In service of human rights

Last Friday, the South African Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD) had a rare and important opportunity. We sat down with the heads and commissioners of the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC), an institution with which we share a long and storied history. The SAHRC and the SAJBD have worked together on a number of significant cases over the years, none more so than the Masuku hate speech matter, which the commission took all the way to the Constitutional Court on our behalf. 

We requested the meeting after the Embassy of Iran in South Africa published a cartoon that was, quite simply, antisemitic. There was nothing subtle about it. As part of our engagement, I delivered a presentation on the history and origins of antisemitic tropes and conspiracies, tracing how this hatred has shifted and reinvented itself across the centuries, and how those same constructs remain active today. A person who isn’t Jewish, without the context of our history or our inbuilt sensitivities, may not immediately grasp why a particular image or phrase cuts so deep. 

What struck me was how genuinely open the commissioners were to hearing us. They listened to our community’s concerns, and they went further, asking that the presentation be shared among the commissioners and possibly built into some of their own resource material. 

South Africa has low levels of antisemitism, and keeping it that way is central to our work. Our safety as a community isn’t an accident. It rests in large part on our Constitution and on the bodies created to give that Constitution force, the SAHRC chief among them. When those institutions do their job, all of us are safer. 

Last week also brought Mandela Day, and here too, as it does every year, our community showed up. 

In Johannesburg, the Board was proud to partner with the remarkable Maharishi Institute to serve the inner city. Together we helped provide more than 5 000 meals and we learned about the institute’s extraordinary work under its Jewish chief executive and founder, Dr Taddy Blecher. Through education and holistic support, the Maharishi Institute is changing lives and building a future for a part of our city too often written off. As Jews we are guided by the value of tikkun olam, the repair of the world through acts of service and compassion. Watching communities come together in that spirit was a reminder of what is possible. 

In Cape Town, the Board marked the occasion in support of Home of Hope. The organisation gives a loving and safe home, specialised care, education, and life skills to almost 50 children and young people, many from severely disadvantaged backgrounds and many living with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder. The Board’s professional staff, lay leadership, and colleagues from across several Jewish community organisations took part in the packing and preparation. Our colleagues said that the event touched them profoundly, and that it has started a strong connection between the two organisations involved. 

Mandela Day isn’t one day of service. It’s a legacy, and it asks each of us to keep making a difference.