Yom Hashoah: Lessons for South Africa

JEFF KATZ

As we know, merely to have been born Jewish in Nazi-occupied Europe was a death sentence, with even those who had converted to Christianity being targeted for extermination. On Yom Hashoah, we demonstrate that we are one people, committed to helping, supporting and safeguarding one another wherever we might be and regardless of belief or affiliation.  

In addition to the local Jewish communities, the ceremonies will be attended by a range of political and religious leaders, diplomats and members of the media.

In part, representatives of the wider society attend as a gesture of solidarity with the Jewish community on this sombre occasion, but it is today widely recognised that the significance of Yom Hashoah for the country as a whole goes further than that. On Yom Hashoah, we remember the six million Jewish victims of Nazi tyranny, as well as the millions of other innocent men, women and children who died at the hands of that regime.

Just as importantly, we remember the ideology of racial, religious and ethnic hatred that ultimately led to these murders. The death camps were the culmination, not the starting point, of the Holocaust. What began as hateful rhetoric against the Jewish people paved the way to legal discrimination, seizure of property, expulsion and eventually systematic mass murder.

The lesson that all South Africans must learn is that words lead to action. In the past, and even in our own times, we have seen how verbal incitement to hatred, whether based on race, ethnicity, nationality or even political affiliation, has led to lethal acts of violence in our country.

The upsurge of racism and racist incitement in the social media at the beginning of this year shocked the country into a realisation of the threat that racism continues to pose to our society, 22 years after the democratic transition.

At Yom Hashoah, we are likewise reminded of the dangers of allowing racial hatred to run wild and of the responsibility of every one of us to take a firm stand against it wherever it surfaces.   

Exam alert

The Board is working closely with the relevant universities, including Wits, Unisa and the University of Johannesburg to address problems relating to exams being set on Yomtov or Shabbat.

When such problems arise, there is a process that has to be followed in resolving them with the institution concerned, and for that reason, it is critical that we be made aware of such issues as timeously as possible.

I urge all religiously observant Jewish students to check their exam timetables to see whether there have been scheduling clashes, and if so, to immediately send through the requisite details (full names, date and time of exam and student number) to sajbd@sajbd.org.