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Which Jews to be proud of after 175 years?
Geoff Sifrin
Taking Issue
Sadly, they are hardly mentioned in the formal community and their names raise hackles. For one reason alone: their criticism of Israel.
Which raises the pertinent question: Does criticism of Israel – even if it sounds extreme and unbalanced to Israel’s supporters – invalidate one from being celebrated for standing up for justice?
Ronnie Kasrils and Denis Goldberg made huge personal sacrifices in the Struggle. Kasrils, born in Yeoville, Johannesburg, joined the ANC and Communist Party after the 1960 Sharpeville massacre and was a founding member of uMkhonto we Sizwe. He went into exile in 1963. Goldberg, who grew up in Cape Town, was charged in the Rivonia Trial and spent 22 years in jail for his part as one of the first members of MK.
Their vitriol towards Israel is well known. In 2001 as an ANC government minister, Kasrils attacked Israel during a special Middle East debate in Parliament, comparing it with apartheid South Africa. His “Declaration of Conscience on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict by South Africans of Jewish Descent” attracted signatories including Nobel Laureate Nadine Gordimer and Rivonia Trialists Arthur Goldreich and Goldberg.
In 1985, Goldberg visited his daughter on an Israeli kibbutz – after Israel interceded on his behalf to have him released from jail – and vehemently criticised Israel’s treatment of Palestinians and co-operation with apartheid South Africa.
He went into exile in London, was an ANC spokesman and represented it at the Anti-Apartheid Committee of the United Nations.
Kasrils wrote in the Daily Maverick this week that the ANC is on a slippery slope: “From the serial scandals, corrupt relationships, unresolved court cases… to Nkandlagate, Guptagate and Nenegate, the muck has oozed as from a burst sewage pipe throughout the once venerable organisation… Zuma’s cronies and sycophants… have run it into the ground.”
Goldberg in an interview in the Daily Maverick this week said the ANC’s recent election campaign had been racist in part: “The Opposition’s Mmusi Maimane has captured the policies of the ANC promoting nonracialism,” while the ANC was associated with separateness. “We have to clean house from top to bottom.”
Each in their own way are truth tellers and should be praised. South African Jewry should be proud of them. But because of their views on Israel, their names are seldom brought up.
In celebrating 175 years of formal Jewish community existence in South Africa this year, it is apt to mention the many Jewish luminaries who contributed to Jewish life and the good of broader society.
Were it not for their views on Israel, the likes of Goldberg and Kasrils would be high on the list as upholders of Jewish values of justice. Sadly, Israel has become a divisive factor in some aspects of Jewish affairs rather than a uniting one. South African Jewry finds itself between a rock and a hard place. It is surrounded by Struggle heroes who it should be lauding for helping to bring freedom and for their courage today, yet can hardly bring itself to do so because of their hostility towards Israel.
One does not have to look only at extreme examples such as Goldberg and Kasrils. Many moderate Jews who support Israel, disapprove strongly of certain policies. Voicing such criticism is regarded by many in this conservative community with great displeasure – enough reason to want to exclude them from the mainstream, which only becomes poorer for this.
As Jewish South Africans, someone’s views on Israel is not enough reason to shun them.
Read Geoff Sifrin’s regular columns on his blog sifrintakingissue.wordpress.com
Gary Selikow
August 17, 2016 at 11:12 am
‘No Geoff Sifrin Israel is our homeland The people of Israel are our people as much as South African Jews are our people
When it comes to denying Israel’s right to exist, promoting and fraternizing with modern day Islamic Nazis like Hamas and Hezbollah and refusing to condemn the murder of Israeli women and children you bet someone’s views on Israel are plenty of reason to shun them
Kasrils has labelled Israelis Nazis, praised the murderous Hamas as a ‘liberation movement’ and refused to ask Hamas to refrain from killing Israeli women and children.
In 1985 In the typical bloodthirsty fashion of Jewish-born radicals Goldberg condoned and advocated PLO murder of the men, women, children and babies of Israel.
He declared that every Israeli killed by a PLO bomb in a supermarket, street, school or nursery deserves his or her fate. He claimed that \”terror is not a moral issue\” and that \”most of the bus passengers and those wounded by explosive devices are not innocent, since they support the oppression of the Palestinians\”.
Clearly Israel means so little to Siffrin that denying the country’s right to exist and making common cause with genocidal IslamoNazis and condoning the killing of Israeli children as the likes of Kasrils and Goldberg do, that to him this is not a reason to shun them.
To many of us it certainly is!’
Chono
August 19, 2016 at 3:13 pm
‘Yasher Koach Gary.
Sifrin would like to see the release of Marwan Bargoutti’
Choni
August 20, 2016 at 4:19 pm
‘Gary, Your comment should appear (as a letter) in the print edition.
Geoff Sifrin’s column is ‘treasonous’.
Please phone me 0766129112.
‘
Miriam
August 21, 2016 at 2:00 pm
‘Gary Selikow good retort to Sifrins blog . I wonder how he has the gall to write his outlandish rubbish about our beautiful land of Israel using as his examples Kasrils and Goldberg!!!! Thanks Gary. Miriam Davidowitz’
nat cheiman
August 21, 2016 at 2:24 pm
‘No doubt about the fact that Kasrils and Goldberg are so unsavoury, that to my mind, they only have Jewish sounding surnames. I am sure that the are not Jews nor do they wish to be.
As a matter of interest, can you imagine what ANC politicians think of these 2 Jew haters? And Hamas & Hezbollah also?
To my mind, these 2 need to read up on history, because without that knowledge ( judea & samarea), they remain uneducated nincompoops.’
Nick Pohl
August 22, 2016 at 2:08 pm
‘The Jewishness of Kasrils and Goldberg is actually only relevant to the topic in that they preached violence against innocents in this country by aiding and abetting Umkhonto, which contradicts the tenets of Judaism.
They at the time were two of the communist Mandela’s long retinue of sidekicks that, like him, truly adored and emulated Stalin, Mao and Fidel.
Many of these cowardly ANC agitators – their beloved comrades in arms – were constantly occupied in fervently fomenting a violent uprising among even Soweto’s schoolchildren and others countrywide, using them as cannon fodder and human shields to hide behind, just as Islamist terrorists are doing today.
They were hoping to thereby trigger a general insurrection and eventually the violent overthrow of the State.
For them, the utopian communist ends justified the bloodiest violent means imaginable that would have resulted in the deaths of countless innocent citizens.
Great heroes!’