Not what Helen Suzman stood for

How swiftly the world can shift. Just last week, as we prepared to welcome Purim, I reflected on the festival’s powerful examples of women’s leadership. I drew strength too from the extraordinary women of Iran who, at immense personal risk, continue to take to the streets demanding dignity and freedom. Like Esther, they embody what becomes possible when individuals choose to speak truth to power, refusing to be silenced. 

Now, as the world becomes engulfed in horrific conflict, and our brethren in Israel are once again sent to shelters, we must comprehend yet another moment of deep uncertainty. In times like these, we are reminded that when conflict escalates, innocent civilians always bear the heaviest burden, and every civilian life lost, on all sides, is a tragedy that must be mourned. 

Yet if we pause to draw from one of Purim’s deeper teachings, we are reminded that regimes rooted in oppression and hatred do not endure forever. History shows us time and again that authoritarian power, no matter how entrenched, can be challenged. The arc of Jewish experience bends towards resilience, towards hope, towards the stubborn insistence that light will ultimately prevail. 

Closer to home, in yet another attempt to reshape the narrative surrounding the King David and Roedean tennis incident, the chairperson of the Helen Suzman Foundation, Kalim Rajab, wrote an inciteful article in a prominent, if not intrinsically biased, South African news source. In the article Rajab bemoans the capitulation of Roedean, and muses that potentially in the future schoolchildren could better evade censorship in their protest against Jewish opponents by wearing armbands or pins. 

The meaning of armbands in this context is not abstract. For Jews, it summons the most grotesque example in our history when armbands were used so effectively to mark us as Jews by those whose purpose it was to exterminate us. For the chairperson of any human rights organisation to invoke this practice and imagery, however unwittingly, in the context of targeting Jewish children at a school sporting event is shocking beyond measure. 

The Helen Suzman Foundation exists to honour a woman who dedicated her life to fighting discrimination in all its forms. Suzman was not only a towering figure in the struggle against apartheid, she was a proud member of the Jewish community, deeply committed to its welfare and values. It is a profound betrayal of her legacy for the foundation’s chairperson to lend his platform and authority to the targeting of Jewish pupils. Discrimination is not whitewashed when it is cloaked in the language of political protest, no matter how desperate our detractors are to label the incident as anything other than antisemitism. 

In the wake of this and similar incidents, we have seen a troubling surge in antisemitic content online. The South African Jewish Board of Deputies continues to respond firmly and methodically. Just last week, we secured a full and unconditional apology from an individual who posted about the need to “fumigate” our offices. This follows another retraction and apology from someone who refused to do business with “Zionists”, accusing them of infanticide. We will not stand idly by while hate speech proliferates in our democracy. There is no excuse for hate crime, there is no exemption from the law, and we will continue to hold those accountable wherever possible. 

As your communal leadership, we want you to know that our organisations are working together and are carefully monitoring developments both in the Middle East and at home. We remain engaged, vigilant, and united in safeguarding our community. At the same time, our greatest response is to live proudly and visibly as Jews. May this conflict end soon and decisively, and usher in a lasting peace.