SAZF responds to Glick's biting article in JP entitled "Out of South Africa"

THE FUTURE OF SOUTH AFRICA
 
A few weeks ago the South African Zionist Federation, of which I am the chairman, hosted Caroline Glick for a speaking tour of South Africa.  It was her first visit to South Africa and during her week in the country she spoke in Johannesburg, Port Elizabeth and Cape Town.  In Cape Town she was the keynote speaker at the conference of the Federation’s Cape Council.  In Johannesburg and Port Elizabeth she received standing ovations from the packed audience who came to hear her address.

At the end of such trips, the Federation normally receives some form of communication from the guest in question thanking the community for its hospitality.  Ms Glick however sent us something entirely different.  In an article titled “Out of Africa”, published recently in this newspaper, not only was she highly critical of South Africa in general and the South African Jewish communal leadership in particular, but she also took umbrage at the photographs we exhibit in our Holocaust Centre and the identity of some of her fellow speakers at the conference she attended. 

The central theme of Glick’s article on South Africa is not particularly new or original.  It has been expounded by many journalists and commentators over the past 50 years, namely that the blacks of South Africa will eventually ruin the country and the complacent Jewish community should flee before it is too late.  Prior to dealing with Glick’s prophecies, some of her more glaring factual errors concerning South Africa and its Jewish community need to be addressed.

In providing an example of how the South Africa Jewish community is besieged by anti semitic attacks, Glick mentions that some years back Jewish school busses were stoned.  The only problem with this example is that the stoning of a Jewish school bus in South Africa has never occurred.  The only time South African Jewish students have ever been stoned in a bus, is while they were on educational programs in Israel and travelling in the West Bank.  The South African Jewish community experiences one of the lowest levels of anti semitism in the world. Last year 95 anti semitic incidences were recorded in South Africa, most of which were non violent in nature, while Australia with a similar size Jewish population recorded 765.

Glick also claims that the role of Jewish individuals in the struggle to overthrow Apartheid has not won the Jewish community any gratitude or friendship from the South African government and the government, in deference to the larger Muslim community, has distanced itself from the Jews.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  While the Jewish community constitutes 0.15% of the South African population, senior government leadership, from the President downwards, are present at all the Jewish events and conferences to which they are invited.  Every President, from Mandela to Zuma, in addressing the Jewish community, has expressed appreciation and gratitude for the role the Jewish community played in creating a free and democratic South Africa.  The respect shown towards the South African Jewish community is quite remarkable.  Last year the date of South Africa’s general election was changed in order to avoid it clashing with the seventh day of Pesach.  Outside of Israel, South Africa must be the only country which invites the Chief Rabbi to publicly address the nation on the occasion of every Presidential Inauguration.  When a Deputy Minister was recorded uttering anti-semitic remarks during Operation Cast Lead, the community received an apology from the President himself and within 2 months the minister concerned was no longer in cabinet. 

The only material issue over which the Jewish community and government differ is the government’s policies towards Israel.  While it would be extremely convenient for the community to keep its views about Israel to itself, it does exactly the opposite.  It uses every available resource and opportunity to protect and defend Israel in its dealings with government, the media and society in general.  Our efforts are not restricted to quiet diplomacy.  When South Africa recalled its Ambassador after the Turkish Flotila incident, the South African Union of Jewish Students immediately organised protests outside the relevant government offices and upon presentation of their petition to the South African government were informed that the Ambassador would return to Israel shortly, a promise duly kept. 

Glick is wrong once again in stating that Muslims hold most of the senior positions in the South African civil service.  The composition of the civil service largely reflects the demography of the country and over 90% of South Africans are Christian.

The South African Jewish community are loud and proud Zionists.  Our celebrations, marches and demonstrations for Israel are attended by tens of thousands of people in the streets, parks and stadia of our cities.  These events are publicly advertised and receive national media coverage.  In respect of countering the South African version of the worldwide BDS campaign against Israel, to date, the community has been singularly successful in thwarting almost every initiative to isolate and boycott Israel.

