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South African Jewish journalist Jeremy Gordin murdered in home burglary at 70
(JTA) — Jeremy Gordin, one of South Africa’s most prominent journalists, wrote repeatedly in recent months about burglaries at his family’s Johannesburg home.
In a weekly column, he expressed dismay at the rampant levels of crime, growing urban decay and regular power outages endured by South Africans as a result of mismanagement and corruption. In one — titled “It is getting dark, too dark to see” after the Bob Dylan lyric — he addressed his two children, both in their twenties.
“I’m not suggesting that you’re going to find yourselves in desperate flight across your own border, that your graveyard may be ploughed up and strewn with garbage. But there comes a time when things are clearly falling apart,” he concluded.
He added, with the allusion to his Jewish identity clear to anyone familiar with Jewish history, “And you, who have your whole lives before you (as they say), need to consider seriously going to live elsewhere. We’ve been doing it for centuries, after all.”
On March 31, Gordin’s worst fears came to pass: He was murdered during a night robbery at his home. He was 70.
South African police described the incident as “a robbery gone wrong” but did not describe the exact cause of death. Seven people were arrested in Johannesburg two weeks later; one was driving a car that had been stolen from Gordin’s residence.
It was a tragic end for Gordin’s 70-year South African story, which, as with so many of his country’s Jews, intersected sharply with both the story of Israel and with the struggle of Black South Africans. As a lifelong journalist, he had at times headed both South Africa’s version of Playboy and its storied working-class Black tabloid, and also ran an initiative that used reporting to prove the innocence of people who were wrongfully imprisoned. He won the country’s annual top journalism prize multiple times.
Gordin was also a friend to many, frequently opening his home in Johannesburg’s Parkview neighborhood to guests. (This reporter was one of them during a stint in Johannesburg for Efe, the Spanish newspaper.)
Gordin was born in Pretoria in 1952, in a Jewish family with Lithuanian and Latvian origins. After a spell in South Vietnam, where his pharmacist father worked for the United States, the family returned to South Africa. Gordin went to high school in Brakpan, a town in the industrial east of the Great Johannesburg emblematic of the country’s white Afrikaner working class to which he often referred in his articles.
Gordin obtained a scholarship to study in Israel and completed a bachelor’s degree while playing rugby at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Back in his country, he did his military service volunteering for the South African Defence Force’s elite 1 Parachute Battalion, then started a prolific career in journalism.
In a breakout moment, he published a book in 1998 based on his conversations with the apartheid government’s death squad leader Eugen de Kock. Then incarcerated, de Kock candidly told Gordin about his deeds, but most importantly about those who had ordered his crimes, for which they were hardly questioned and never tried.
Gordin authored another canonical book of recent South Africa history, his biography of South Africa’s former president Jacob Zuma. Published in 2010, a year after Zuma took power, Gordin’s went beyond the usual assumptions about the Zulu former freedom fighter who learned how to read and write as an adult and was often underestimated by South Africa’s intellectual class.
Zuma left office in 2018 after a tenure marked by charges of corruption, cronyism and incompetence. Gordin’s biography has been criticized for being excessively indulgent with its subject, but it remains essential for understanding Zuma’s psychology and the motivations behind his actions.
In the early 1990s, after a period living in San Francisco, Gordin became the launch editor of Playboy South Africa. (He posed nude, with only a magazine as cover, to promote Playboy’s South Africa launch.) In a recent essay, Gordin recounted trying to land a then-unknown Charlize Theron for the magazine’s first cover. Invoking Yiddish terms, Gordin recalled journalists who had passed away, described the actress’s unembarrassed audition, and also managed to explore changing race and class dynamics in South Africa.
(Around this time, his friend Roy Isacowitz wrote in a remembrance published shortly after his death, the pair had successfully gotten a media executive censured for calling them “pushy little Jewboys” — though he said they accepted the description.)
Jeremy Gordin, at right, stands in front of covers of the Sun, the South African tabloid he oversaw for many years. (Courtesy Gordin family)
In 2012 he was named caretaker editor of the Daily Sun, a South African tabloid wildly popular among the Black working class. The paper lost much of its appeal after the death of its founder, larger-than-life Afrikaner media executive Deon du Plessis. Gordin brought back the pride, the punch and many of the readers to the paper. Or, as a headline made for him by his colleagues when he retired said, he “brought rock’n roll back to the Sun.”
