DID THE SAJBD SIT ON THE FENCE UNDER APARTHEID?

Did the SA Jewish Board of Deputies shirk the challenge of opposing Apartheid or was its policy of neutrality during most of that era justified in view of its core mandate to safeguard the security, civil rights and general well-being of the community it represented? Gwynne Robins explains the Board's stance while also showing how its Cape branch consistently adopted a more liberal, activist stance on the apartheid question.

Gwynne Schrire, a veteran contributor to Jewish Affairs and a long-serving member of its editorial board, is Deputy Director of the SA Jewish Board of Deputies – Cape Council. She has authored, co-written and edited over twenty books on aspects of South African Jewish and Western Cape history.

Recently, I was interviewed for a seven-part television series, named Legends and Legacy: A History of South African Jews, being prepared with the assistance of the Kaplan Centre for Jewish Studies & Research at the University of Cape Town and Professors Milton Shain and Richard Mendelsohn. The question was asked, “Did the Jewish Board of Deputies sit on the fence during apartheid?” Although this subject has been rigorously analysed by, amongst others, Gideon Shimoni and Atalia ben Meir (see ‘References’ below), I was looking at it from a Cape perspective. My answer to that question was “Yes …but”.

The ‘but’ is important.

It is true that in the first decades after the National Party (NP) came into office and commenced introducing and enforcing rigid racist laws designed to separate the society based not on merit but on melanin, the Board consistently followed a policy of collective non-involvement. It was only from the mid-1970s, with increasing international and local condemnation of apartheid, accompanied by increased state awareness that change was necessary, that it became tenable for the Board to climb off the fence without risking the security of the Jewish community. It was not until 1985, however, that the National Board explicitly condemned apartheid.

According to John Simon (Cape Board chairman 1975-1977), the Cape was always in the vanguard of efforts to propel the SAJBD in a more liberal direction. Solly Kessler (Cape Chairman 1981-1983) wrote that in regard to the apartheid regime and its policies of racial discrimination, the SAJBD’s records as well as the recollections of former members of the National councils confirm the distinctly more liberal stance consistently adopted by the Board’s Cape representatives as compared to the attitude evinced by other provincial delegates. Indeed, from as early as the late 1950s, Cape delegates brought resolutions (routinely voted down) to National conferences calling on the SAJBD to denounce apartheid.