Sheldon Cohen was born in South Africa in 1960. He was an active student leader at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg and editor of its liberal student newspaper. He was also one of the many Jewish members of the National Union of South African Students (NUSAS), whose call for democracy and non–racialism in the 1980s brought them into conflict with the Apartheid government, then at the height of its power.
In February this year, Sheldon was shot in his car while waiting for his son Noah to finish soccer practice. Sheldon’s father, who was on the phone with him when this happened, rushed over and found his son’s body. At Sheldon’s funeral, South Africa’s Chief Rabbi Dr. Warren Goldstein eulogized, “Sheldon’s death cannot go down as another statistic. Our government needs to be held accountable for this. We as the community are not going to stand for this and we say that one murder is one too much.” But Sheldon is just one of the 55 South Africans who are murdered every day.
New Directions
Sixty years ago, Alan Paton, in Cry, The Beloved Country, wrote these words through his character Msimangu, a black priest in Johannesburg: “I have one great fear in my heart: that one day when they [the whites] are turned to loving, they will find we [the blacks] are turned to hating.” But we cannot see today’s senseless acts of brutality as mere vengeance for centuries of oppression. Although there is some hatred among the black population for the whites, intolerable levels of violent crime affect all races, especially in the poorer, predominantly black areas. The crime currently experienced in South Africa can be explained by and large by the socioeconomic position of the black population, exacerbated by decades of oppression and economic exclusion.
The white population of South Africa consists of two main groups divided along linguistic lines: those of English heritage, and those of Dutch descent, the Afrikaners. When Alan Paton wrote Cry in 1948, the predominantly Afrikaner National Party (NP) had just assumed power, promising to curb the “black danger” under a policy framework known as Apartheid (literally, the state of being separate or apart).
To achieve white minority rule, the NP split the black majority into nine ethnic minorities, each with its own “homeland” in which the black population ostensibly enjoyed political autonomy in pursuit of “Separate Development.” Yet the system was a thinly veiled façade; the white government allotted only 13% of South Africa’s land area to the black “homelands,” despite the fact that the black majority comprised approximately 90% of the population. Despite international scrutiny and domestic resistance, the Apartheid regime only grew more oppressive.
Today, fourteen years after the demise of Apartheid and the rise of the previously banned African National Congress (ANC) under Nelson Mandela, most of the country’s 50 million people have not seen their lives substantially improved. Though the period since the 1994 transition has been marked by robust economic growth and the rise of a growing black middle class of 2.5 million, roughly 30% of the population is unemployed, over 5.5 million people suffer from HIV/AIDS, crime is rampant and poverty is everywhere. Thabo Mbeki, successor to Mandela, remains president of South Africa until his second term expires next year. However, many are concerned about the ANC’s new leadership, elected last year with Jacob Zuma as the party’s president. In 2005, Zuma was charged with rape but acquitted. When asked why he did not use a condom when having sex with his accuser, who is HIV positive, Zuma—who also heads the National AIDS Council— stated that he showered after the incident to reduce the risk of transmission. been accused of corruption, bribery and fraud regarding a $5 billion arms deal with a French manufacturer. Zuma’s financial advisor was sentenced to fifteen years imprisonment for his criminal activities surrounding the deal, and Zuma will be tried once again in August. Yet with Zuma ready to assume the presidency in 2009, it is unlikely that he will be convicted.
In a recent address to South Africa’s Jewish community, Zuma defended the ANC’s “new leadership” on the grounds that all of the recently elected leaders are “seasoned cadres of the liberation movement.” The problem is that the ANC does not see itself as a political party competing in a healthy democratic nation.
According to New Republic critic James Kirchick, “Drawing heavily on its history as a liberation movement, the African National Congress (ANC) cloaks itself in a shroud of moral absolutism that not so subtly implicates its critics as racists, Western stooges or apologists for Apartheid.” Indeed, with over two–thirds of the seats in parliament and consequent power to change the constitution, the ANC is effectively immune to any political opposition. The boundary between party and state is perilously thin.
Amidst the uncertainty, South Africa’s Jewish community continues to live in relative affluence. Jews have established their own suburban enclaves within South Africa’s major cities, securing themselves behind ten–foot concrete walls replete with electric fencing and barbed wire, attempting to adapt to the crime epidemic. Houses are built like fortresses and private security companies patrol “gated suburbs.” Yet try as they might to insulate themselves from the rest of the population, South Africa’s Jews, like Sheldon Cohen, cannot escape the country’s instability.
