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Jewish teens in South Africa, where crime and Israel criticism are sky-high, see little future at home
This article was produced as part of JTA’s Teen Journalism Fellowship, a program that works with Jewish teens around the world to report on issues that affect their lives.
(JTA) — When she was in sixth grade, Kiara Cohen decided she was going to leave South Africa.
At a Shabbat gathering held by the youth organization Bnei Akiva in Kempton Park, Johannesburg, she was on the way to fill her water bottle when a few adults on the other side of the fence from her campgrounds told her they were going to assault and kill her and her friends because she was Jewish. The scared 12-year-old decided on the spot that she wanted to live somewhere where antisemitism wasn’t tolerated.
Now 16, Cohen still has her marks set on leaving South Africa after university — a move that would make her typical of her country’s Jews. Since 1970, the number of Jews in South Africa, home to the continent’s largest Jewish population, fell by 60%, to 50,000, according to the Institute for Jewish Policy Research. Many of those who depart head to Israel, where anyone who is Jewish may immigrate. In 2021, a full 1% of Jewish South Africans moved to Israel — the highest aliyah rate in South Africa’s history.
And that was before the current Israel-Hamas war, in which South African leaders have been taken an aggressive anti-Israel stance. The country has brought genocide charges against Israel in the International Court of Justice and threatened to prosecute South Africans who serve in the Israel Defense Forces. It has also welcomed a Hamas leader for an official visit since Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7.
“The main antisemitism I feel that makes me want to leave this country is the government,” said Danni Hellman, 16, of Johannesburg. “They are anti-Israel and not exactly fond of Jews. I know every country in the world has its problems but when the hate comes from inside the people who are in power it is not exactly easy to want to stay.”
JTA interviewed 20 Jewish high school students from Johannesburg about their future plans. Eighty percent said they are planning to leave South Africa. More than half of them, 55%, said they are leaving after they graduate from high school. Another quarter said they would head for the border after graduating from college.
While some, like Hellman, said the country’s stance toward Israel is contributing to their thinking, most cited more pragmatic concerns: a lack of opportunities for their future and a desire to escape South Africa’s high crime rate. Overwhelmingly, they felt safety concerns about being Jews in South Africa.
“As a young Jew I am planning to leave South Africa due to the antisemitism and due to the social, political and economic circumstances in the country,’’ said Eitan Klein, 16. Last February, while gaming online, Klein was called an antisemitic slur by a South African Palestinian supporter. He said he wants to avoid experiencing that kind of harassment in person by making aliyah and joining the IDF after graduating high school — no matter what the war situation is in Israel.
The Jewish community in South Africa dates to the 19th century, with the immigration of a small number of Jews from Great Britain. Diamond- and gold-mining drew a significant number of Jews in the late 1800s, especially from Eastern Europe, changing the South African Jewish community and forming a strong connection to Zionism. As the 20th century began, Eastern European Jewish immigration continued, and as World War II approached, there were slightly more than 90,000 Jewish people in the country.
During the Holocaust, South Africa implemented an immigration quota that banned Eastern European Jews from entering the country. Despite the ban, 3,615 German Jews came to South Africa. The community kept growing and hit its highest point at 118,200 in 1970. The numbers started going down after 1970, according to South African Jewish Board of Deputies.
The current exodus follows the demise of apartheid in the early 1990s, which while ending years of fiercely racist discrimination against the country’s Black population also ushered in a period of rising crime and economic uncertainty. As many as 1 million white South Africans emigrated between 1995 and 2005; currently whites make up about 4.5 million of a total population of about 57 million.
Several of the teens interviewed said they saw a lack of opportunity in South Africa for future generations. Over 50% of the population lives in poverty and nearly 19% lives in extreme poverty, according to the World Bank. South Africa is also struggling with an extremely high unemployment rate of 33%, daily power cuts, extensive corruption in public entities and high crime rates. Last year, a prominent Jewish South African journalist was murdered in a home invasion — shortly after writing in a column that he thought his young adult children should abandon their country and move abroad.
“It is common knowledge that young Jews are leaving South Africa,” said Rabbi Mendel Rabinowitz of Johannesburg’s based Victory Park synagogue. He said he understood why most young Jews would rather study overseas and use those qualifications to get a job elsewhere, rather than deal with the high unemployment in South Africa.
