Not apart, but a part: the Jewish thread in South Africa’s tapestry

By a concerned Jewish South African

In the early 1890s, many Jewish families began arriving in South Africa from Eastern Europe. They came with little but their faith, their values, and the quiet determination to build a better life. Some fled economic hardship. Others fled the rising tide of antisemitism that would soon engulf Europe in flames. For many of us, South Africa wasn’t just a place of refuge, it was a place of rebirth.

From that moment to today, more than 130 years later, the Jewish community has given its heart and soul to this country. We’ve planted roots in its soil. We’ve built homes, businesses, schools, hospitals, and cultural institutions. We’ve raised families, created jobs, and fought, sometimes louder than any others, for freedom and justice on these shores.

We have never stood apart from South Africa. We have stood with it. Shoulder to shoulder. Through war, apartheid oppression, transition, and rebuilding.

And yet, we now find ourselves in a moment that’s difficult to comprehend.

The war in the Middle East, complex and painful as it is, has become an excuse for many to cast suspicion, scorn, or silence over Jewish South Africans.

What’s unfolding thousands of miles away has left us feeling vulnerable here, in the very country we have loved, served, and helped build for generations.

To be honest isn’t to be hostile. And to be truthful isn’t to be disloyal.

It would be dishonest to pretend that the Jewish community isn’t deeply pained and, indeed, aghast, by the silence and abandonment we have experienced from our own government. The disbelief isn’t just about policy; it’s personal. It’s relational.

President Cyril Ramaphosa has, over many decades, worked closely with Jewish South Africans. He has partnered with us in business. Broken bread in our homes. Benefited from relationships, capital, and counsel across multiple generations. That someone who knows us so well, who has seen our humanity, generosity, and loyalty up close, could now remain silent as we are vilified and mischaracterised, isn’t just disappointing. It’s bewildering.

This is not said with rancour. Only with quiet sadness. The kind that sits heavy, precisely because it was never expected.

And yet, despite that sadness, we remain here.

Because our love for this country runs deep. And our belief in its people remains strong.

South Africa is a land of paradox, but also of promise. And most South Africans, across faiths and backgrounds are good, kind, G-d-fearing people who want peace, dignity, and mutual respect. Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Jews, we have lived side by side for decades. In places like District Six, Jews and Muslims were neighbours. They shared spices, stories, and sidewalks. That spirit of coexistence wasn’t aspirational, but real.

Our Torah teaches that the world is built on three things: truth, justice, and peace. These are not lofty ideals, they are daily obligations. And they are what have guided Jewish South Africans for more than a century.

We have never just built for ourselves. Our contributions have extended far beyond our numbers. In law, medicine, education, retail, mining, media, philanthropy, and the arts, Jewish South Africans have helped shape this country. We have created jobs. Built schools. Endowed hospitals. Raised voices for the voiceless. And we have done so with love, not entitlement.

Perhaps nowhere was that moral commitment more evident than during the darkest years of apartheid.

When many were silent, or silenced, Jewish voices rose in defiance. In the halls of Parliament, it was Helen Suzman who stood alone for years as a liberal conscience in a chamber of repression. In the courts, Arthur Chaskalson and Albie Sachs helped lay the foundations of a future constitutional democracy. Other names like Joe Slovo, Ruth First, and many more come to mind.

But it wasn’t only in politics and law. Jewish South Africans fought apartheid through music, theatre, and satire. Johnny Clegg, the “white Zulu”, used song to transcend tribalism and confront injustice. David Kramer gave voice to the forgotten working-class stories of the Cape. Pieter-Dirk Uys wielded laughter like a scalpel, using theatre to cut through propaganda and fear. These artists didn’t just entertain; they educated, provoked, and healed.

We were never a community content to whisper in the wings. We stepped onto the stage, sometimes at great personal risk, because silence, for us, has never been an option.

We’re a small community. But we remain proudly Jewish. And proudly South African. Our identities aren’t at odds, they are stitched into the very same fabric.

Which is why this moment hurts.

But we will not respond with bitterness. That’s not who we are.

We choose, instead, to believe in the resilience of this country’s people. We choose to engage. To stay in the room. To remain part of the national conversation, even when we feel excluded from it.

This National Dialogue, initiated by the president, presents an opportunity, if we allow it to be one. For too long, South Africans have spoken about one another. Perhaps now we might speak to one another. With humility. With listening. With the willingness to see what binds us, not just what divides us.

Today, South African Jews continue to play vital roles in shaping our industries, educating our youth, healing the sick, and feeding the hungry. And still, despite the noise, we remain committed to this country. Because we love it. Deeply.

This is our home. Not because of what we’ve been given, but because of what we’ve given – and what we still hope to give.

We are not apart.

We are a part.

And we always have been.