Faced with a crime epidemic and an unhealthy, one–party–dominated democracy, the Jewish community faces various dilemmas: What is it to do in a de facto one–party state that cannot provide basic security and freedom from fear? How should it respond to a ruling party that, despite its perceived moral character, will not sufficiently address the HIV/AIDS pandemic and also supports Zimbabwe’s President Mugabe, further exacerbating an urgent humanitarian crisis?
“Community and Conscience”
The Jewish community’s behavior under the Apartheid regime offers a glimpse into its reaction to the current political challenges. Founded in 1912, the South African Jewish Board of Deputies is the official agency that represents the Jewish community to the government in matters directly affecting the community. The Board has dealt with today’s ANC–dominated government much as it did the Apartheid regime, by adopting a policy of pragmatic non–involvement in politics, speaking out only when the Jewish community is directly affected. But there is furious debate within the Jewish community regarding the Board’s stance towards the government.
According to South–African born historian Gideon Shimoni, who analyzes Jewish behavior during Apartheid in his book Community and Conscience, this communal noninvolvement policy can be described as a “characteristic minority–group phenomenon, better understood in sociological terms as a function of self–preservation.” The Jews, originating mainly in Lithuania, had fled persecution and lived as a tolerated minority in constant fear of losing that status. Thus, Shimoni illustrates the general Jewish disinclination to oppose Apartheid as a battle between “community and conscience,” between preventing anti–Semitic legislation and persecution, and opposing a system that was, from a Jewish and humanitarian perspective, morally bankrupt.
Before assuming power in 1948, the Afrikaners had a long legacy of pro–Nazism and anti–Semitism, even voting against South Africa’s support of the allies in World War II. Pressured by the Afrikaners in the 1930s, the South African government imposed immigration quotas targeting specific Eastern European countries, a clear attempt to curtail Jewish immigration and maintain the “purity” of South Africa’s “original population.” In 1961, when Israel voted to sanction South Africa for its racist policies, the avowedly Zionist Jewish community condemned Israel’s actions as geopolitically motivated and inconsiderate of South African Jewish concerns.
South Africa’s Prime Minister, Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd—himself associated with many past anti–Semitic organizations—deemed Israel’s actions “a tragedy” for the local Jewish community. “Fortunately,” he continued, “the reaction of many Jews and Jewish organizations was such that what might have been worse was relieved to a certain extent by this pro–South African reaction.” However, he issued an ominous warning that “the fact that during the last election so many Jews had favored the Progressive Party and so few the Nationalist party, did not pass unnoticed.”
Jewish support for the Progressive Party, which was formed in 1959 by a Jewish woman, Helen Suzman, angered Afrikaner nationalists like Verwoerd. Suzman occupied the party’s only seat in parliament for thirteen years. Though she opposed Apartheid through the government apparatus, the Board still feared that she would draw negative attention to the Jewish community.
The disproportionately high number of Jews involved in radical, extra–legal opposition to Apartheid was of an even greater concern. Of the 156 accused of treason in 1956, 14 of the 23 whites were Jews. In 1964, the government arrested the remaining leaders of the banned ANC resistance movement and prosecuted them in the infamous Rivonia trial. As a result of this trial, Mandela, already serving a five–year sentence for treason, was further sentenced to life–imprisonment. Of the ten other convictions, five were black, one was Indian, and four were white. All four whites were Jewish. Although these Jews were mostly non–identifying atheists, the NP did not ignore the significant Jewish involvement in resistance activities.
The Board distanced itself from Jewish radicals for fear of arousing anti–Semitism, advising Jews to act with “a due sense of communal responsibility” in political activities. Meanwhile, the Board maintained political abstinence. Thus, when sixty–nine peaceful protestors were massacred in 1960, the Board remained silent. Yet, when Prime Minister Verwoerd was assassinated in 1966, both the Orthodox and Reform Chief Rabbis delivered “glowing eulogies,” revealing the selective nature of their feigned neutrality. To appease the government and protect the community, the Board had paid the price of conscience.
The Board also attempted to quell Jewish student resistance. When the government learned that the liberal National Union of South African Students had many Jewish members, a senior government official urged the Jewish community to influence its youth to “respect authority and not to disrupt it.” Youth were encouraged to express their moral convictions only in their capacity as citizens but never as Jews. The most popular Jewish youth movement of the time, Habonim, strongly disagreed, believing that this was tantamount to a “renunciation of the relevance of Jewish values to the actual lives of Jews; it dichotomized ’the Jew’ and ’the man’ and revealed the moral bankruptcy of Jewry in the peculiar South African variety of Diaspora.”
