Remembering the other lesson of Dreyfus

The anonymous writer from last week’s National Jewish Dialogue criticising the efforts of community organisations to stand up to the African National Congress (ANC)-led government would do well to review some French history.

In 1894 a thoroughly assimilated and patriotic captain in the French Army, Alfred Dreyfus, was falsely accused of espionage on behalf of the hated Germans. He was tried, convicted, stripped of his commission, and sent to the notorious French penal colony on Devil’s Island. Dreyfus became the centre of one of the most infamous political scandals of the 19th century.

A young Viennese journalist named Theodor Herzl, also an assimilated Jew, was sent to cover the trial. Herzl was shocked when, at the trial’s conclusion, mobs poured into the streets chanting, “Death to the Jews!” The realisation that even the most enlightened nation in Europe could become a staging ground for the world’s oldest hatred convinced him that the future of the Jewish people lay in a state of their own. Six months afterwards, he finished The Jewish State, and less than 50 years later, the state of Israel was born.

But Zionism wasn’t the only Jewish response to the Dreyfus Affair. French Jewry understood that their position in society and their ability to live freely were under direct attack. A small minority of 86 000 out of a population of 40 million, they had benefited immensely from the freedoms afforded by the French Revolution, rising into the highest echelons of French society, from the academy to state service and national honours. Initially, as was the habit of many diaspora Jews, they tried to keep their heads down and bury the issue. But as investigations progressed, the fraud became increasingly obvious and impossible to ignore.

Young Jews became active on the issue, they drew in radical left-wing and liberal intellectual allies, including France’s most famous writer, Émile Zola, who published his landmark front-page defence of Dreyfus under the headline, J’Accuse. Other intellectuals rallied to the cause. But then came a fierce backlash, with anti-Jewish riots breaking out across the country, and Zola being forced to flee. But by then the die was cast and the fight was on. Jews and their allies formed the League of the Rights of Man to free Dreyfus, while antisemites; chiefly xenophobes; certain commercial interests; and elements of the French Catholic Church, responded with the League of the French Fatherland.

The Dreyfus Affair split France in two for a decade, especially among the middle and upper classes, who fought bitterly and sometimes literally, with 32 duels fought over the matter, and one Jew killed. The fiercest battles, however, were fought in the media. At the outset, nearly all the major French newspapers sided with the anti-Dreyfusards, so Jews and their allies established their own press, in the process making the affair a cause célèbre across Europe and the world. They also embraced the new media of their time, photography, and cinema to help make their point. Gradually, they shifted public opinion, which translated into political strength. Eventually, a new government was elected that rehabilitated Dreyfus, promoted him to general, and drove antisemitic institutions from French politics. As a result, France was a safer and more tolerant place for Jews and citizens in general until the coming of the Holocaust.

As the saying goes, history does not repeat, but it does rhyme, and there is something of the 1890s in our current situation. Once again, we have an anti-Jewish incident bringing antisemitic mobs onto the streets, and chanting for Jewish death has been heard from the Sydney Opera House to elite North American campuses. In some places, they have unfortunately made good on these threats. But it’s not just a problem of the street, Jews risk losing their place in free and open societies. Since 7 October, they have been pushed out of non-governmental organisations, universities, business, and cultural spaces, simply because they refuse to condemn a non-existent genocide. Across the Anglosphere, left-of-centre political parties have steadily abandoned their long-time Jewish and pro-Israel constituencies in the face of hordes of howling fanatics. In South Africa, the situation is even worse: a corrupt ANC driven by anti-imperialist fervour not only actively supported Hamas, but sought to use the tragedy of the war to try to revive its faltering electoral fortunes.

As in Dreyfus’s time, there is a necessity for diaspora Jews to organise with their allies, defend themselves, and safeguard their place in society. This isn’t only a Jewish concern. The presence of bigotry, particularly antisemitism, within any institution should be considered a social pathology that will go on ultimately to undermine its health. If we wish to live in strong liberal democracies that respect the rights of all, the mistreatment of Jews remains an important signpost that all is not well, and that strong action is required.

All of this should be borne in mind when reading last week’s National Jewish Dialogue piece criticising the efforts of community organisations on this issue. Open debate over the merits of particular strategies and tactics, the roles and capacities of various organisations is legitimate. But levelling anonymous, baseless, and uninformed smears against those doing the daily, difficult work of protecting our community in one of the world’s toughest political environments isn’t. Moreover, the writer should be reminded that it was the ANC-led South African government, not the community, that erased the line between South African Jewry and Israel when it named us as a party to its dispute that it took to the International Court of Justice. Suggesting, as the writer does, that the solution is to crawl back publicly to the ANC to “work together just on Jewish issues” without insisting on a fundamental change in attitude and policy isn’t just shameful, it’s dangerous.

Repeated polling tells us that South Africans aren’t anti-Israel, and certainly not anti-Jewish. In time, the ANC, too, will come to learn that this is the case. In the meanwhile, we must learn from the Dreyfus Affair that a pusillanimous approach to combating hatred will get us nowhere.

• Benji Shulman is a long-time Jewish community activist working with a variety of organisations.