Glick alleges that the community’s fear of Jewish turn coats has prevented it from discrediting them.  When one considers that only 6 months ago the world media was focused on the unprecedented actions of the South African Zionist Federation against Judge Goldstone for his involvement and complicity in the disgraceful Goldstone Report, one realises how spurious this allegation is.  In a community where only one percent of its members hold negative views of Israel, the communal leadership have to be careful of the importance and exposure given to this tiny minority who seek as much publicity as possible for their anti Israel views. 

We are a community that is not afraid to debate what it means to be a Zionist in the 21st century and hear the views of members, such as Hayley Galgut, who while intending to live in Israel and supporting Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish Democratic State , is highly critical of certain policies of the Israeli government.  We make no apologies for our tolerance and diversity and find Glick’s singling out of Galgut by name as unnecessary and vindictive. 

Perhaps the most insidious accusation made by Glick against our community is that rather than attacking “anti-Semites” like Tutu, South African Jews have honoured him by making him a patron of their Holocaust Foundation.  In boxing terms Glick has delivered a low blow.  Tutu was appointed as patron of the Holocaust Foundation over 11 years ago, when he played no role in any anti Israel movement.  His present conduct has met with wall to wall condemnation from the community, best expressed by our Chief Rabbi’s excellent article recently published in the Jerusalem Post as well as all the major daily newspapers of South Africa.  Admittedly, Tutu’s continued office as a patron clearly needs to be reassessed and addressed by his fellow patrons of the Foundation. 

Ironically, the similarities between Israel and South Africa are rather striking.  While both countries face enormous present and future challenges, they have overcome incredible odds to be where they are today.  Problems such as endemic corruption are not unique to South Africa.  Israel also appears to have a revolving door between politics and prison and let’s not forget when the seat in the Senate of the President of the United States was sold for a million dollars. 

Despite poverty, unemployment, crime, AIDS and the threats of nationalisation and the curbing of press freedom, South Africans, including the Jewish community, are tenacious, resilient and creative in dealing with the country’s problems.  An example of this is the innovative community policing initiatives which have been introduced by the Jewish community in the northern suburbs of Johannesburg.  These initiatives have reduced crime in the areas concerned by over 90% and benefit 100 000 residents, Jew and non Jew alike. 

South Africa has a free, independent and vibrant judiciary, media and civil society.  No one in South Africa takes our hard won gains for granted.  In the past 14 years the country has experienced almost uninterrupted economic growth, allowing millions of South Africans to escape poverty, and receive housing, electricity, water and sanitation for the first time.

The South African Jewish community has greatly benefited from and contributed towards South Africa and all its peoples.  In a little over 150 years, South African Jewry have created a unique community which for its size, exhibits an energy, vitality and unity almost unprecedented within the Diaspora.  We are one of a handful of communities whose children, because of an excellent Jewish day school system, religious and cultural institutions and Zionist youth movements, have a high probability of becoming active, identifying and practising Jews and Zionists.  It is not by coincidence that the present Governor of the Bank of Israel and the Director General of the Jewish Agency were both graduates of Habonin Dror South Africa.

The Federation agrees wholeheartedly with Glick that Jews of South Africa should make aliyah.  In the past decade we have together with the Jewish Agency increased aliyah by 300% and re-established Israel as the number one destination for Jews emigrating from South Africa.  Our reasons for encouraging a move to Israel have however nothing to do with any dooms day scenarios for the future of South Africa.  Jews should immigrate to Israel because in its 63 short years it has become the centre of Jewish life and destiny, filled with promise and opportunity.  As Zionists, rather than predicting the demise of others, let’s focus on fulfilling our own prophecies of an ingathering of the exiles to the State of Israel.

AVROM KRENGEL

CHAIRMAN

SOUTH AFRICAN ZIONIST FEDERATION

 

 

 

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[Source: www.jpost.com ]  - see another response to Glick's article below in Open Letter from Jeffrey Dorfman  

By CAROLINE B. GLICK     08/11/2010 

The hope is that South Africa’s Jews will make their way to Israel before the ANC fails them even more spectacularly than it already has. Last month I was invited to South Africa by the South African Zionist Federation. The visit, my first to the country, opened my eyes to the daunting challenges facing the country and its dwindling Jewish community of 70,000 16 years after the end of the apartheid regime.