Yet Jews who opposed Apartheid under the banner of their Jewish identity and values put the community at risk. Thus, Habonim encouraged aliyah (emigration to Israel) as the sole solution to the dilemma of “community and conscience” that the Jewish South African faced in Diaspora. Testimony from a Habonim activist who had made aliyah reveals the tension between his conflicting imperatives. He drew on Holocaust historian Yehuda Bauer’s famous line: “Thou shall not be a victim; thou shall not be a perpetrator. Above all, thou shall not be a bystander.” By returning to South Africa, he thought he “would be guilty of violating all three, whether or not [he] wanted to.”
A striking change in the Board’s policy was made much later, in 1976, when the Board honored Verwoerd’s successor, Balthazaar Johannes Vorster, with a banquet after his visit to Israel where he had struck several trade agreements, including an unprecedented arms sale. While the Board’s chairman praised the strengthening relations between South Africa and Israel, he proclaimed “a new sense of urgency abroad in our land... that we must accord to every man and woman respect and human dignity and the opportunity to develop to their fullest potential.” He based this explicitly on the Jewish biblical imperative “Justice, Justice shall thou pursue.” The communal and religious condemnation of Apartheid stood in stark contrast to the Board’s earlier neutrality in politics.
However, strengthening ties between Israel and South Africa were to become a massive political and moral problem for the Jewish community and for Israel itself. Anglican Archbishop and later Nobel Peace Prize–winner Desmond Tutu, a champion of the resistance movement, told a Jewish audience in 1987, “Israel’s integrity and existence must be guaranteed. But I cannot understand how a people with your history would have a state that would collaborate in military matters with South Africa and carry out policies that are a mirror image of some of the things from which our people suffered.” Tutu’s criticism, though not the first of its kind, would foreshadow the growing popularity of the highly controversial Apartheid–Israel analogy.
Prelude to Change
The 1980s were the darkest time in South Africa’s history. The country suffered under a constant state of emergency, and few would predict the awesome changes that the following decade would bring. Yet as the decade waned, it became clear that the continuation of Apartheid was economically and politically unfeasible. As the system began to collapse, new forms of resistance arose. In 1988, the politically–progressive Rabbi Cyril Harris from England became the Chief Rabbi. The following year, the new group Jews for Social Justice accompanied the Chief Rabbi’s wife Ann to Lusaka, Zambia, where they met and established relationships with the exiled ANC leadership. From the changing political climate, these few Jews sensed that the ANC would soon return to South Africa and eventually gain power in a democratic election.
While some Jews built bridges in anticipation of a brighter future, many in the community had a more pessimistic view. Its population, reaching a peak of 120,000 around 1980, started to decline due to increasing emigration. Fear of political instability and even civil war influenced many families to leave their country, with approximately 20,000 Jews leaving every decade since. The remaining Jews began to look inwards for security. As the community shrank and grew more insular, it became even more cohesive and took a striking turn towards religiosity.
Transition
On February 2, 1990, President Frederik Willem de Klerk announced the unbanning of the ANC and the release of all political prisoners, including Mandela. In 1992, de Klerk issued a referendum gauging support for the creation of a non–racial democracy. In a radical departure from their traditional position of political neutrality, community leaders, led by Chief Rabbi Harris, encouraged all Jews to support the move towards democracy. On April 27, 1994, South Africa held its first ever non–racial democratic elections. The ANC gained a massive 62% of the vote and Mandela was inaugurated as president in a “government of national unity.”
It would seem that Alan Paton’s hope now stood a chance. Foreseeing a future that respected human dignity, he writes, “For it is the dawn that has come, as it has come for a thousand centuries, never failing. But when that dawn will come, of our emancipation, from the fear of bondage and bondage of fear, why, that is a secret.” But in truth, the mere political changes that occurred in 1994 would not suffice. The legacy of Apartheid— poverty, crime, hatred and fear—endured.
Reckoning
Jews, despite the prospect of a new democratic order, still feared instability and continued to emigrate, effectively halving the size of the community to its current number of 70,000. In addition, the prevailing silence of the community’s representative bodies during Apartheid left many questioning their role in the new black majority–ruled South Africa. Also troubling was the close relationship between the Apartheid government and Israel in the 1970s and 1980s, when many Arab states had supported the ANC in its struggle for liberation. The Jewish community was rightfully worried about the future of the relationship between South Africa and Israel because Israel had supported the Apartheid government, placing sanctions on it only when its downfall seemed inevitable.
 Feature at the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg showing separate entrances for “whites” and “blacks,” a typical occurrence during Apartheid. |
In contrast to current popular opinion of Mandela, many white people who had grown up in Apartheid South Africa viewed him as a terrorist who, as head of Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation), the military wing of the ANC, had resorted to violence. So when shortly after his release from prison, Mandela warmly met with Yasser Arafat, and compared the Palestinian struggle to that of the black people in South Africa, Jews began to doubt their welcome in a new South Africa.
