Category: Jewish World

LITTLE BLUE BOXES

By  Beverley Price, November 2018

For my generation, Jewish pride and Zionist identity was a fait accompli.

Despite Apartheid, there was minimal Antisemitism and a ‘live and let live’ attitude towards Jews. This is not the case today in South Africa nor internationally. ON the one hand, if one is an Orthodox Jew, the connection to Israel is inextricable because many mitzvoth are contingent on the land of Israel. However we 21st Century Jews are challenged by the distortions of BDS, perversions of the United Nations resolutions and growing antisemitism masquerading as anti-Zionism.

These ideas have been wedged into our thinking.

There is no guarantee that at the end of the 21st century our young people of today will love Israel.

This is where the JNF (Jewish National Fund) can help play a vital role in helping to form a bridge between Israel and diaspora communities as it makes it possible to have direct engagement with Israel through our land, water and tree projects.

The JNF has been present in South Africa since 1901, since its establishment at the 5th Zionist congress in Basel and is 47 years older than the State.

The JNF are dedicated to education and have projects that teach Jewish children how to engage with Israel.

In July 2017 I was delighted to be appointed as Education Officer for the JNF in Johannesburg.  I work with the Jewish nursery schools teaching about the Jewish National Fund’s activities. The target age range is 3-6 year olds. In 2019 I will work with the junior-primary and primary schools.

One of the highlights is the activities we have in place for Tu’Bishvat, the birthday of the trees. Last year ecologist and activist, Dr Jeunesse Park, as well as Benji Shulman, past JNF Deputy Director  and seasoned geographer, spoke to the Jewish high school students and eco clubs about the JNF projects in South Africa and in Israel.

It is so important to teach little children how to have an appreciation of the land and the hard work of the early pioneers who built infrastructure before the State of Israel was formally declared.  The “green” and thriving Israel as we know it today was once a barren wilderness.  Fast forward to today; the JNF in now looks after the country’s ecology as an elder custodian enjoying the role of ‘a gentle loving gardener’.

Most of us grew up with the iconic little blue box in our homes and knew that the coins we faithfully deposited went towards buying tress in Israel. I remember our Blue Box lady in Observatory, Johannesburg who would come and collect the boxes when full. I also remember filling many money-cards with coins to hand in at King David School to buy trees. My late Polish-Jewish immigrant grandparents had a JNF Golden Book of Honour certificate in their lounge and so the JNF has become a major part of my life.

KKL2.PNGI could not be more delighted to be an education officer for the JNF and wanted to try and find a way to bring the iconic blue box into the lives of our children. With this in mind, I devised “The Blue Box” game.

The late psychologist, Urie Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory says that human development is shaped by the interaction between an individual and his/ her environment– including parents, friends, culture and nationwide cultural forces. I felt that this theory was perfect for my JNF ‘tree-water-earth’ programme.

Putting theory into practice:

The children have the opportunity to express themselves creatively while falling in love with Israel.

I start by laying a large map of Israel on the floor. The children sit around the map. I place a large cardboard Blue Box at the head of the map and each child gets a large colour-coded coin representing the 3 elements of the Keren Kayemet – JNF’s projects – blue, green, brown.

The intention of the Blue Box game is to teach concepts including chessed (kindness and generosity), looking after things outside of yourself, tsedakah (giving money to charity), that it is possible to help a country even though you are so far away.  They also learn the importance of looking after small things and are shown pictures of cities in Israel and our JNF projects related to water, earth and trees. I explain how giving money in South Africa to a Blue Box can reach Israelis and that there are people there who go out and buy the trees for us, treat the water and bring it back to the desert for growing.  I compare the lushness of South Africa with the barrenness of Israel and its lack of natural resources. I bring in the notions of miracle, kadosh (holiness) and that Hashem looks after the land and brings rain even though it is a desert region. We speak about what it means to look after something that you love. (“What do you love at home – who loves you?”). During the course of the game each child inserts their big coin into the big Blue Box – a special tsedakah box. “Why is it Blue? Is blue a Jewish colour?”

I teach reciprocal gratitude – hakarat hatov – that we like to thank the Israeli people at the JNF for looking after Israel for us, and that they thank our South African Jewish children for being so kind and for staying connected to the land, water and trees of Israel by sending our donations via the Blue Box.