The tabloid’s news largely relied on cases of violence, gossip and sex often featuring “tokoloshes,” fantastic creatures of popular African mythology whose encounters with the Sun’s readers were reported nationwide in the first person to its many correspondents. The readership and the paper’s foot soldiers were 100% Black. They collected the stories and sent them to the Johannesburg newsroom, where a group of experienced white male journalists including Gordin translated their texts in the characteristic Daily Sun language.
Gordin’s world couldn’t be further away from the one his newspaper reflected. But as his colleague at the paper Vincent Pienaar wrote after his death, “Not only did he understand the ethos of the publication, he embraced it.”
The tabloid took on serious stories, too. During his tenure as the paper’s editor the Daily Sun broke the story of the death at the hands of police officers of Mozambican immigrant taxi driver Mido Macias. A reader had filmed his gratuitously brutal arrest and sent it to the newspaper. Eight police officers involved in the victim’s death in custody were ultimately sentenced to 15 years in prison.
After leaving the Daily Sun, Gordin took on a role coordinating the Wits Justice Project, a journalism program focused on the plight of innocent or unfairly treated prisoners. In 2011 he helped secure the release of Fusi Mofokeng and Tshokolo Joseph Mokoena, who had served 19 years in prison for a crime they didn’t commit.
Gordin’s many friends say that his sympathy for the underdog was inextricable from the Jewish traditions and attitudes he inherited.
Although not religiously observant, Gordin peppered his articles with Jewish stories and jokes and Yiddish words and expressions. His sense of humor was strongly influenced by his Jewishness, as it was the combination of principle and humorous compassion that defined his personality. He was extremely well-read and voraciously curious, loved to share what he discovered with friends and indulged in sassy but harmless gossip both in private and in his articles.
Sometimes, his Jewish identity and his journalism entwined as when, in 2016, he reported from Johannesburg about the extradition hearing of a Hasidic rabbi, Eliezer Berland, wanted in Israel on rape charges. His final column, published the day before his death, explained, and condemned, the proposed right-wing judicial reforms in Israel.
Rabbi Sa’ar Shaked of the Beit Emanuel Progressive Synagogue in Johannesburg said Gordin as a friend and “wild spirit” who didd’t regularly attend services but was a repeat guest speaker at the synagogue to discuss weekly Torah portions and a variety of aspects of Jewish history and law.
Despite not attending services regularly, Gordin’s role in the community is described as “very active” by Wendy Ovens, a South African health professional in the NGO sector who served with him on the management committee of Beit Emanuel in 2011.
“His knowledge on Judaism and Jewish history was incredible,” Ovens said. She said his Jewish identity fueled his core mission: “He was community-minded and believed in justice and in what was right.”
Gordin is survived by his wife, Deborah Blake, and his children, Jake and Nina.
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London Jewish Community Feels ‘Anxious’ but ‘Resilient’ as It Prepares for Potential Future Attacks
A person holds a sign near the scene where four ambulances belonging to Hatzola, a Jewish community organization, were set on fire in an incident that the police say is being treated as an antisemitic hate crime, in northwest London, Britain, March 23, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Isabel Infantes
The Jewish community in London is feeling “very anxious” while trying to stay vigilant and prepared for potential incidents in the future after four Hatzalah emergency vehicles were destroyed in an antisemitic arson attack last week, the president of the UK’s main Jewish umbrella organization said on Sunday.
“We’ve had two-and-a half-years of very high levels of antisemitism, obviously, the deadly attack at Heaton Park Synagogue in Manchester just in October, and now this incident, an arson attack in the heart of London’s Jewish community in Golders Green,” Phil Rosenberg of the Board of Deputies of British Jews said during an appearance on “BBC London Politics.”
“It is nonetheless a very resilient and proud community, and we are looking at how we push back and build back stronger,” Rosenberg added.
Roughly 150,000 Jewish people live in London.
Rosenberg, a deputy at a north London synagogue and former Labour councillor in Camden, was also asked about the British government’s response to the arson attack. He said that, with help from the government, the Jewish community in London is now equipped with specialist kits designed to help during future attacks, including equipment that could help with chemical exposure. The equipment was provided through a £28.4 million government grant to the Community Security Trust (CST), a Jewish charity that safeguards the safety and security of Jews across the UK.
