Pick n Pay shelves Pesach props after antisemitic rant

When Pick n Pay took down its props indicating where the kosher-for-Pesach section was in the Norwood Mall before the festival, the Jewish community was shocked and angry, questioning how this could happen at a store with one of the biggest and most loyal kosher customer bases.

The apparent knee-jerk reaction of the store in taking down the Pesach décor was in response to an outcry that started with a vitriolic post by a has-been celebrity with rabid antisemitic views.

Writing on 8 April, South African actor, writer, and radio and television personality, Eric Miyeni, who was well known in the 1980s, posted on social media that he would never shop at Pick n Pay again because of its Pesach display featuring Magen Davids and blue and white ribbons. Miyeni told the SA Jewish Report that he felt “vindicated” when the decorations were taken down.

The post went viral, and hundreds of people were happy to share it and express agreement. These weren’t trolls from the darkest corners of the internet, but leading professionals and regular South Africans who stated that they, too, were offended by blue and white ribbons and Magen Davids. Many decided that these weren’t “symbols of Judaism” and therefore had no place in South Africa. “Pesach symbols don’t include the colours blue and white put together with the Star of David,” Miyeni said. He thinks it’s “disgusting” that there are Zionist South Africans, who he says are “undermining” South Africa’s support of Palestinians.

It was after a visit to the store on 11 April by the South African Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) coalition to protest against Israel that the props were removed.

South African Zionist Federation spokesperson Rolene Marks said it was problematic that Pick n Pay initially caved to “bullying tactics from the antisemitic BDS movement”.

“Attempts to erase Jewish presence from public spaces must be firmly opposed,” Marks said. “Jewish South Africans have a fundamental right to identify publicly as Jews and to celebrate their religious traditions. We mustn’t allow those rights to be threatened by groups that seek to silence and exclude.”

In a statement to the SA Jewish Report, Pick n Pay said, “Pick n Pay stores have always aimed to be welcoming spaces and we celebrate all significant holidays observed by our diverse customer base.

“Our Norwood Hyper independently put up ribbons in the spirit of celebrating Judaism. These were, unfortunately, open to misinterpretation and were removed. All approved Pesach signage and the Star of David – a symbol recognised for millennia as representative of Judaism – remained. At no point was offence intended. Inclusivity is at the heart of Pick n Pay.”

However, for a short time, both the ribbons and hanging Magen Davids were taken down. The South African Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD) said on 11 April that it was “engaging with Pick n Pay at the highest level. We conveyed our profound sense of outrage, and how we found it completely unacceptable that the universally-recognised symbol of our Jewish faith should be banned from public spaces.”

On 16 April, the Magen Davids were put back up, and the SAJBD said Pick n Pay “expressed its deep regret that they were removed – there was never an intention to cause hurt, and they have unreservedly apologised to the Jewish community”.

City of Johannesburg councillor Daniel Schay said the call for kosher l’Pesach products to be removed from the shelves, was “an attempt to intimidate a minority community, a protest against Jews being visible, observant, and connected to their heritage”.

Only Israel has the infrastructure, expertise, and religious oversight to produce kosher-for-Pesach goods at scale, Schay said. Therefore, targeting Passover food “wasn’t a principled stand, it was an attack on religious life”.

However, Miyeni’s post was just one instance of the anti-Jewish hate he spews daily on social media. On 18 April, he wrote that “The Star of David has become a swastika,” repeating the notion he had expressed 10 days earlier.

Miyeni doesn’t just criticise Israel. He engages in depraved antisemitic stereotypes and ideas on a daily basis, showing how South Africans who see themselves as upstanding citizens have no shame in expressing such tropes.

On Facebook, where he has a thousand “friends”, he engaged in Holocaust denial on 20 March, referring to a TikTok video featuring Holocaust denier David Irving. “If the premise that they actually did murder a million people there is correct, what did they use because it clearly isn’t cyanide gas?” he asked. “Is there any truth to anything a Zionist spews out of his assh*lish mouth?”

Miyeni gets all his information from TikTok videos, which he shares in endless posts targeting Jews. Sharing a conspiracy theory video about the Rothschild family, he wrote that Jews are “greedy”, “barbaric”, “psychopathic”, and “bloodthirsty” and that they are “running the Western world”. On 23 March, he wrote, “Israeli Jews are sick!” and on 26 March, “The world does not need people like this. They need to be stopped dead!”

Miyeni said Jews shouldn’t be surprised if hate was directed at them, because to stand with Israel “makes you lower than dirt. It makes you sickening in your inhumanity. It makes you seem like Hitler.

“I believe the way Zionists are behaving is reminiscent of what Nazis did to Jews and what was done to black people in South Africa, and it stinks to high heaven,” he told the SA Jewish Report.

Antisemitism expert David Saks, speaking on behalf of the SAJBD, said, Miyeni’s “unequivocally racist invective shows how much previously accepted boundaries have fallen away, at least when Jews are concerned”.

What’s unsettling to Saks is “how openly Miyeni encourages his social media followers to join him in his vendetta, and his extreme, frenzied language. He comes across as consumed with hatred.”

Miyeni, who has 17 600 followers on X, addressed Discovery Chief Executive Adrian Gore on that platform on 13 December 2024, calling him a “Zionist PIG”.

Jewish community ally Tim Flack also criticised the Pick n Pay protest and Miyeni targeting the Star of David. “It’s a Jewish symbol of identity, heritage, and survival,” wrote Flack. “It predates the modern state of Israel by centuries. You’ll find it on synagogues, tombstones, prayer books, and homes. Treating it as offensive isn’t criticism of Israel. It’s an attack on Jewish religious identity itself.”

But Miyeni continues to attack Jews, writing on 11 April that “the world never thought it would see a Jewish Goebbels, but here we are”, referring to an interview with an Israeli on Sky News. “No shame, no remorse, not a shred of decency. All you get is deflection, projection and lies underpinned by the sick belief that ‘we are better than the entire world’.”

On 1 April, he wrote that “Zionist-led America got over a million Ukrainians killed” and that “10 million Congolese were murdered with Rothschild money.”

Milton Shain, antisemitism expert and emeritus professor of history at the University of Cape Town, said, “Concern for Palestinians is one thing, but to drag in notions of Jewish financial power bloodlust leaves one wondering: is Miyeni simply a Jew-hater?”

“The Rothschild-like tropes are old and well-worn,” said Shain. “Unhinged at the sight of what he assumed were Israeli flags at Pick n Pay when in fact they related to Passover, suggests a man blinded by hate.”