Sometimes our names are written into big books in Jerusalem for eternity (the KKL Honour Books). Our chessed is connected with their chessed – the devoted people at the JNF look after the land, water and trees on behalf of us while we are so far away. They do this because they care for us and know it is our Jewish homeland too and so important to us. Even though our real homes are in South Africa, Israel is our special home because we are Jews.

Finally each child gets to put a real coin into a small Blue Box which remains in the classroom for them to sustain what we have learned.

In the end we are all involved in teaching our Jewish children about one more entity to love:  Israel – and in so doing to love themselves  and their Jewish identity, more.

 

KKL3 (Bev Price).jpgBeverley Price. First generation Jewish South African of Polish and Lithuanian descent, grew up during apartheid, educated at King David School, Linksfield and Wits University ( Speech Therapy). Made Aliyah in 1983 to Kibbutz Alonim ( Tivon) , moved to Jerusalem. Studied our religion at Pardes and Yediat Ha’aretz at Kfar Etzion. Worked at Shaarei Tseddek hospital in Cleft Palate unit (speech therapy) and Language unit with Arab-Israeli children. Worked with Mickey Blumberg IUA ( Magbit Drom Afrika) for  Ofaqim. Studied Jewellery design (hasavat miktsoah) at the Kuzari Centre in Shchunat Habucharin, Jerusalem. Moved to London to further Jewellery studies. Worked as Speech Therapist in Golders Green Jewish Home ( Rela Goldhill Lodge). Organised and led trip to Israel for 7 residents with disabilities. Returned to live in Israel, shared jewellery studio for 2 years in Jerusalem, returned to post-apartheid South Africa in  1995. Lived in Ixopo, rural KZN for 3 years, (Had my jewellery studio there and learned to speak Zulu) , returned to Johannesburg – post graduate fine arts degree at Wits with distinction, began working as sculptor and developing  my successful picture-jewellery range, large  work exhibited and collected locally and internationally . Looked after my late  mother for 4 years. Honorary appointment by American jewellery association – ArtJewelryForum-  as their ambassador for contemporary jewellery in South Africa. Began working for JNF in July 2017 as Education Officer in part time capacity.

 

At what price, war?

By Rolene Marks

Heavy is the head that wears the crown – or in this case makes the unenviable decision on behalf of a nation to go to war.

I don’t envy any leader or general who has to make this decision.

Over a period of two days, nearly 500 rockets and mortars were fired by terror factions from the Gaza strip into Southern Israel, sending hundreds of thousands of civilians scrambling for safety in their bomb shelters.

One person (a Palestinian from Hebron) was killed when a rocket hit his apartment in Ashkelon, a 19 year old soldier is fighting for his life, a beloved family pet was killed and 68 people have been treated for injuries as well as the horrific destruction of property.

At the moment there is an Egyptian-brokered a ceasefire in place and many have opined that we should “obliterate Gaza” “flatten it totally”. I am very perturbed and offended by this kind of rhetoric.

Please allow me a moment to rant. I share the frustration of many that we need to put an end to the terrorist actions of Iranian-backed Hamas and various other terror factions in the strip for once and for all. These terror groups hold both their own and the civilian population of Israel hostage with their thirst for bloodshed. Many have called for an all-out war with our Gazan neighbours and it is easy to be an armchair general from the safety of our homes, far away for the proverbial battlefield.  I am not a military expert and I cannot fathom, like many of you, the difficult decisions Israel’s government, security cabinet and Generals have to make. But I am a human being and holding on to my moral compass, my humanity is sacrosanct.

The decision to go to war or “boots on the ground” is profoundly difficult. War is not glamorous or an easy decision to make. For Israelis, this situation is profoundly painful and as much as we would like to deal a death blow to the likes of Hamas, we are well aware of the consequences.

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War is fought on the backs of our sons and daughters, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, lovers, friends and colleagues. Some of them don’t return. War is more violence inflicted on our civilian populations. War is experiencing PTSD (which by the way many of us, including me experience at the sound of sirens). War is going to funerals for those fallen and gone too soon. War is sleepless nights because we worry our loved ones in the battlefield have not contacted us. War is our heart stopping every time our phones ring or whatsapp beeps.

War is also suffering inflicted on the Palestinian civilian population who do not deserve to be punished because of the actions of their leaders. War is women, children, the disabled and vulnerable being used by Hamas as human shields. War is our diaspora communities under threat and more anti-Semitism because Jewish communities outside of Israel are seen as the de facto representatives of the state.