The official ANC policy sought to foster relations with all who had helped the struggle against Apartheid, regardless of their character. Mandela thus established relations with rulers such as Libya’s Gaddafi and Cuba’s Castro. When asked if such actions would estrange the South African Jewish community, Mandela bluntly replied, “If the truth alienates the powerful Jewish community in South Africa, that’s too bad.” Though Mandela in part assuaged Jewish concerns in meetings with the Jewish leadership, Jewish emigration continued en masse, eventually leveling out by 1996.
Turning Inward
Despite Chief Rabbi Harris’ best efforts to foster a smooth integration process for the Jewish community, many remained recalcitrant and increasingly turned to the Jewish community for security and identity. Education constituted a major factor in their attempts to secure their communal strength. Parents increasingly turned to the Jewish “community schools” that were established many decades before. When public schools were integrated in 1994, an increasing number of Jewish parents sent their children to the private community schools instead to avoid the perceived drop in the quality of public education. Indeed, over 80% of student–age Jews were enrolled in Jewish day schools by 2001.
The new emphasis on Jewish education played a part in the community’s turn to religiosity, beginning in the mid–1980s. The religious norms of the community have been fittingly described paradoxically as “non–observant orthodox.” In Shimoni’s view, this is “a mode of Jewishness characterized by deeply ingrained ethnic consciousness as well as recognition of, and respect for, the Orthodox rabbinate and synagogue as the authentic expression of Judaism.” While tradition and custom shape lifestyle, little emphasis is placed on “fundamental orthodox theological beliefs.”
From the 1950s onwards, religious groups such as Bnei Akiva, Ohr Someyach, Aish Ha’Torah and Chabad pursued the goal of ba’al teshuvah (religious return), but failed to attract significant attention. In the 1980s, however, at the height of instability, South African Jewry saw the beginnings of a religious revival. Shimoni would attribute this phenomenon to “a sense of dejection, dislocation and insecurity consequent on the radical transformation of the entire South African social order and the accompanying epidemic of terrifying crime.” In light of this, Shimoni noted, “the turning of Jews to greater religiosity might be explained as an escape into the warmth of communal seclusion—the spiritual solace and orderly life that comes with submission to the authority of rabbinical mentors and immersion in the all–embracing orthodox code of living.”
The groundwork of a normative non–observant orthodoxy provided fertile soil for religious revival. While many Jews did not fully embrace Orthodoxy’s standards, they saw them as the legitimate expression of Judaism, and were thus intellectually open to Orthodox religious practice. In addition, the insular nature of Jewish life served as the perfect foundation for Orthodoxy to flourish. While many non–religious Jews fled South Africa, Orthodox rabbis urged their congregants to stay, citing South Africa as one of the few places where Jews could live a fully observant lifestyle.
As Orthodoxy spread, so too did the pressure to conform to a now fashionable way of life. With the transition from ethnic identification to religiosity came a shift from secular Zionism, based on ideals of national self–determination, to religious Zionism, predicated upon the divinely sanctioned relationship between the Jewish people and the land of Israel. Secular–Zionist Habonim thus lost its appeal, while the Orthodox–affiliated Bnei Akiva replaced it as the predominant youth movement. While Habonim had stressed social justice, Bnei Akiva focused on individual religious observance, thus fortifying the social and political seclusion of the Jewish community. Bnei Akiva, with the support of the King David schools, gained popularity by taking young Jews on field trips aimed at inculcating an appreciation for observant Judaism. While most of the community can still be characterized as “non–observant orthodox,” surveys of religious observance have shown that the levels of religiosity in South Africa “exceed those of the Jewish populations of all other countries including Israel.” This has laid a foundation for a highly cohesive community with some of the most advanced Jewish social services in the Diaspora. The community is proud of its low level of assimilation and its high level of concern for the well–being of its own community.
An example of growing Jewish insulation is the Johannesburg suburb of Glenhazel, home to over 4,000 Jews and the hub of Orthodox Judaism in South Africa. Each religious organization has established its own Jewish day school in the area. The community has its own volunteer ambulance service Hatzolah (the act of saving), and is now guarded by exmilitia with semi–automatic rifles under the Glenhazel Action Patrol (GAP) program. With all the elements of an autonomous community, and now even a quasi–police unit with the authority to use force, some have characterized Glenhazel as a state within a state.
