OPINION - Politicsweb
Jew-hatred arrives in SA
Charisse Zeifert says there has been an extraordinary surge in antisemitic attacks post October 7th
The world changed on 7 October. At least it did for me. The images that came out of Israel, following Hamas’ brutal and barbaric attack on innocent civilians, evoked memories of the stories that my grandparents talked about, from their homelands of Germany and Eastern Europe. My grandmother, who hailed from Lithuania, would ruefully shake her head, and say, “they imbibe antisemitism from their mother’s milk”. That was her lived experience, but it has never been mine. I struggled to relate to her comments.
Growing up in South Africa I have seldom experienced Jew-hatred. If anything, the opposite is true. I am often struck by the respect and interest fellow citizens have shown in my religion. Specifically, since 7 October, I have been particularly grateful for the outpouring of supportive messages I received from so many.
Yet, the images that came out of 7 October and the subsequent horrific testimonies of what took place, shook me to my core. It was reminiscent of every account of what my forebears themselves experienced: pogroms, torture, humiliation, rape, cruelty, the killing of babies and the burning of bodies.
Furthermore, the images in my head, from what my grandparents shared of their world, seems to be playing themselves out right here and now in South Africa.
For starters, the constant mass marches against Jews. Packaged as events that support Palestinian people, Rebeca Hodes, in her outstanding first-hand account of one of the ANC marches held in support of Hamas, described it as “a Jew-baiting jamboree”:
In her words, “… the alleged peaceful intent of the protest was exposed as the lie it was, with explicit support for the genocide of the Israeli people. The genteel mask of the ANC’s protest fell, and the threat of violence and expulsion were made palpable. The ANC’s Palestinian solidarity rally ended, not with entreaties for peace, but with explicit calls for violent, even genocidal reprisals against Israel. ... When popular protests erupt, careful distinctions between Israelis, Zionists and Jews are just one of the casualties of South Africa’s critical response to the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. Others are hope and common humanity.”
And that was just the beginning. In the past two months, antisemitism in this country, which has prided itself on being among the lowest in the world, has increased tenfold. It has also become more violent and threatening. There have been physical attacks on members of our community as well as on Christian friends. Jewish businesses have been boycotted and a Jewish-day school threatened with violence. These images are too close for comfort, when I recall what happened during Nazi Germany.
All this is happening with our government’s tacit support. The ANC and the Anglican Church’s cosying up to Hamas, the butchers of the Jewish massacre, sends a strong signal our community. Antisemitism and anti-Zionism are blurring.
In the past, Jews were labelled as capitalists, communists and imperialists. They can’t be all. So the aim was not to define them, but portray them as evil. Today, Israel is labelled as genocidal, colonial occupier and apartheid. All these words have a specific meaning, but they are not being used in any specific context, except to demonise Israel. “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it”. This is a quote that came out of Nazi Germany. People’s opinions on what they think is happening in the Middle East have been turned into slogans. And these slogans are tainting Israel in a dishonest and an outrageous way.
Israel’s desperate attempt to eliminate the threat of Hamas, has been packaged as genocide, when it is clear Israel has no genocidal intentions.
What is happening on the ground is so far divorced from perceived reality, that it is difficult to talk about truth and lies and have a rational discussion. The use of dramatic language is not helpful.
Neither is it helpful for Jews around the world to be personally punished and abused for what is happening in Israel. Yes, we are emotionally tangled up in it, but not responsible for it.
Clearly, while the actual battle is taking place in Gaza, the war is global. And this war against Jewish people, over the past two months, has played itself out on the streets of America, the UK and here. Whatever the outcome of the war, it will affect Jews throughout the world, and impact every detail of how we live our lives. It will determine whether our children where civvies to school and our men wear a yarmulke (traditional skullcap) in public.
And this is what Hamas wants.
So, let’s go back to the basics: This war was started by Hamas. Hamas has, as part of its founding document, Nazi-style antisemitism and calls for the use of violence to ensure that there’s no establishment of a Jewish state. They are proudly self-proclaimed antisemites.
Its attack on Israel on 7 October is simply an activation of its founding principles. They themselves have stated repeatedly that they wish to continue to attacking Jews and Israel.
Following the attack on 7 October, Israel made its intentions clear. To get back the hostages and to ensure Hamas does not repeat what happened on 7 October. Ghazi Hamad, a member of Hamas’ political bureau said in an interview with a Lebanese TV channel, that the terror group will “repeat the attack time and again until Israel is annihilated. The Al Aqsa flood is just the first time and there will be a second, a third, a fourth”.
The complexities and nuance of war are forgotten in the emotion of the situation. War is not a numbers game. War is catastrophic. And no-one should trivialise the enormous impact this war has had on Gazan civilians. The images from Gaza are heartbreaking. Every innocent death is tragic, and it impacts the entire society.
Yet, as sociologist, Dr Hirsh explains, war cannot be understood only in context of civilians killed. Nor can it be reduced to a series of horrors happening to people. He argues that if we were to understand WWII as told only through the suffering of the millions affected, we would not be able to comprehend what the war was actually about. We would only understand that war is a disgrace, and all sides are equally evil. The reason for the war would be rendered meaningless.
Wars may very well be a disgrace and meaningless. Yet, currently, there are 32 countries in conflict. Many are happening on our continent. Nonetheless, the Israel – Gaza war is the only one that has galvanized our government, the ruling party, some in academia and civil society to come out so vociferously against one side.
Dr Hirsh explains antisemitism as follows: it is not a rational response to the bad behavior of some Jews. Rather, it as an irrational hatred picked from fragments of older movements picked up for whatever reasons people want them picked up for. We need to forget the fantasy that antisemitism is a kind of personal sickness. Instead, we need to understand it as a social process, where antisemites think of themselves as good people who believe they are protecting the world throughout the centuries from one Jewish menace or another. The contemporary Jewish menace is the existence of Israel.
I never believed I would see the antisemitism my grandparents experienced in my lifetime and in this country. That’s why my world changed on 7 October. But maybe, the more things change, the more they stay the same.
Charisse Zeifert is Head: Communications, South African Jewish Board of Deputies.
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