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 I am proud and grateful for our armed forces and security establishment who abide by the strictest code of ethics and conduct. These brave men and women protect us 24/7 while retaining their humanity in the most extraordinary of circumstances. Who are we to behave in a way that is disrespectful to them and fellow innocents by baying for blood? I am proud of a country that takes our duty to be humanitarians even to civilians belonging to an enemy entity very seriously. This is why we continue to ensure that humanitarian aid is delivered to the beleaguered strip unabated.

I hope this offers an explanation. Some of you may disagree, and that is your right. All I am asking is that in a time of conflagration we do not lose our perspective – or humanity.

My gratitude to our brave men and women of the  IDF, IAF, and security services, police, first responders and firefighters for exemplifying the best of us and keeping us safe.

“Am Yisrael Chai !”

A Synagogue in Budapest

By Rowan Polovin

Chairman, South African Zionist Federation (Cape Council)

In October 2018, I had the privilege of visiting Budapest to attend the World Zionist Organization’s iVision Conference 2018: ‘Asking, Challenging and Dreaming’. iVision is an annual conference in Europe that is organised and run by the WZO’s Department for Diaspora Activities. It is an important meeting place for Zionists of the Diaspora, as well as representatives from Israel, to gather together and talk about Zionism, Israel and the Jewish People. I met participants and Zionist federations from Bulgaria, Romania, Russia, Germany, Hungary and of course Israel.
Israel-Diaspora relations on the world stage are usually centered around Israel and the United States or Europe. Israel-Africa relations are rarely given the attention deserved, nor is the history of Israel and Zionism in Africa well known or understood. I thus gave a lecture to the conference attendees on this topic and was pleased to represent Jewry of the African continent at this important conference.
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Max Nordau (L) Theodor Herzl (R)
It was symbolic and meaningful that the conference took place a few meters away from the Dohány Street Synagogue, the largest Synagogue in Europe, and the second largest in the world, and its adjoining Jewish Museum was built on the very spot where Theodor Herzl, the founder and visionary of modern political Zionism, was born. A simple plaque outside the Synagogue commemorates the startling fact of Herzl’s birth on this spot that led to the revitalisation of the Jewish People and the establishment of the Jewish State. Max Nordau, another prominent Zionist intellectual and co-founder with Herzl of the World Zionist Organization, was born not too far away.
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Dohány Street Synagogue
The Great Synagogue, as it is otherwise known, was built in a Moorish architectural style in the exterior, and includes an organ (on which Franz Liszt played), naves and a pulpit, and reflects the assimilationist tendencies of Austro-Hungarian Jewry of the era. This desire to integrate and assimilate unfortunately did not prevent the terrible persecution of the Hungarian Jews in the twentieth century (nor the ten centuries of persecution beforehand) which led to the quarter being turned into a ghetto in late 1944, the Synagogue defining its border. One casually strolls past what was once the Synagogue’s gardens, but now constitutes a cemetery of 2 000 mostly unmarked Jewish graves of people who starved or froze to death in the ghetto. This, mixed with the hundreds of thousands of Hungarian Jews who were murdered in the Holocaust, is too tragic to describe.
Herzl fondly reminisced about this Synagogue of his youth in a later speech. He references it as one of the awakenings in his being and consciousness that moved him to write about the ‘Situation of the Jews’, which ultimately lead to his vision for a Jewish State. How prophetic were his vision and his words, which enacted sooner may have prevented the later tragedies on the doorsteps of this very Synagogue and throughout Europe.  Herzl famously said almost exactly 50 years prior that, “it may not come in my lifetime, but 50 years from now, there will be a Jewish state”. We should continually remind ourselves of the miracle of this State as a safe haven for Jews, and now also as a means for the fulfillment of Jewish life, genius and ethics, alongside our obligation and responsibility to promote Zionism in the Diaspora.

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Rowan Polovin is the Chairman of the South African Zionist Federation (Cape Council), and a 2016 recipient of the World Zionist Organisation’s Herzl Award for his commitment to the State of Israel and the SA Jewish Community. He is a proud Jew and passionate Zionist, and works to instill a strong Jewish and Zionist identity in the South African Jewish community.

