Keep anti-Semitism in perspective

SHAUN ZAGNOEV

Two key factors influencing this general mood of positivity was the collapse of the Soviet Union, prior to that the foremost propagator of anti-Semitism on the international stage; and the apparent progress being made in the Oslo peace process.

All of this changed abruptly in September 2000, when the then Palestinian leadership jettisoned the peace process, and launched a sustained campaign of terrorist violence that continues, if at a lower level, to this day. One of the results of this has been an alarming resurgence of anti-Semitism worldwide. Throughout the diaspora, we have seen ever-rising levels of anti-Semitic behaviour, including multiple acts of violence, and damage and desecration to Jewish property. The revolution in electronic communications has further facilitated the spread of hatred against Jews.

Dealing with this new threat is perhaps the most urgent issue that global Jewry – thankfully with growing participation of the international community – has to deal with today.

Though we need to take this seriously, we must nevertheless be careful not to overstate the problem, such as by invoking comparisons with previous eras in which Jews were vulnerable to serious persecution. A century ago, a large majority of Jews lived in authoritarian countries where the very laws of their society discriminated against them. Today, nearly all live in democratic countries where they enjoy full equality and protection under the law. In these countries, anti-Semitic manifestations within the broader population, while widespread, at least are not sanctioned, indeed they are strongly condemned by the governments of the day.

In South Africa, we recorded a fairly steep rise in anti-Semitic incidents in 2018 compared with the previous two years. While this is naturally a cause for concern, it nevertheless remains true that even with the increased figure, anti-Semitism in this country continues to manifest at a strikingly lower level than in other major diaspora centres.

We continue to measure annual incident totals in terms of a few score, whereas our counterparts in the United Kingdom (UK), United States, Canada, Australia, France, and elsewhere do so in the hundreds and sometimes even in the thousands. The nature of the kind of incidents actually recorded is also significant. Here, most anti-Semitic acts take the form of verbal or written rather than physical abuse, with serious cases of assault and vandalism occurring very rarely. In 2018, only one case of each was reported to us, compared with figures in the UK for the same period of 123 and 78. The situation in France, which experienced a 74% increase in attacks, was at least as bad.

The lesson we should take from all of this is that while anti-Semitism exists in South Africa and requires constant vigilance, the extent to which it poses a threat to our community remains thankfully fairly limited. We need to be able to deal with it as it arises while at the same time keeping the problem in perspective and resisting the tendency, all too prevalent in these uncertain times, to yield to pessimism and despondency.

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