Jews in South Africa at a crossroads: Where to from here?

On Wednesday, 29 April, Professor Adam Mendelsohn gave his inaugural lecture at the University of Cape Town (UCT). The talk, titled “Where to for the Jews?”, drew a full auditorium in the Neville Alexander Building.

Mendelsohn used data gathered by the Kaplan Centre, as well as his knowledge of Jewish history, to examine a community facing a time of great uncertainty.

The foyer of the Neville Alexander Building was lined with posters about Gaza. Inside, small notes on brown paper were pinned to a poster board. One of them read: “a world without the Jews is a happy world.”

In his lecture, Mendelsohn covered a range of topics, including the state of Israel, the history of Jews in South Africa and their relationship with UCT. He then turned to the pressures facing South Africa’s Jewish community today.

He spoke about the rise of antisemitism, which he argued is increasingly being dressed up in the language of anti-Zionism. He also mentioned what he sees as a blurring of the line between fair political criticism and the targeting and demonising of Jewish people as a group.

The picture Mendelsohn painted was of a community at a crossroads, weighing the option of leaving the country against the pull of generations of roots in South Africa. He did not give a firm answer to the question he opened with. But the evidence he laid out made one thing clear: it is a question that South Africa’s Jewish community can no longer put off.

From my perspective, Jews in South Africa seem to be under pressure similar to the Afrikaans community. When comparing some of the notes displayed on brown paper during Mendelsohn’s lecture with chants such as “Kill the Boer”, it appears that Afrikaners are not the only group feeling this pressure.