After Pittsburgh, we must emerge stronger

By Gabe Groisman  (Mayor of Bal Harbor, Florida)

*This op-ed was previously published in Israel National News

The days since the attack on the synagogue in Pittsburgh have continued to be challenging for Jews around the world. The attack was a realization of fears that many of us have had for quite some time. We have seen these sort of heinous attacks against Jews in Europe, in South America, and of course in Israel. Each one of those hurt. But, having an attack in our own country – the country my parents emigrated to for safety and prosperity; the country which has always been the place people from all over the world have come to seeking security and freedom has shocked me and the American Jewish community in a different manner.

A few days since the attack have now passed, and two things have begun to come into focus as a result.

First, the attack has finally placed the world’s focus on the meteoric rise in Antisemitism that we have been experiencing for the past decade in the United States and abroad.

Most think this wave of Antisemitism started in the past year and a half or so, under President Trump. While it certainly has continued to grow during this time period, the rise of Antisemitism has been well-documented and relatively consistent throughout the United States over the last 6 to 10 years.

For instance, in June 2016 I wrote an article which was published on the front page of the Huffington Post, titled, “Anti-Semitism is Back. Will you Stand By or Stand up?”

In the article, I quoted the most recent statistics of the time – like the fact that anti-Semitic discourse on the Internet had risen 114% between 2014 and 2015. And, that in 2015 the FBI had reported that the majority of anti-religious hate crimes in the US were perpetrated against Jews. But Antisemitism hasn’t slowed down since then. In fact, it continues to grow and fester. We see it from the political left and from the political right.

We must put aside our political differences and stand up to Antisemitism when it rises, despite from where it arises.

The second thing that the Pittsburgh attack has highlighted is how very divided the Jewish community is on so many issues. Whether on political, religious, or social grounds, there is great division in the Jewish community. Of course, this is reflective of the polarization we see in society at large, however for our small community, it is unacceptable.

Because the rise of Antisemitism will certainly not stop with Pittsburgh, the Jewish people simply cannot afford to be divided. In fact, the Jewish community must unite – not just this week, not just at a vigil, not just in the face of a tragedy, but moving forward. We can disagree on issues – that is in our DNA. But, we have to treat each-other with respect, and continue to strengthen and finally unify the Jewish community worldwide.

Remember, with over 60% of American Jews being entirely apathetic to their Judaism, the responsibility that we each hold is all the more heightened.

The perpetrator in Pittsburgh screamed “ALL JEWS MUST DIE!” He distinguished not between Republican Jews, Democratic Jews, Orthodox Jews, Likud members or Labour members. Those who hate us, hate all of us. That has always been the case. Whether in Nazi Germany, at the AMIA bombing in Argentina, the attack of the Jewish school in Toulouse France, the rockets from Gaza, or the countless suicide vests that have detonated. In all of those cases, the intent of the perpetrator was to kill Jews. Any Jews. Those who seek to destroy us, seek to destroy all of us.

I have a message to Mr. Robert Bowers – the person who murdered 11 of our own while screaming “All Jews Must Die.”:

As you may be beginning to realize from the Jewish nurses and doctors who are taking care of you at the hospital, while your life will surely end up tied to a cold metal table with a needle in your arm – being killed by lethal injection by the State of Pennsylvania, we, the Jewish people, will continue to live, and thrive, and be a positive force in the world.

Of course, there is certainly a fear that we all collectively and individually feel after one of these tragedies, and this fear is natural. But, we must quickly overcome that fear, emerge stronger, and all be able to proudly say what Menachem Begin z”lb said when he stood before US Congress in 1982 while being pressured to make concessions that he deemed to be dangerous to the existence of the Jewish people and the Jewish State. We must be able to say his words firmly and proudly:

I am not a Jew with trembling knees.

I am a proud Jew.

I come from 3700 years of civilized history.

No one came to our aid for years while we were being burned in ovens by the Nazis.

No one 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.

Despite the attack in Pittsburgh we must remember, and remind those around us – in our community and outside our community, that there has never been a time in history that the Jewish people have been stronger than today. We must continue to build upon that strength, We must focus on Jewish unity and Jewish pride. And, we must continue to fight against Antisemitism wherever and whenever it may rear its ugly head.

