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Jewish community says no to hate speech

Published

10 years ago

October 31, 2014

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ANT KATZ

Yesterday at noon, South African Jewry held a protest outside the Sea Point Woolworths store against the placing of a pig’s head, by student body Cosas, in what was assumed to be the kosher section of the shop. Keeping to a limit of 50 people as required for the permit to hold the demonstration, the Jewish community stood shoulder to shoulder, wearing T-shirts with the words by Nelson Mandela “South Africa belongs to all who live in it” emblazoned on them.

Pig Board demo8

Waving South African flags, they held placards that read, inter alia: “Free Speech Not Hate Speech”, “Proudly South African, Proudly Jewish”, and “Say no to anti-Semitism”

Wendy Kahn, the Board’s national director, read a strong message to the crowd and a large contingent of the media, saying that:

“We gather here as fellow South Africans to express outrage against all forms of hate. What happened here exactly a week ago with a pig’s head being smuggled in a baby’s pram and placed in a fridge that was assumed to contain kosher meat, shows a vicious and vulgar hatred that cannot be tolerated by South Africans in our country. Every South African citizen that cherishes our democracy should be horrified by this incident. In the words of Nelson Mandela, ‘SA belongs to all how live in it’. Hatred against any minority group does not end there. It needs to be stamped out now.”

Kahn read this slowly and poignantly and the crowd chanted “No to hate”, while cars passing by in the Main Street, hooted in approval. The SAJBD has lodged a complaint with the SA Human Rights Commission against the perpetrators.