“On the way here, I was looking at my WhatsApps. I saw one come in from my synagogue, and it was talking not about the great services we put on, the outreach to local communities, the wonderful art and charity that we do, but about a series of kits we’ve just received that will help the community if there’s an attack to stem the flow of blood, or if there’s a chemical attack. That is the situation we’re facing,” Rosenberg explained.
“It’s sad that it’s needed, though,” he added. “Because what we need to do is prevent this and create a situation where those things are not the things we’re talking about, and those are not the things we need. We want to be celebrating the Jewish community, and all communities in this city, and not [be] in fear of those sorts of attacks happening.”
Last year, there were over 1,800 antisemitic incidents in London, according to data compiled by CST. When asked if the Jewish community believes the government is doing enough to tackle the issue of antisemitism, Rosenberg said the response is “mixed.” He noted the speed at which the British government provided replacements vehicles for the Hatzalah ambulances destroyed last week and other moves by the government, like proscribing the pro-Hamas group Palestine Action.
“The government still needs to go further,” Rosenberg added, before calling for British leaders to proscribe Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and to take more action to combat hatred flourishing on social media, among other issues.
“We’ve seen in our society a growth of extremism … and we are very concerned that we are seeing society being pulled apart,” he said. “We need to come together, among all communities, to push back against hatred in all its forms, including antisemitism, and marginalize those extremists.”
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Antisemitic Acts in Australia Persist With Car Attack, Statue Vandalism
A suspect commits vandalism outside the Victorian Trades Hall on March 6. Photo: Facebook screenshot.
Law enforcement in Australia has launched investigations into multiple recent antisemitic incidents, including a car attack on Hasidic men on Saturday and the vandalism earlier this month of a statue honoring an Australian Jewish feminist.
The Victoria branch of the Community Security Group (CSG), an organization focused on protecting local Jews, released a statement on Saturday alerting the community of an incident in Melbourne “on Glen Eira Road, Ripponlea, where a vehicle swerved towards community members while occupants shouted antisemitic remarks.”
The CSG reported that “Victoria Police patrols were active in the area and responded to the scene rapidly. There are no reports of physical injuries. CSG is liaising closely with police and continuing to monitor the situation.”
Ripponlea has a significant Haredi population with members of the Adass Israel community comprising 15.2 percent of the population. The neighborhood has seen other recent antisemitic incidents, including the bombing of the group’s synagogue in December 2024.
The suspects — four women — allegedly drove a black Hyundai stolen on Wednesday from a home in the Caulfield suburb. Victoria police confirmed they had opened an investigation and received reports of other incidents involving the antisemitic occupants driving erratically and throwing eggs at people while yelling abuse.
“Those responsible are brazen, bold, and appear to act with impunity,” Naomi Levin, the CEO of the Jewish Community Council of Victoria (JCCV), told The Australian.
On Friday, Victoria Police announced the arrests of seven women alleged to have vandalized the statue of Zelda D’Aprano — a Jewish Australian feminist — outside the Victorian Trades Hall on March 6 at approximately 11:00 am.
In a statement, law enforcement described the women as part of an activist group and listed their ages as ranging between 34 and 71. The police stated that security footage showed that the vandals pulled out umbrellas to conceal their identities as they sprayed black and red paint on the statue. They also hung a “difficult woman” apron.
D’Aprano worked as an advocate for women’s rights from the 1950s through the 1980s and co-founded the Women’s Action Committee in 1970. She was known to have chained herself to a government building in 1969 to advocate equal pay for women. Her statue was unveiled in 2023.
The activists face charges of “criminal damage, behaving in a riotous manner in a public place, marking graffiti on a residence without consent, recklessly damaging part of a registered place without a permit, and refusing to leave scheduled public place after a warning.” An eighth suspect remains at large.
So far, the only named suspect is Jemima Demanuele, 34, who appeared in a Melbourne court on Friday and was reportedly on bail for another protesting offense.
Victoria Police officer Tiffany Lamesta pushed back on releasing Demanuele, saying that “the accused has been given bail for the last incident but is showing no respect for court orders” and warning that “police believe the accused will continue to offend if she’s granted bail.”