“The reality is that it’s easier to get into some of the overseas universities than it is to get into South African universities,” he said.
The teens also say vociferous opposition to Israel is palpable in their daily lives. The country’s Israel boycott campaign rebranded as “Africa 4 Palestine” campaign in 2020 and promotes the idea on billboards around the country that Israelis stole Palestinian land. And last year, Aishah Cassiem, a South African politician and member of the provincial legislature, said that Herzlia, the local Jewish school in Cape Town, should be deregistered because a quarter of the school’s graduated students made aliyah and joined the IDF.
She compared the school to the “apartheid state of Israel” during a debate in Parliament.
Herzlia High School in Cape Town, South Africa. In June, a South African politician called for the school to be deregistered over the fact that nearly a quarter of the school’s graduating students move to Israel and join the military. (United Herzlia Schools)
“You can’t just attack one school for making aliyah and joining the IDF,” said Johannesburg teen Tali Bloch, in response to Cassiem’s remarks. “Jews all over the world do this and if this is the reason this school should be deregistered then it’s disgusting and makes me feel irritated and beyond furious.”
Bloch, 16, wants to move to London after high school. “I feel connected to Judaism here in South Africa but I don’t see the county as a place where I want to raise my kids. I just don’t see a future here.”
Not all Johannesburg teens want to leave. “I love my South Africa heritage and definitely think of this country as my home,” said Sam Bonner, 17. “I wouldn’t leave unless I absolutely had to.”
Bonner is active in the Zionist youth group Habonim Dror. “I found my connection to Judaism through youth groups. I found Habonim Dror, and my connection to Judaism only grew stronger,” said Bonner.
Brent Levine, 17, of Johannesburg is also passionate about being Jewish, but says he can’t fully embrace his Judaism while in South Africa because he hasn’t found a group of people with whom he feels comfortable expressing this aspect of himself.
“I’m moving to Israel after I matriculate because it is easier for me as a young Jewish man to fulfill the quest of finding myself spiritually as a Jew,’’ he said.
Levine, a volunteer for Medi Response ambulance service, a medical group in Johannesburg, said his plans haven’t changed with the current situation in Israel, where Israel is seeking to eliminate Hamas after the deadly attacks of Oct. 7. “If I had the opportunity to go to Israel to help fight the war I would,” said Levine.
And for many teens, the pressing issues of the moment pale in comparison to their longer-term concerns.
“This country is questionable at best,” said Hellman, who plans to pursue an acting career in London or Amsterdam after graduating from high school. “If I want kids, I don’t want them to grow up here and I want them to have better opportunities.”
JTA fellow (Fall 2022) Ella Bilu provided reporting and editing assistance on this piece
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The post Jewish teens in South Africa, where crime and Israel criticism are sky-high, see little future at home appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Incoming US Senate Majority Leader Threatens ICC With Sanctions Over Arrest Warrant for Netanyahu
An exterior view of the International Criminal Court in the Hague, Netherlands, March 31, 2021. Photo: REUTERS/Piroschka van de Wouw
Incoming US Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) has threatened to push legislation imposing sanctions on the International Criminal Court (ICC) if it does not halt its efforts to pursue arrest warrants against Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Thune, who was picked last week to be the next Senate majority leader once the Republicans take control of the legislative chamber in January, wrote Sunday on X/Twitter that he will make it a “top priority” to punish the ICC if it refuses to walk back its arrest warrant application issued against Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. The US lawmaker also indicated he would take action if Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), the current Senate majority leader, does not do so against the intergovernmental organization.
“If the ICC and its prosecutor do not reverse their outrageous and unlawful actions to pursue arrest warrants against Israeli officials, the Senate should immediately pass sanctions legislation, as the House has already done on a bipartisan basis,” he wrote. “If Majority Leader Schumer does not act, the Senate Republican majority will stand with our key ally Israel and make this — and other supportive legislation ‚ a top priority in the next Congress.”
In May, the ICC chief prosecutor officially requested arrest warrants for the Israeli premier, Gallant, and three Hamas terrorist leaders — Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Al-Masri, and Ismail Haniyeh — accusing all five men of “bearing criminal responsibility” for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Israel or the Gaza Strip. The three Hamas leaders have since been killed, and Gallant was recently fired as Israel’s defense minister.