 

45311943_573500176427033_6684595109884854272_n.jpg Gabriel Groisman is a lawyer, writer, speaker, and the Mayor of Bal Harbour, Florida. Mayor Groisman is active in the community on various fronts, including speaking regularly to groups about fighting anti-semitism and the anti-Israel boycott movement (“BDS”). Mayor Groisman wrote and passed the nation’s first municipal anti-BDS ordinance in December 2015, and was the first in the nation to codify a uniform definition of anti-Semitism in December 2017. Mayor Groisman’s groundbreaking ordinances continue to spread across the country. In 2016, Ambassador Danny Danon, Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations, invited Mayor Groisman to speak at two conferences hosted at the UN to discuss his efforts in fighting the BDS movement. Mayor Groisman also shared his vision for fighting modern day anti-Semitism at an international summit hosted by the Italian Parliament in Rome in 2017. In February 2018, Mayor Groisman delivered the keynote address about the rise of anti-Semitism through Israeli delegitimization efforts to the International Lawyers Conference on Combatting Delegitimization in Jerusalem at the invitation of MK Gilad Erdan. Mayor Groisman is a sought after speaker, publishes op-ed pieces regularly on different platforms, and has been a guest on various national television and radio programs, aiming to keep issues affecting the Jewish and pro-Israel community in the forefront of the national conversation. In his private life, Gabriel Groisman is the founder of Groisman Law, PLLC a boutique law firm where he focuses on trademark law, anti-corruption, and commercial litigation. He is a member of the national board of the Friends of the IDF. And, he and his wife Lisa are raising their four beautiful daughters.

What’s With Wakanda & Zion?

By Benji Shulman

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
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 Blyden referred to “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.”

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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).

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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 Nyerere observed 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 Kenyatta argued 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.

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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’.

(Wakanda is a fictional country located in Sub-Saharan Africa created by Marvel Comics and home to the superhero Black Panther.)

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.

Agricultural training in Cameroon
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.

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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.

Israeli aid to Cameroon
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.

 

 

headshot1 (1).jpgBenji 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.

 

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SOUTH AFRICAN JEWS AND THE FOUNDING OF ISRAEL

By David Saks

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.

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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

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.

 

 

 

South African ‘Flower’ Flourishes in Israel

By David E. Kaplan

As Beth Protea Retirement Home Celebrates 26 years it’s a story not about bricks and mortar but about people.

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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.

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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.

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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.”

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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.”

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Beth Protea. Pride of the Southern African community of Israel.
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The writer, David Kaplan (left) conversing with President F.W. de Klerk on his visit to Beth Protea still under construction in 1991.

“It is time the world – and Jews themselves – identify the ‘People of the Book’ as indigenous people”

By Rolene Marks

These are the words of indigenous rights activist Ryan Bellerose, a native north American from Alberta, Canada in an exclusive interview with LOTL 

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Ryan Bellerose (courtecy of IsraelIndigenousRights)

Bellerose is a Métis from Northern Alberta, a Native People recognised by the Canadian government as Aboriginal. While his father, Mervin Bellerose, co-authored the Métis Settlements Act of 1989, which the Alberta legislature passed in 1990 affirming Native land rights, Ryan founded a Native rights advocacy group ‘Canadians For Accountability’, and is an activist for “Idle No More”, a movement supporting indigenous sovereignty and land and water stewardship.

So, it was instructive to learn what a respected activist well versed with the issues of ‘indigenous rights’, thinks about Israelis that are constantly accused as being colonialists – a foreign import at the expense of the “indigenous” Arabs.

By “indigenous people”, Bellerose explains, “I am talking about ethnoreligious tribal peoples who have demonstrated ties to specific ancestral lands and sacred places.” He cites the “five pillars” of indigenous Identity as:

“Land, Language, Culture, Blood and Spirituality.”

All these characteristics are “what defines an indigenous people and cements its identity.”

To graphically demonstrate, he holds out a hand and says, “imagine my thumb and four fingers representing the five pillars; you can have a functional identity even if you are missing one of those fingers but the more you lose, the less functional it becomes, resulting in identity erosion.”

So how does this champion for the rights of indigenous people, emerge as an outspoken supporter of Israel?

“What many forget or conveniently dismiss,” he says, “Jews have had a constant presence in the land of Israel since time immemorial and this has continued despite exile, persecution, and war. Jews have managed to maintain a corpus presence in the Land of Israel for over 3000 years while maintaining their core identity and so when the chance came to return home, they took it. And when they got home…I mean that’s pretty amazing. They came back and built a nation.”