South Africa is a country of paradoxes. On the one hand, it is exhilarating to see the blacks now in charge after their long struggle. On the other, the ruling African National Congress’ record of governance is at best a mixed bag.

 

On the positive side, in 2008 it peacefully and democratically replaced the failed former president Thabo Mbeki with his opponent, President Jacob Zuma.

But the negatives are glaring. Corruption is endemic. Rather than punishing officials for criminal behavior, the ANC is going after the messenger. South Africa’s ruling party intends to pass a draconian media law to bar journalists from reporting on governmental corruption. The ANC has dismissed opposition to the bill as racist, accusing opponents of attempting to advance a “white agenda.”

 

Auguring particularly ill for the future is the fact that ANC’s Youth League is one of the most illiberal bodies in the party. Aside from being among the most enthusiastic supporters of the move to end press freedom, the Youth League is also one of the primary forces driving foreign investors away from the country. Its leader Julius Malema’s signature policy is his demand to nationalize the country’s mines.

 

This has been a great year for South Africa. Throngs of tourists visited during the World Cup soccer championship, and the international press coverage was fantastic. Unfortunately, the relative safety enjoyed by World Cup tourists was a striking deviation from the norm. The ANC has failed to provide personal security for South Africans. According to the UN, South Africa has the second highest per capita murder rate in the world. South African sources place the annual murder rate at 23,000.

 

South Africa is the rape capital of the world. In a 1998-2000 UN survey, one in three women said they had been raped in the past year. One in four men admitted that he was a rapist. Carjackings are a commonplace.

 

Even more devastating is South Africa’s AIDS epidemic. Nearly 20 percent of South Africans are infected with the HIV virus.

 

One of the impetuses for removing Mbeki from office was that he denied that AIDS is caused by the HIV virus, claiming instead that AIDS is caused by poverty and the legacy of white oppression. Owing to this view, Mbeki refused to allow South Africa to participate in international programs to distribute anti-retroviral drugs which stem the development of AIDS.

 

Two years ago a team of Harvard scientists published a paper alleging that Mbeki’s actions had caused the preventable deaths of some 300,000 South Africans. They also alleged that his refusal to provide HIV-positive pregnant women with access to anti-retroviral drugs caused 35,000 babies to be born with HIV.

 

Neighboring Zimbabwe also suffers from South African neglect. With its international cachet and relative military might, the ANC could put an end to Robert Mugabe’s reign of terror in Zimbabwe if it desired. But Mugabe aided ANC fighters during their struggle against apartheid, and the ANC refuses to act against him.

 

According to the UN and other international organizations, more than two million Zimbabwean refugees have streamed across the border since 2000. But since the ANC effectively sides with Mugabe, these refugees are denied basic services like housing and health care.

 

Unprotected by the government, refugees are victimized by xenophobic violence. Countrywide xenophobic riots in 2008 in which some 62 people were reported killed and thousands injured have been followed by sporadic, often murderous violence against foreign refugees. Rather than protect the refugees, the ANC just announced a new visa policy that will likely see the deportation of millions of them.

 

ON A per capita basis, South Africa’s Jewish community was more active in the struggle against apartheid than any other nonblack group. This fact has not won the community any gratitude or friendship from the government, however. In part due to the ANC’s close ties to the PLO, the post-apartheid government has favored the country’s large Muslim community and distanced itself from the Jews. Muslims hold most of the senior positions in the civil service.

 

The vast majority of South African Jewry resides in crime-ridden Johannesburg. The physical insecurity of the community is palpable at all times. The Jews live behind walls and electric fences. It seems that everyone has either been the victim of a violent crime or knows someone who has. Even inside of Jewish neighborhoods, it is too dangerous for children to play in the streets.

 

Partly because the state schools are horrible, partly because of community cohesion and religious commitment, 80 percent of Jewish children in South Africa study in Jewish schools. With the children in Jewish schools, community involvement is higher than in most Diaspora communities.

