Jewish identity is best preserved in a free, pluralistic environment

David Robert Lewis, Cape Town

The conflict is clearly a long-standing, religious-based one involving the deployment of “displacement theology” by either side, in the battle over identity and the status of Jerusalem, a city regarded as holy by many religions.

I also wish to reiterate my objections to the separation barrier and my rejection of the so-called “right of return” on the basis of my Jewish ancestry, which I placed on record shortly after the wall was built in 2000, and which was published prominently in the Israeli media.

As a secular humanistic Jew and subscriber to the principles of the Society for Secular Humanistic Judaism, (I believe) Jewish identity is best preserved in a free, pluralistic environment.

The freedom and dignity of the Jewish people must go hand in hand with the freedom and dignity of every human being.

As a Struggle veteran and war resister, I also wish to remind my fellow South Africans of my objections to the rationalisations of members of the IDF in a combined End Conscription Campaign-IDF platform on the UCT campus during 1987 and also the continued dispute involving my Jewish identity recorded in the decision of a South African court, and involving offensive race testing.

Apartheid, and its sequel in the new South Africa, should never be used as the justification for domination by one group over another, nor should its motivations be forgotten.

Dialogue – and compromise by all sides – is the only way forward. As objectors on both sides have shown, another reality is possible.

Let peace prevail on earth.