SAJBD submits a response by David Saks to an article by Kevin Bloom that appeared in the Daily Maverick

On the 30 June, the SAJBD submitted a response to an article by Kevin Bloom that appeared in the Daily Maverick Zionism untethered — inside the legal battle for the soul of UCT In his article, Bloom claims that rising antisemitism at the University of Cape Town as well as other university campuses globally were being fabricated as a way of silencing criticism of Israel. A lengthy reply from the SAJBD was needed to unravel the inaccuracies and falsehoods contained in the Bloom article.

Little did we know that it would take more than two weeks before the Daily Maverick would publish our response. There was an unusually prolonged and complex process that had to be gone through before it was allowed to appear at all, of which the following is a summary. To a degree unknown in the SAJBD’s experience, the DM persistently raised objections to the content, even attempting on occasion to impose its own (untenable) interpretations on the passages being responded to by asking that the response be ‘tweaked’ to accord with that interpretation. At certain points, attempts were made to insert editorial comments aimed at discrediting the Board’s response.

Further than that, the DM raised objections to certain of the links provided on the grounds that the sources of the information they led too were not ‘independent’ – that is to say, that they referred to reports on antisemitism compiled or reported on by Jewish organisations. This is highly objectionable. Whether intended or not, the implications are that Jews cannot be altogether trusted when reporting on antisemitic attacks against themselves, no matter how much chapter and verse detail they provide to substantiate them. While the relevant links were eventually included in the published response, the fact that such objections were raised in the first place raises real questions about the policies and positions taken by the DM itself.

We are happy that our response was finally published on 18 July. Please have a look at it here