Echoes from the Past
The current Board, chaired by pro–ANC businessman Zev Krengel, has adopted a stance of “quiet diplomacy” with regard to the ruling party. In an interview, Mr. Krengel explained his policy, arguing that “Your friends will listen to you. If you make them your enemies, they will not.” Much like it did with the NP, the current Board attempts to ingratiate itself with the ANC, hoping to curry political patronage. As a result, the Board has secured Jewish business interests and has enjoyed some success in curbing Muslim anti–Semitism and potential anti–Jewish violence.
Yet many South African Jews cannot accept the Board’s “quiet diplomacy.” Some Jews find it outrageous that in its weekly report, the ANC regularly singles out and condemns Israel’s “collective punishment of the Palestinian people.” The Board’s policy seems insufficient in light of the frequent anti–Zionist remarks of the ethnically–Jewish former Minister of Intelligence Ronnie Kasrils, who, by calling South Africans who support Israel “unpatriotic,” has only fueled anti–Semitism. In addition, South Africa, which now has a temporary seat on the UN Security Council, continually supports Iran and the Arab bloc while calling for sanctions on Israel. When the government–run media last year censored a journalist because a “white, Jewish girl” was not fit to report on the Middle East, many found the Board’s response inadequate. The incidents raised questions of whether the Board was once again sacrificing its conscience through its silence.
But perhaps even more troubling is the community’s complacency on the issues of HIV/AIDS, South African policy towards Zimbabwe, and corruption. These are troubling precisely because they do not affect the Jewish community directly, thus continuing the policy of neutrality when the community is not directly involved. But drawing from the lessons of its past, it is perhaps foolish not to take a collective moral stand on unambiguous issues.
When the ANC refuses to accept the link between HIV and AIDS and installs a Minister of Health who advocates the eating of beetroots and garlic instead of Antiretroviral medication as a treatment for HIV, should the community not take a stand? When the government refuses to condemn the tyrant Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe because of liberation credentials, should the community not take a stand? When there is widespread poverty and the government spends $5 billion on unneeded armaments, probably traceable to the petty gains of a few corrupt politicians, should the community not take a stand?
But for now, the omnipresent fear of crime stands above all other considerations. Fear—fear of suffering Sheldon Cohen’s fate—drives many Jews away from the country. Fear causes those remaining to look inwards at the expense of all else. Whether under a racist regime or in the midst of appalling insecurity, the South African Jewish experience has been characterized by fear.
Ernie Saks, a renowned educator at the King David School and former mayor of the largely Jewish town of Sandton, wrote in a letter to the Star newspaper in August 1996, “Through your newspaper, allow me to apologize to my three children and the many hundreds that I have taught. Throughout the dark days of South Africa, my dear children, I have stressed the positives: ’Stay, you owe South Africa something. This is the dawn of a new and better day.’ When my sister–in–law was hijacked, again I counseled patience. When my car was stolen, it was just one of those things. Then my son was mugged and I thanked God he wasn’t hurt. Soon afterwards my brother was hijacked and I still didn’t see the light. Last Friday evening, when my family gathered to enjoy a Sabbath meal together, in my own driveway, just meters from my door, my children and eleven–monthold granddaughter were accosted by two savages and my son–in–law was shot. Children, forgive me, I have given you poor advice and served you ill. Take your loved ones, wrap them in your arms and go. The barbarians are not at the gate, they are in our midst.” A community that once feared retribution from a racist government for voicing its moral concerns is now paralyzed by an engulfing fear for their physical safety.
Alan Paton’s words, written sixty years ago, ring truer today than ever before. He writes, “Cry, the beloved country, for the unborn child that is the inheritor of our fear. Let him not love the earth too deeply. Let him not laugh too gladly when the water runs through his fingers, nor stand too silent when the setting sun makes red the veld with fire. Let him not be too moved when the birds of his land are singing, nor give too much of his heart to a mountain or a valley. For fear will rob him of all if he gives too much.”
I would like to thank the following people for their invaluable assistance in the writing of this article: Michael
Kransdorff, for his interest and willingness to help; Howard Sackstein, for sharing his experiences and discussing
ideas; Joseph Gerassi, Rabbi Shmuel Mofsen and Zev Krengel for allowing me to interview them; and Gideon
Shimoni, Chaya Herman, and Lee Klawansky, whose research I have drawn on heavily.
ABOVE: Nelson Mandela and Yassir Arafat meet in Lusaka, Zambia, in 1990, months after Mandela’s release from prison.
DANIEL GREENBERG is a Columbia College sophomore majoring in Econ-Math and Political Science and a Contributing Editor of The Current. Originally from South Africa, he is also a founder and Senior Editor for Consilience: The Journal of Sustainable Development. He can be reached at [email protected]