ANC apartheid against Jews - the Jewish Board of Deputies' protest

The president and national chairperson of the South African Board of Jewish Deputies (SABJD) have issued a blistering criticism of President Cyril Ramaphosa's African National Congress government for what it implies is an apartheid- and racist-style exclusion of Jews from four national interfaith occasions, ahead of South Africa's general elections in May.

In an article on 25 July in the weekly newspaper Jewish Report headed "Board takes ANC to task for excluding SA Jewry", Tali Feinberg wrote that in a "significant moment for the South African Jewish community" the SABJD had "laid a complaint against the African National Congress (ANC) about the community’s exclusion from national interfaith events."

This was "possibly the first time that a complaint against the ANC has been lodged at the Commission for the Promotion and Protection of the rights of Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Communities (CRL Rights Commission)", she continued, describing CRL as a "constitutional body tasked with the promotion and protection of the rights of cultural, religious, and linguistic communities. ...

“Sadly, this year, the Jewish community was systematically and repeatedly excluded from events hosted by the ANC, including national prayers and interfaith events,” the SABJD stated. “In addition to this, the Jewish community has been treated with expedience by the ANC for its political machinations.

“At the inception of the Government of National Unity [GNU], which is designed to incorporate the diverse voices of South African society," the statement went on, "we intend to ensure that our Jewish community is reinstated as a vital part of this national unity. For this reason, the SABJD has lodged a formal complaint at the CRL."

The complaint deals with four incidents in which SABJD stated that "the Jewish community was excluded or discriminated against at the hands of the ANC. These included Jewish communal leadership’s exclusion from a government interfaith engagement in the Western Cape on 3 May; the Jewish community being the only faith community left out of the ANC interfaith 'day of prayer' on 19 May; and the ANC boycotting the SABJD pre-election debate because it was held at the South African Jewish Museum, on 19 May.

"Finally, for the first time since the dawn of South African democracy, the Jewish community wasn’t invited to give a prayer alongside other faith groups at the ANC’s final pre-election rally on 26 May."

Addressing the Jewish community in South Africa, the president of the SABJD, Zev Krengel, said: “The SABJD will continue to defend and uphold the rights of Jewish South Africans, as it has done for 121 years. Over the past 30 years of our democracy, we have been privileged to have Chapter 9 institutions that assist cultural, religious, and linguistic communities where there has been a breach of constitutional rights. We do this at a time when South Africans are uniting in a GNU [Government of National Unity].

"All South Africans have a right to be included and live in dignity in our country, and we’re embarking on this process in this light."

In a further article in the same issue of Jewish Report as the one by Tali Feinberg, Karen Milner - the national chairperson of SABJD and an associate professor of psychology at Wits University in Johannesburg - wrote that this "longstanding relationship" of Jews "has deteriorated under President Cyril Ramaphosa’s administration.

"Following the events of 7 October, the ANC’s failure to condemn Hamas and its subsequent engagement with its representatives marked a significant shift. Following this, for the first time in our history, the Jewish community was excluded from a number of interfaith and cultural events."

Karen Milner stated it was "particularly hurtful" that "in spite of our shared history, the ANC chose to exclude the community from its events and refused to engage with us.

"As a ruling party, the decision to refuse to engage with a single religious group and remove that group from the public space sets a worrying precedent. While we hope that there can be an improvement in the community’s standing with the ANC, these exclusionary and punitive actions cannot be overlooked."

The Board's decision to file its complaint against the ANC at the CRL, she wrote, "marks a pivotal moment" to "safeguarding the civil rights and liberties of the Jewish community."

"Exclusionary and punitive": these words define the real nature of Ramaphosa's government of so-called."national unity". Judenrein !

The SABJD's report to the CRL exposes a disgraceful return by a South African governing political party to the racist dogma of the apartheid era. It marks also a historic betrayal of former leading allies and supporters of the ANC, in a significant act by ANC in support for Arab and Iranian Islamist jihad in the Middle East and in Africa.

As a white male political prisoner in the mid-1960s, with a Jewish mother, Evelyn Levison, and a Christian father, Ralph Trewhela, I attended sessions held by Rabbi Katz in Pretoria Local and Central prisons in Pretoria with fellow Jewish male political prisoners, as well as in The Fort prison in Johannesburg while awaiting trial and on trial.

My fellow Jewish political prisoners from 60 years ago - now betrayed by the ANC - include the only white person sitting beside Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Govan Mbeki, Andrew Mlangeni and two others in the Rivonia Trial when they faced the possibility of sentence of death: my Jewish friend Denis Goldberg, who then spent 22 years in prison and whose portrait I drew in London in 2002, before he  returned to South Africa from exile with his wife Edelgard, who he'd married following the death of his very brave first wife, Esme.

What about David Kitson, a former soldier in the war against Hitler, who spent 20 years in prison for heroic work inside South Africa as a member of the high command of the ANC's army, Umkhonto we Sizwe?

Was Ben Turok also not a Jew? And Rowley Arenstein, who defended the amaMpondo insurgents in court after they were brutally crushed by the apartheid regime in 1960?

And what about Ruth First - blown up on 17 August 1982 at the university in Maputo, Mozambique, by a parcel bomb sent by the apartheid police spy Craig Williamson, who was bountifully awarded an amnesty in the year 2000?

The ANC's turn towards the Muslim Brotherhood, allied with Hitler during his six-million mass murder of Jews, with its Covenant stating "Kill the Jew", and ANC's link to the jihad theocracy of Iran, with its oppression of women and a likely money-donor to ANC ahead of the general elections in May - this is the most shameful scandal in ANC's history, and a stain on South Africa.

A portrait of Denis Goldberg in his flat in London in 2002 by Paul Trewhela