Mandela Day keeps us grounded in nation building

This year, Mandela Day, on 18 July, arrived at a difficult moment for the South African Jewish community.

The community was still reeling from President Cyril Ramaphosa having alienated us by appointing the virulently anti-Zionist Dr Imtiaz Sooliman to the eminent person group of the National Dialogue. Abroad, Minister of International Relations and Cooperation Ronald Lamola co-chaired The Hague Group’s Bogotá conference, where South Africa helped lead efforts to further isolate the Jewish state.

It’s hard not to feel disillusioned.

Our community, perhaps more than any other minority group, embraced Nelson Mandela’s vision at the birth of the new South Africa, a vision where “all South Africans, both black and white, will be able to walk tall, without any fear in their hearts”. We believed in that covenant. And for decades, we’ve worked across every sector of society to help realise his dream of a “rainbow nation at peace with itself and the world”.

But after 7 October, in our hour of need, the South African government turned its back on us. It embraced Hamas, and aligned itself with Iran. That betrayal still stings.

So, it’s understandable that many in our community asked the Jewish National Fund South Africa (JNF-SA) last week, “Why are you taking part in Mandela Day? Why should we give 67 minutes to a country whose leaders actively exclude and attack us?”

Mandela Day calls on each of us to dedicate 67 minutes – one for each year of his struggle – to service. It’s a powerful idea: that we honour his legacy not through speeches or monuments, but through action. Through service that builds the country he dreamed of.

This year, more than 100 volunteers – Jews and non-Jews, black and white, young and old – answered that call. JNF-SA partnered with South Africa’s Promise to bring this diverse group to the Walter Sisulu Environmental Centre in Mamelodi. Together, we worked in the Mandela Park Peace Garden, planting vegetables and fruit trees alongside local pensioners.

The garden, established by the JNF and Food & Trees for Africa in 1997, is a one-hectare patchwork of small plots where 13 elderly residents grow food to feed their families. It’s backbreaking work, done in quiet perseverance.

But this year, they got a major boost. With our partners and donors, we built raised beds, donated farming equipment, and distributed seeds and seedlings. Together, we planted two new communal plots that will nourish families for years to come.

It was a small glimpse of what South Africa could still be if we choose to build rather than break.

So why did we do this? Because the people we were helping aren’t our adversaries, they’re our neighbours. Like us, they’ve been failed by the state. Like us, they are still here, trying to walk tall, without any fear in their hearts

When 73-year-old Sarah, a Mamelodi resident I worked with in her plot, smiled at me and said, “Today, I am not alone.” I understood something important: neither are we.

The government may try to exclude us from national dialogues, but it cannot exclude us from the nation. It may align with our enemies abroad, but it cannot prevent us from building stronger relationships with our many friends at home.

This is how we answer exclusion – not with retreat, but by laying deeper roots.

South African Jews, most of whom proudly identify as Zionists, have made a disproportionate contribution to building post-apartheid South Africa. We’ve served in Parliament and on the bench; built classrooms and managed hospitals; laid boreholes to bring running water; established parks; created jobs; started businesses; even kicked drop goals that won us Rugby World Cups.

The betrayal by the South African government since 7 October isn’t just political, it’s personal. But our response cannot be to walk away. That’s exactly what those who wish to marginalise us would want.

The trees we planted on Mandela Day will grow and bear fruit. And through JNF-SA’s ongoing investment in the Walter Sisulu Environmental Centre, future generations of Mamelodi residents will be better equipped to address the challenges of climate change, food insecurity, and poverty.

As the state continues to falter, it’s clear: if South Africa is to succeed, it will be because of what we do together for ourselves, not what politicians say. This Mandela Day, we showed what that looks like.

The government may try to write us out of South Africa’s future. But it cannot stop us from writing ourselves into it through service and partnership.

This is our country too. We’re not going anywhere. And we’re not finished building it.

• Michael Kransdorff is the JNF-SA chairperson.