Demanuele is currently on paid leave from her position at St Vincent’s Hospital as staff conduct a Fair Work investigation.
Magistrate Michelle Hodgson granted Demanuele bail and instructed her that “there is no issue with protest, but it must be lawful, it must not endanger the safety and welfare of other persons and it must not cause property damage.”
Police have not yet stated a motive for the vandalism. Photographs from the scene show multiple members of the group wearing black and white keffiyehs, the symbol of anti-Israel militancy popularized by the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
Antisemitism surged in Australia following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks across southern Israel. On Feb. 24, Australia announced the creation of a Royal Commission led by retired judge Virginia Bell to investigate antisemitism in the country following the murder of 15 Jews at Bondi Beach in December.
Bell said that the commission needs to “investigate the security arrangements for that event, and to report on whether our intelligence and law enforcement agencies performed to maximum effectiveness.”
Australia’s intelligence authorities revealed last year that the Islamic regime in Iran had directed antisemitic acts in the country using cryptocurrency to compensate criminals, prompting the expulsion of Iran’s Ambassador Ahmad Sadeghi and three other officials.
On Friday, the CSG and JCCV released an annual report on antisemitism in Australia’s Victoria state, documenting 564 incidents, the highest number ever recorded.
“Behind each of these reports is a Jewish person,” Levin said. “A child in school uniform abused on a school excursion, a man in a kippah verbally abused on public transport, a worshipper arriving at synagogue to find hateful words painted on its walls, a business owner wiping racist symbols off their window before opening for the day.”
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French Authorities Foil, Probe Paris Bomb Plot in One of Europe’s Latest Suspected Iran-Linked Attacks
A private security member stands next to a police van outside Bank of America’s Paris offices, after French anti-terrorism prosecutors opened an investigation into attempted destruction by fire or other dangerous means in Paris, France, March 30, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Benoit Tessier
French authorities are investigating a suspected link to Iran after foiling a bomb attack outside a Bank of America building in Paris over the weekend, in one of the latest terrorist plots to heighten fears of further Iran-linked attacks across Europe amid war in the Middle East.
On Monday, French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez confirmed investigators are looking into a possible connection to Iran, citing similarities between the foiled attack and a string of recent attempted terrorist plots across Europe claimed by a pro‑Iran group.
“Authorities are drawing a direct link to Iran, since the modus operandi mirrors attacks recently carried out in the Netherlands and Belgium,” Nuñez told the French radio station RTL, referring to a synagogue set ablaze in Rotterdam and another damaged in an explosion in Liège earlier this month.
Known as Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamia, which translates to the Islamic Movement of the Companions of the Right, the group has also taken responsibility for a shocking attack in London last week, torching four ambulances belonging to a Jewish community organization.
Although no government has formally acknowledged or verified the existence of the group or its alleged operations, the repeated claims have raised concerns about a potentially coordinated network targeting Jewish communities across Europe amid heightened tensions and fears of Iranian retaliation and possible sleeper-cell activity linked to the war in the Middle East.
In this latest incident, local police in Paris spotted two suspects on Saturday near the Bank of America building in the city’s 8th arrondissement — a central district near major government offices and embassies — just moments after they had planted a homemade explosive device, with one of the men preparing to ignite it with a lighter.
Shortly after authorities thwarted the attempted attack, France’s anti-terrorism prosecutor’s office opened an investigation for “attempted damage by fire or dangerous means in connection with a terrorist enterprise.”
Since then, five suspects — including three minors and two adults — have been arrested on alleged terrorism-related offenses as investigators work to determine whether the plot was coordinated from abroad and linked to a wider network.
According to French media reports, the suspects were recruited via Snapchat and offered 600 euros to carry out the operation — a tactic officials say reflects a modus operandi increasingly used by Iranian intelligence services to operate indirectly and discreetly without formally implicating Tehran.
“Typically, Iran’s intelligence services operate in this way: They use proxies, a series of subcontractors, often common criminals, to carry out highly targeted actions aimed at US interests, the interests of the Jewish community, or Iranian opposition figures,” Nuñez said.
As the US–Israeli war with Iran continues to escalate, Nuñez also said authorities have dramatically ramped up security around key figures and sensitive sites, including providing personal protection to some Iranian opposition members.