Bellerose has made a study of Israel following his fascination with the country from his childhood. Brought up as a Roman Catholic like many Métis who were forcefully converted, “I was captivated as a kid reading the stories in the Old Testament. As I got older and studied the history more, I realised that there was a disparity between what I was told – Israel is an entity of colonialists – and the truth that Jews are in fact indigenous and have deeper ties to the land than the people I was being told were indigenous. I simply applied the same standards and logic that I applied with every other indigenous people in the world and it wasn’t hard to see something was way off.”

All in the Family

Asked what motivated him to become an activist, Bellerose replies “I am following a family tradition. Activism courses through our veins. While my dad worked all over the world in the oilfields, in forestry and basically did all kinds of jobs, he always spoke up for his fellow workers; he was intensely involved in the struggle for Métis Rights. Although he loathed politics, he nevertheless became the Chairman of the Board for our settlement and worked afterwards as the Resource Director where he was the first to ever manage the settlement at a profit rather than at a loss like his predecessors. Growing up around Dad, his values rubbed off on me and helped me understand how important it was to make my voice heard when I saw inequalities.”

Hailing from the Paddle Prairie Métis settlement in the far north of Alberta Canada, “we are at the edge of the arboreal forest, which means right where the taiga (pine trees and the last non-coniferous trees) meets the muskeg (swamp). I grew up without running water or electricity during my early childhood and we hunted, fished, and cultivated crops. We lived an hour-and-a-half away by car from the nearest town.  My family traces our roots back to the first families and we have always been active in the struggle for indigenous rights.”

What counsel did this esteemed activist have for young Jewish students on campus around the world that have become such hostile environments for supporters of Israel?

Firstly, says Bellerose, “be proud of who you are; your people have an amazing story; have contributed a disproportionate amount to the world, in the fields of science, literature, and many other fields, but the most important thing is that you managed to do a few things that are the goal of every indigenous people – you managed to achieve self -determination on your ancestral lands. Think of it, against all odds, you resurrected your indigenous ancient language. What has been achieved in Israel is an example to many other indigenous people.”

Contrary to the accusation of Jews in Israel being “colonisers”, Bellerose asserts “you are a Middle Eastern people who endured a long and painfully diaspora and returned home after two millennia years of forced exile.  I frequently speak at youth conferences in Northern California, because it is critical to reach out to young people with the facts BEFORE they get onto campus. We don’t want their first experience on campus to be getting yelled at about Israel and being unprepared.”

Today, Bellerose does work with the California-based organisation  Club Z and often does speaking engagements on behalf of Stand With Us.

Insurmountable Issue

Bellerose avers that “identity is at the centre of everything and while Israelis have a strong identity, they sometimes come across as weak because they do not understand how the other side views the world.”

What does this ingenious rights activist mean by this statement?

“For instance, you can tell me something is important to you and I will believe you but if you fail to follow up your words with action, your words will not find traction and you weaken your own case. People will believe your actions over your words.”

He cites the case of the Temple Mount that “is supposed to be the most sacred place for Jews in the entire world, yet many Jews act like it is not important. To an outsider this means that you don’t really care and if we just push you hard enough you will give it up. Now you and I both know that Jews are stubborn and patient. Afterall, you did manage to return to your ancestral home after being sent into exile by the Romans 2000 years ago but to an outsider it appears like you don’t care about the Temple Mount – that it is not critical to your ancestral rights. If you believe, you need to set red lines and Europe and the Arab world would take you far more seriously regarding Jerusalem and your inherent rights to it. In other words, the stronger your Jewish identity, the more they will respect you, the weaker it is, the more they will attempt to undermine your rights. I know from our own experience.”

To those that criticize Bellerose for so publicly and proudly supporting Israel he responds that “the Jews are the indigenous people of Israel; the facts tell us that beyond doubt. Arabs are indigenous but not to Israel. Arabs invaded Israel in the 7th century CE and this is a historical fact.” To those who accuse him of betraying his indigenous pedigree he has a strong message:

“I am going to ask you nicely – stop lying to Indians and stop trying to steal the Jewish people’s story, because people like me will call you out, every damn time.”

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Ryan Bellerose is a Métis from Northern Alberta. His father, Mervin Bellerose, co-authored the Métis Settlements Act of 1989, which was passed by the Alberta legislature in 1990 and cemented his land rights. Ryan founded Canadians For Accountability, a Native rights advocacy group, and was an Idle No More (INM)* movement organizer. He is also a founding member in the Calgary United with Israel (CUWI) organization.

 

 

Feature picture credit: Times of Israel