No blacks, dogs, or Jews allowed

I was born five years after World War II ended, the son of a German Jewish refugee, grandson of two people who barely escaped the Holocaust.

As a child, I learned that many gentiles weren’t happy that Hitler’s Final Solution had failed. I discovered that the name of my religion was used as an insult. “Jewboy” was the most popular pejorative. When you are eight years old and must confront gangs of antisemitic bullies, life is a puzzle. My father told me about the Holocaust and how he and his siblings escaped before Kristallnacht, how my grandparents went into hiding before they, too, were smuggled out of Germany.

As Kurtz would have it, “The horror, the horror.”

My father’s attitude to post-war life was pacifism. He chose to focus on a strategy of debate and the enlightenment of boys whose fathers had convinced them that Jews ritually murder Christian babies (essential ingredients in the making of matzo) and, of course, we killed Jesus.

Discourse wasn’t a defence.

Six decades later, antisemitism remains an incurable disease. Holocaust-hoax rhetoric abounds, as do the pejoratives: “cunning Yid lawyers and other Jewboys will keep you out of trouble”.

Of course, when a Jew happens to break the eleventh commandment and gets caught – Bernie Madoff springs to mind – then they become quintessential villains. Derek Chauvin and his ilk fast become footnotes. Successful gentiles (Warren Buffet and Bill Gates, for example) are revered. Jewish achievers such as Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, however, have their genius presented as akin to deadly alien viruses.

Well into the 21st century, the hatred continues to grow. We are, arguably, the most globally loathed people simply because we’re Jewish. Screeds of hypotheses have discussed the “why”. (Remember, we killed Jesus.)

Similarly, Israel’s survival is also widely despised. It seems that Israel = Jews = Evil. QED.

Locally, we cannot ignore the fact that the African National Congress’ Rivonia triallists (and their attorneys) included a disproportionate number of Jews. Yet, there is today growing antisemitism from within the very party Jews fought alongside to achieve racial and political freedom. Remember, our chief justice was forced to apologise publicly for showing support for Israel.

The four white Rivonia triallists were: Denis Goldberg, Lionel Bernstein, James Kantor, and Bob Hepple. All were Jewish (Hepple’s mother was Jewish, his father a gentile).

Add to that: Ben Turok, Albie Sachs, Ruth First, Harold Wolpe, Ronnie Kasrils, Arthur Goldreich, Joe Slovo, Helen Suzman, Rowley Arenstein, Raymond Suttner, Helen Joseph, and many more. Struggle heroes all, yet a great many black South Africans remain antisemitic. Again, why are we continually tarred with this brush?

Simply stated there is (and always has been) a basic recipe for misinformation and, let’s face it, bare-faced lies from some media still beating the hatred drum.

Here is an excerpt from the ironically named Christians for Truth website. It writes:

“Verwoerd’s policies had two main opponents. One was a Jew named Harry Oppenheimer, the other a Jew named Anton Rupert. Both controlled banking monopolies in the country, and wanted “rights” extended to black South Africans for the purpose of extending their money lending business. Oppenheimer had ties to the Rothschild banking family and to the US CIA, which throughout the 1970s through 1990s supported the overthrow of white South African rule, at the direction of the Jew Henry Kissinger.

“In 1963 a group of Jews founded the ‘African’ National Congress. The ANC was founded by Lionel Bernstein, Bob Hepple, Denis Goldberg, Arthur Goldreich, Hazel Goldreich, and James Kantor, with a few African front men – Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Govan Mbeki (father of Thabo Mbeki), Raymond Mhlaba, and Ahmed Kathrada. In this, the ANC followed the model the Jews established when they founded the NAACP in the United States, with the exception that the ANC was a much more violent and openly communist organisation. These Jews and their African National Congress received funding and support from both the Soviet Union and the US CIA.”

As can be seen, the article is jam-packed with factual errors.

The entire article can be seen at: https://christiansfortruth.com/the-hidden-jewish-hand-in-the-destruction-of-white-south-africa/.

This article and many thousands more are drip-fed into communities which, frankly, need someone to blame for their own failures and Jews have historically been the “chosen people” for them. These shameful examples of hack “journalism” have fostered right-wing fascism across the world, as evidenced by neo-Nazism flourishing during the Trump regime.

The more things change …

It was with a sense of déjà vu that, some years ago, I went to watch my 16-year-old son, a King David scholar, play a school cricket match against Ferndale High School, whose cricket team had, disgustingly, been instructed to tape swastikas onto their cricket bats.

It was raised as an issue with the school, but no apologies were offered. The traditional “other cheek” was turned.

And again, Kyalami Country Club was established in the 1950s by Jewish sportsmen who were barred from joining several golf clubs in the city. It was a matter of “no blacks, Jews, or dogs allowed”. When I arrived in Johannesburg in 1978 to join the Rand Daily Mail, I sought out a nearby golf club to join. I called Parkview, whose manager was affable enough … until I mentioned I played cricket for Jewish Guild.

There was a pause, followed by his pronouncement that there was “a long waiting list” and that I may have to wait “for years” for an opening. A familiar rat was smelled. I called Parkview again the next day and, adapting my voice and accent, introduced myself as Peter Ogilvie-Thompson.

The same gentleman effusively welcomed me to the club.

Fast forward to the late 1980s. The Kyalami league golf team was drawn to play Royal Johannesburg, but because Kyalami (with its Lion of Judah and Magen David logo) was deemed a Jewish club, we had to change in the car park.

I’m still waiting for those restricted golf clubs and antisemitic schools to apologise for their bigotry.

I’m not holding my breath.

• Peter Bayer is a former mainstream journalist and now an academic, lecturing English literature as well as journalism and creative writing, and is working on his third novel. His debut novel “The Last Mentsch” is a work of historical fiction and was shortlisted for the European Union Literary awards in 2012.