Professor Adam Mendelsohn Director of the Kaplan Centre for Jewish Studies and Research, Cape Town
As the article demonstrates, Jewish students express little concern of their own, instead exhibiting the confidence of those who rightly know that they are full and equal participants in the life of the university.
They know, too, that the university is in the midst of a golden age of Jewish campus life. The SA Union of Jewish Students (SAUJS), under a new and energetic leadership, has been revivified. Students have easy access to an ever-busy Chabad House; Rabbi Nissen Goldman has begun occasional morning services on campus. (He is also responsible for the UCT Yids sweatshirts, worn conspicuously by students on campus.)
The Kaplan Centre for Jewish Studies – the only such centre in South Africa – is in the midst of renovations that will enlarge its kosher cafeteria and provide even more space for students to meet, study and mingle.
And Glenara, the official residence of the vice-chancellor, has hosted Pesach seders for probably the first time in its existence. (Hopefully, the tradition will continue after the retirement of vice-chancellor Max Price, in much the same spirit as seders were conducted each year in the Obama White House.)
UCT students know, too, that UCT cares about their wellbeing. This is certainly the case during Israel Apartheid Week (IAW), and is true for the remaining weeks of the year. Alas, the former, rather than the latter, attracts far more attention. The reality is that IAW is a fixture on university campuses around the world, and cannot be wished away.
SAUJS and its allies had multiple conversations with the vice-chancellor prior to IAW. He and others took considerable precautions to ensure that the week passed off calmly. Now that IAW has passed, SAUJS and others can redirect their attention to sustaining a spirited and supportive life for Jewish students on campus.
The SA Zionist Federation, to its credit, is always concerned about the safety of Jewish students. Indeed, the alternate headline, “SAZF unconcerned for Jewish students’ safety”, would be more newsworthy. And the Jewish community can rest assured that their children have a proud place at UCT, or, as it is known to its students “Ikeyland”: an anti-Semitic slur of the 1920s that UCT students long ago adopted and transformed into a point of pride.