 

But the schools are at risk. Some years ago Jewish school buses were stoned. The community responded by unmarking the buses. Everyone entering or leaving Jewish campuses must pass through security posts.

 

Community security is handled by the Community Security Organization. The day I arrived in Johannesburg, the community’s radio station received a bomb threat and the group’s representatives arrived on the scene within moments. Guards from the organization are present at all community events.

 

The future of the CSO is an open question. The government just passed a strict gun control law that will make it difficult for its guards to bear arms. Without guns, it is hard to see how the CSO will be able to provide protection.

 

Crime levels are much lower in Cape Town, and it is safe to wander around the city. But Cape Town’s Jews face other challenges, not the least of which is that whereas there are some 15,000 Jews in Cape Town, the city is home to 750,000 Muslims.

 

Ignoring the Jewish community’s deep involvement in the anti-apartheid struggle, the ANC berates it for Israel’s economic and military ties to the apartheid regime. The fact that the Arabs – and particularly Saudi Arabia – had much stronger and longer economic and military ties to the apartheid regime than Israel is never mentioned.

 

The ANC is one of the most anti-Israel governments in the world today. After the Mavi Marmara incident, aside from Turkey, South Africa was the only country to recall its ambassador from Israel. But on the issue of Israel, the ANC and the South African media see eye to eye. As Beverley Goldman from the South African Zionist Federation explained at a Zionist conference in Cape Town two weeks ago, the anti-Israel bias of the South African media is overwhelming.

 

The boycott, divest and sanction Israel campaign was arguably born in South Africa at the UN’s anti- Semitic hate fest in Durban in August 2001. It enjoys the support of South African notables like retired Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who just called for the Cape Town Opera to cancel its visit to Israel.

 

Last month the University of Johannesburg narrowly defeated a motion to cancel its water desalination research agreement with Ben-Gurion University. However, the motion will likely be passed in the future, because while rejecting the motion, the university demanded that BGU end ties with the IDF.

 

A movement to ban Israeli products from the shelves of South African stores is gaining steam.

 

A Jewish-owned grocery store chain was recently picketed.

 

Last month a firm that produces logo briefcases refused a contract with the South African Zionist Federation to produce briefcases for the Federation’s upcoming conference.

 

THE JEWISH community’s responses to the challenges it faces are varied. Emigration rates are high and rising. Australia is the preferred destination, but aliya rates are also relatively high and rising. The Jewish Agency’s representatives are energetic and committed. It would be helpful if Bnei Akiva sent more representatives to South Africa in light of the religiousness of many members of the community.

 

Most Jews leaving South Africa are young. Israel must adopt measures to help older Jews come here.

 

On the other side of the spectrum, the number of Jews who have joined the anti-Israel chorus is growing. Jews were among the founders of an anti-Zionist, pro-boycott group called Open Shuhada Street.

 

The option of turning on Israel and their community is an attractive one for many young Jews. Since the end of apartheid, with the rise in influence of the Muslim community and the ANC’s hostility toward Israel, the only way Jews can achieve sure notoriety is by joining forces with Israel’s enemies.

 

For its part, the organized Jewish leadership struggles to remain relevant. It excels at its primary task of caring for the welfare needs of an aging community. But defending Israel and Zionism in the face of a vocal Jewish anti-Israel minority is becoming increasingly difficult. Cultivating good ties with a government hostile to Israel and committed to economic policies that hurt most members of the community is also growing more challenging.

 

Sadly, it seems that despite the best efforts of many committed Jewish leaders, the organized community is breaking under the burden of these Sisyphean tasks. For instance, rather than attacking anti-Semites like Tutu, who among other things claims that Israel uses the Holocaust to justify its oppression of Arabs, South African Jews have honored him by making him a patron of their Holocaust foundation. Richard Goldstone is also a patron.

 

In the hopes of bringing blacks to the Holocaust museum in Cape Town, the museum’s exhibition begins with a remembrance of apartheid. By doing so, the museum equates the discrimination against blacks with the genocide of Jewry.

