With honour and kindness

Within the past week, I found myself in need of urgent help. I became a crime victim, but fortunately, nobody was physically harmed. The person who came to our rescue was a Muslim woman in my neighbourhood. She opened her home and did all that she possibly could to help, including calling CAP, the police, and providing video proof of the criminals’ vehicle.

Her WhatsApp photograph has a Palestinian flag covering the map of Israel, indicative of someone who believes that from the river to the sea, Israel should belong to Palestinians. However, she’s a kind and caring woman who saw past any differences between us to help us.

She’s aware that I’m Jewish and what I do for a living. We have never discussed the Middle East, nor are we likely to because we aren’t friends, we are neighbours. The point is, she’s a good person and sees the humanity in my family and me.

While I have many neighbours from all walks of life, she was the one who stepped up to help without any agenda other than the kindness of her heart.

When we scroll through social media, we see the hatefulness spewing from people we know – and some we don’t – about Israel, the war in Gaza, and Jews in general.

There’s no doubt that what is happening between Israel and the Palestinians is emotionally charged for us, as Jews and Muslims, because it’s happening to our people. So, it’s understandable that Muslim South Africans are naturally going to stand by Palestinians, and Jews are going to stand by the Jewish state. I’m not talking about the misinformation and lies perpetuated by the media. I’m talking about the hatred and ugliness festering on social media that spills out into our lives here on the southern tip of Africa.

The name calling and apparent hatred is absolutely unnecessary when trying to make a point, explain a situation, or make it clear why someone is incorrect in their assumptions.

But we don’t have to make the hatred that abounds on social media and in the Middle East something that makes us hate each other in Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban, or anywhere in South Africa.

Like my neighbour, we really need to see the humanity in each other and, while we are entitled to our views and to take a stand, we don’t need to set out to harm each other.

There is enough hatred and anger in the world. It’s time to recognise each other as people. We aren’t enemies. We are fellow South Africans.

There are a fair number of people in this country, visible on social media, who want you to believe that we cannot live together in peace here. They make this known in their ugly attacks on Jews.

They even carry posters to protests calling for the arrest of random Jews, endangering them by putting their names and faces on placards. And they call for South African Jews to be forced out of the country. Hatred doesn’t solve anything, especially not 7 000 kilometres away from the war.

The reaction from my neighbour this week was such a breath of fresh air in a pollution factory of hatefulness.

In the past month, I have experienced and witnessed so much animosity and vengefulness that doesn’t and hasn’t helped a single person.

I have experienced being “thrown under the bus” by someone I held in the highest esteem for a quick response he didn’t like. Rather than call me and discuss it, like I hope I would have done with him, he took a public pot shot at me. It still hurts, and it was a clear wake-up call about trust. Suffice to say, it was unnecessary and harmful. Being kind instead of being destructive makes a huge difference.

Yes, emotions are heightened. Times are tough, and the conflict in the Middle East has people taking sides. Terrible things are happening in the world to our people. This is all true. However, showing kindness rather than hatred is so much more meaningful and likely to get us places.

Listening to each other rather than trying to destroy each other is so much more beneficial. I understand that stress levels are high and we all have strong opinions. Just mention the name “Donald Trump”, and you might start a war between friends as there are so many different views on the United States president’s way of ruling.

For most of us, it’s traumatic to read all the horrible misinformation about Jews and about Israel out there. It’s unpleasant and quite frightening to witness antisemitism like we have never seen before in most of our lifetimes. It isn’t easy.

But hitting back with more hatred and animosity doesn’t help. It fuels the fire. Actually, on Tuesday night, 4 March, when Israeli Wonder Woman star Gal Gadot spoke at the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) summit, she quoted her grandfather, saying, “You don’t win anything with anger and hate.” I couldn’t have said it better than Gadot’s Holocaust-surviving grandfather.

Gadot received the International Leadership Award from ADL at the “Never is Now” summit in New York. And though for some, it’s easier not to mention being Jewish or how you support the state of Israel, Gadot makes it clear that there’s no room for that.

“This is a time when many of us in the Jewish community have had to find our voice and confront the hatred against us even if it’s extremely uncomfortable,” she said. “However much you tried to avoid it before, even if speaking up wasn’t really your thing, none of us can ignore the explosion of Jew-hatred around the world anymore.”

So while I do see the humanity in all my neighbours and fellow South Africans and believe they have the right to their opinions, I’m not going to be quiet about what I believe to be right and wrong. However, I will voice my opinions with honour, respect, and kindness.

You see, my name is Peta, and I am Jewish.

Shabbat Shalom!

Peta Krost

Editor