Anti-Jewish bias evident in UCT leadership

Professor Adam Mendelsohn, who has taken the University of Cape Town (UCT) to court over its anti-Israel resolutions, has provided evidence that anti-Jewish bias was possibly at play when UCT adopted the resolutions.

He stated this in a replying affidavit submitted to the Western Cape High Court on 4 July.

Mendelsohn also claims that a member of the UCT executive committee (exco), Diana Yach, who is Jewish, threatened him to get him to drop the case. He claims in the affidavit that “she said that my application was not going to be a healthy thing for me and my family, which she described as a warning”.

He also claims that UCT Council Chairperson Norman Arendse lied to the court multiple times in his answering affidavit on behalf of UCT, and that he put pressure on Council members not to share their perspectives with the court. However, some have done so.

Yach told the SA Jewish Report that she “categorically denies these baseless and defamatory allegations. At no stage have I threatened Professor Mendelsohn or any member of his family. These claims are false, and appear to be deliberately designed to mislead and to divert attention from the serious issues at hand.”

Mendelsohn, who is director of the Kaplan Centre for Jewish Studies at UCT, is calling for the anti-Israel resolutions adopted by the university in June 2024 to be reviewed or set aside. He says the Council – the university’s highest decision-making body – didn’t follow its own processes when adopting them, and they have a negative impact on research, academic freedom, and fundraising.

He also said that the anti-Jewish bias at UCT starts at the top, as Arendse describes certain donors to UCT as “pro-Israel”, possibly because “some of their trustees happen to be Jewish”. Mendelsohn said Arendse also describes these donors as “hostage-takers”, implying that they are “seeking to use financial power to coerce UCT to adopt immoral positions and to further the political agenda of Israel over all other interests”.

He wrote in his affidavit that the entire exco appears to harbour these prejudices, “which seems to have informed their failure to disclose these donors’ concerns with the resolutions to Council”.

Mendelsohn said that this “bias” extended to the Council. For example, Council member Dr Shuaib Manjra described Jews as “a group of messianic lunatics, addicted to killing and destroying”. Council member Nazeema Mohamed considers “certain donors” to have “questionable backgrounds”, comparable to “criminal syndicates”, apparently because these donors have Jewish trustees.

Mendelsohn said records and other affidavits show that some Council members believe that those opposing the resolutions are “part of a Zionist plot”, and that his litigation is “part of a Zionist agenda”, bemoaning that “we are being held ransom by the Zionists on our Council” and that “Zionists will stop at nothing.”

He said UCT officially stated that reports of antisemitism on campus were “fake news”, essentially implying that “Jews do not make good-faith claims of antisemitism and invoke antisemitism to silence critics of Israel and further political agendas”. He said this pattern of bias is one reason to cast the resolutions aside.

Mendelsohn also states that Arendse’s affidavit “cost UCT R20 million”, because the Donald Gordon Foundation (DGF) demanded the return of R20 million it had already paid to UCT due to false allegations made by Arendse.

Other explanatory affidavits from Council members back Mendelsohn’s concerns that Arendse knowingly lied to the court. Mendelsohn said Arendse also lied about the events around the DGF’s donation of a hospital to UCT. Now, he said, “the DGF is donating a teaching hospital to Stellenbosch University” instead.

Arendse, Yach, and South African Jews for a Free Palestine, who all submitted affidavits, insist that “human rights” are the reason UCT must adopt the resolutions, even if it means giving up donations that benefit disadvantaged South Africans.

Arendse calls the resolutions the “Gaza Resolutions”, “but neither resolution limits its breadth nor focus to Gaza”, noted Mendelsohn. “This reveals the irrational nature of Council’s decision, [which] thought only of Gaza. It did not consider the severe implications for UCT.”

The UCT exco refused to tell the Council that the resolutions could lead to a loss of funding. Thus, “how could Council members decide that expressing indignation at Israel’s conduct outweighs the futures of hundreds of prospective students at UCT who have lost funding?” asked Mendelsohn.

“How could the Council decide that rejecting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance [IHRA] definition of antisemitism was more important than having a neuroscience institute funded to the tune of R200 million and receiving an entire hospital, without even knowing that such donations were at stake?” he asked.

Looking at a wide range of resolutions at universities in South Africa and internationally, Mendelsohn noted that “none ban individual academic relations or ‘reject’ the IHRA definition. This demonstrates the extraordinary nature of the impugned resolutions. No university in a democratic country has passed resolutions like them.”

If the ultimate purpose behind the two resolutions is “to prevent UCT academics from committing human rights violations and international crimes” as Arendse says they are, “then why not say so?” asked Mendelsohn. “Council could have passed a resolution banning UCT academics from committing international crimes and acting contrary to the Bill of Rights.”

In terms of the resolution prohibiting UCT academics from collaborating with anyone affiliated to the Israel Defense Forces “or the broader military establishment”, UCT academics “will simply avoid working with Israeli academics to avoid censure and opprobrium”, said Mendelsohn. “It is a ban on working with Israelis per se.”

Mendelsohn emphasised, “In bringing this application, I did not purport to be acting on behalf of the Jewish community or any section of the Jewish community. I did not purport to represent the interests of Jews at UCT. I did not identify myself as Jewish. I acted as an academic at UCT who is concerned about the impact of the resolutions on UCT and its staff and students.”

He said the issue of antisemitism on campus was not raised in his application, but Arendse raised it. Therefore, Mendelsohn addressed it, saying, “Without question, the campus climate has deteriorated for Jews since 7 October 2023. I have been struck by a lack of sympathy from UCT toward staff and students who complain.”

Mendelsohn emphasised that there has been a “fundamental governance failure at UCT. The adoption of the resolutions has come at a tremendous cost to UCT as an institution and to its staff and students, but Council literally, expressly, does not care.”

UCT spokesperson Elijah Moholola said UCT noted the affidavits filed by various parties, saying, “This matter is currently before the courts. UCT is therefore not in a position to comment further on a pending legal matter.”