 

The community’s fear of Jewish turncoats has prevented it from discrediting them. For example, at last month’s Zionist Federation conference in Cape Town, the organizers invited a self-proclaimed non-Zionist attorney named Hayley Galgut to participate in a panel titled “South African Zionism Today.” Galgut used her time to explain why she is not a Zionist, and why the audience should abandon Zionism.

 

Organizers defended their decision to invite her by noting Galgut’s plan to move to Israel. But the fact that she wishes to move to the front line of the war against Israel does not make hers a legitimate voice. Galgut’s presence on the panel was evidence of the community leadership’s unwillingness to take measures to maintain a coherent Zionist message.

 

The physical beauty of South Africa is arresting, particularly along the coast. And the material standard of living that South African Jews enjoy is impressive. It is easy to see why many Jews find it hard to leave.

 

But it is also clear that Jewish life in South Africa will only get worse. The ANC is unlikely to improve its general governance or its policies toward Israel. It can only be hoped that the Jews of South Africa will make their way to Israel before the ANC fails them even more spectacularly than it already has.

 

caroline@carolineglick.com

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http://www.telfed.org.il/sites/all/modules/fckeditor/fckeditor/editor/cs...); border-bottom: rgb(0,0,255) 1px dotted; border-left: rgb(0,0,255) 1px dotted; padding-left: 18px; background-position: 0px 50%; border-top: rgb(0,0,255) 1px dotted; border-right: rgb(0,0,255) 1px dotted" name="open_letter">Open letter to the editor of the Jerusalem Post

by Jeffrey Dorfman on Wednesday, November 10, 2010 at 6:49am

Dear Editor,

open_letter

As an American Jew living in South Africa, I feel the need to respond to the simple-minded and one-sided opinion piece published in your newspaper, “Our World: Out of South Africa” by Caroline Glick on 08 November. From reading this article, one would expect to find a failed state. South Africa is not a failed state. One would expect to find a failed society. South Africa is not a failed society.

There are many disappointments in modern South Africa, as Ms. Glick makes clear. However, she seems not to have seen the enlightened constitution (written partly by Jews) or the court system that enforces it (with several prominent Jewish judges). She did not see the housing that the government has built for poor urban people. She also apparently did not see the health care that many citizens receive from the government or the strides that have been made in education or the strong economy that has been nurtured by the ANC governments, whatever their other (substantial) failings. She also did not have the opportunity to see an important part of the Muslim community here. For example, a call for a boycott against Jewish businesses triggered by the incursion into Gaza was promptly, publicly and repeatedly disowned by many Muslim leaders in Cape Town on the internet and in a letter published in a local newspaper.

Ms. Glick points out the apparent ungratefulness of the ANC government and South African press and their apparent refusal to recognise the contributions of many Jews to the anti-apartheid struggle. However, she may be unaware of the ambivalent attitude of the organized Jewish community towards the anti-apartheid struggle or the fact that (among other things) the man who prosecuted Nelson Mandela was a respected pillar of the Jewish community that seemed publicly untroubled by his role in that case.

Ms. Glick’s visit was very short, and it seems that she was only able to pick up on simple themes. For example, she notes that the Cape Town Holocaust museum’s exhibition begins with a remembrance of apartheid and she inexplicably concludes that “by doing so, the museum equates the discrimination against blacks with the genocide of Jewry.”

Then, she finds it necessary to belittle and insult the Jewish community here and some of its members. For example, she apparently missed the point of one of the speakers at the Zionist conference she was invited to, and misrepresented the substance of her talk. She then publicly insults her by name. I guess this is also unsurprising; she was unable to see any nuance in the country around her, and could hardly be expected to see any nuance or grace in the talks she was invited to listen to.

It is unfortunate that she has pronounced South Africa a terrible place that will surely get worse for the Jews, who should all therefore leave. I do wish she could have seen some of the hope that this country and its vibrant Jewish community have together, or its care for and love of Israel and for South Africa, even if they don’t share her politics.

Sincerely,

Jeffrey Dorfman