Luckily we escaped harm. The coastal road between Tel Aviv and Haifa was no longer safe, and motorists were suddenly running the gauntlet. There we were earlier dancing with joy and now we were now officially at war.”
When Beth Protea opened its doors in 1992, one of its first residents was Rona Baram ( née Moss-Morris), a law student and trained nurse, who arrived in Palestine from South Africa in the mid-forties. A member of the Habonim youth movement, she joined Kibbutz Kfar Blum in the northern Galilee. During 1948, settlements in “our area were like fortresses, surrounded by trenches and barbed wire,” says Baram. “The Arabs ran a water canal across the only approach road to our kibbutz cutting us off entirely from the outside world. Post, food and medicine were dropped from a single engine plane that flew in low. Aside from having to deliver babies and care for the sick and wounded, it was a cold winter and we didn’t have enough food or fuel.” Baram recalls the letter from her parents in Durban, with the memorable line “We hope you’ve dug yourself in Rona and have enough ammo to last out the siege.” Baram would go on to establish Tipat Chalav, the first child-care clinic in Kiryat Shmona.
On the 6th June 1948, the late Maurice Ostroff, and fellow ‘Machalniks’ from South Africa, all volunteers responding to the call to fight in Israel’s War of Independence, were flying into Israel in a P.A.A.C. Dakota. Not sure of his position, the pilot radioed in that he was coming in on an emergency landing. Of all the places to land, he brought the plane down at the last remaining British-controlled enclave of Haifa. “The British officer on duty was baffled by the arrival of these “tourists” and asked Ostroff:
“Whatever makes you want to come to Palestine at this time. Are you crazy!”
“Just passing through,” replied Ostroff.
“We are pulling out of here,” the officer shouted, “but it won’t be more than two weeks before the bloody Jews will be yelling at us to come back.” While the British officer soon left never to return, Ostroff would serve out the war as a signaler, commanding a radio station near the Weizmann Institute. Nearly six decades later, Ostroff still had his antennae out and still locking horns with Israel’s enemies. From his fifth floor apartment in Beth Protea he daily monitored the world media on its coverage on Israel, responding to unfair bias by writing to newspapers, TV networks and political leaders around the world.
The late Sam Solomon was another first resident to Beth Protea. He had little interest in Zionism, but “I did have an interest in girls.” In the late 1930’s he was a young man living in Bloemfontein in South Africa. “I asked a pretty girl out on a date, but she told me she would only go out with me if I picked her up after a meeting at the Zionist Hall where an important leader from Palestine was talking. I was not keen to attend thinking it would be boring, but I arrived early and so with nothing to do, I sat in and was so taken up with what I heard about the Halutzchik (pioneering) way of life that three weeks later I was on a plane to Palestine.”
“Whatever happened to the girl?” I asked.
“Who knows”” replied Solomon. “After that night, I never saw her again and my first job in arriving in Palestine was building the road from Tel Aviv to Haifa.”
At a special Beth Protea event some years ago, the late Herman Musikanth, a “financial whiz” who worked very closely with Walter to get Beth Protea literally “off the ground”, quoted the words of Albert Price written in the early 1800s:
“What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and this world is – and remains – immortal.”
He concluded with, “I believe that Beth Protea is probably as immortal as one can get.”
Beth Protea. Pride of the Southern African community of Israel.The writer, David Kaplan (left) conversing with President F.W. de Klerk on his visit to Beth Protea still under construction in 1991.
Benji Shulman, Executive Director South Africa Israel Forum, is from Johannesburg, South Africa. He has a master’s degree in Geography and has worked in a range of fields in the Jewish community including education, advocacy, environment and outreach. He loves radio and has a hosted numerous shows on 101.9 ChaiFm in the last decade.