US and Israeli officials subsequently issued blistering condemnations of the ICC move, decrying the court for drawing a moral equivalence between Israel’s democratically elected leaders and the heads of Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist group that launched the ongoing war in Gaza with its massacre across southern Israel last Oct. 7.
ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan has come under fire for making his surprise demand for arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant on the same day in May that he suddenly canceled a long-planned visit to both Gaza and Israel to collect evidence of alleged war crimes. The last-second cancellation infuriated US and British leaders, according to Reuters, which reported that the trip would have offered Israeli leaders a first opportunity to present their position and outline any action they were taking to respond to the war crime allegations.
Thune’s Republican colleagues praised his threat to the ICC, suggesting that the Senate should target the international organization.
“Well done Senator Thune. The ICC’s actions against Israel have been outrageous, and an independent review into the prosecutor’s actions is more than called for,” wrote Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC). :The Senate should take up the ICC sanctions bill that passed the House in a bipartisan manner. Standing up for Israel today protects America tomorrow.”
“The Senate must immediately pass legislation to sanction the International Criminal Court,” stated Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY.), chair of the Senate Republican Conference. “Senate Republicans stands with Israel.”
“The Senate Foreign Relations Committee can and should act ASAP to pass ICC sanctions legislation. We waited for months for the majority to schedule the vote only to have them postpone it before the election. We will not fail to act when Republicans are in the majority,” wrote Sen. John Risch (R-ID), the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) wrote that the Senate “should immediately consider the bipartisan legislation passed by the House to sanction the ICC.”
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AK) added that Thune is “right” and that “Chuck Schumer should do his job” by advancing legislation to sanction the ICC.
The US has said it does not recognize the ICC’s jurisdiction and rejects the implied equivalence drawn between Israel and Hamas.
The post Incoming US Senate Majority Leader Threatens ICC With Sanctions Over Arrest Warrant for Netanyahu first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Concordia closes its Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies, citing ‘budgetary constraints’
It was announced quietly, wit a small, two-paragraph notice replacing the web page for Concordia University’s Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies (MIGS), along with an unrelated stock […]
The post Concordia closes its Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies, citing ‘budgetary constraints’ appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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Jamaal Bowman Continues Diatribes Against Israel, AIPAC; Expresses Pride in Not Condemning Oct. 7 Massacre
US Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) speaks during the National Action Network National Convention in New York City, US, April 7, 2022. Photo: REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz
In his final weeks as a US federal lawmaker, Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) has continued his persistent condemnation of Israel, accusing the Jewish state of perpetrating “apartheid” against Palestinians, expressing pride in not supporting a resolution condemning Hamas’s massacre across southern Israel last Oct. 7, and arguing against the funding of Israel’s Iron Dome air defense system.
During a newly released interview with left-wing pundit Rania Khalek, Bowman reflected on his unsuccessful reelection bid earlier this year. The lawmaker blamed the “pro-Israel lobby” for his loss in the Democratic primary, claiming that his outspokenness about the ongoing Israel-Hamas war made him a target for “Zionists.”
Bowman, one of the staunchest critics of Israel in the US Congress, argued that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a prominent pro-Israel lobbying group, overwhelmed his campaign by spending roughly $15 million to aid his opponent, Westchester County Executive George Latimer. He added that his constituents were stunned that a “special interest” group such as AIPAC “can remove a congressman” by submerging a primary race in a torrent of money.
“Now the world has seen AIPAC for who they are,” Bowman stated.
The stated mission of AIPAC is to seek bipartisan support to strengthen the US-Israel relationship.
Bowman admitted that he did not know much about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict when he initially ran for office, opting to parrot talking points such as Israel “has a right to exist” and a “right to defend itself.”
Bowman said that his opinion on Israel was transformed after he visited the country on a trip sponsored by J Street, a progressive Zionist organization that recently called for the US to impose an arms embargo against the Jewish state. The left-wing firebrand said that the trip — which consisted of a series of discussions with peace activists, scholars, and former Israel Defense Force (IDF) officers — soured his view of the Jewish state, comparing the security checkpoints and barrier wall that separate Israel and the West Bank to protect against terrorism with the Jim Crow laws in the US south segregating black Americans.
Khalek asked Bomwan if his view on Iron Dome has shifted, citing that the missile interception system “shields Israel from the consequences for bombing all of its neighbors, for constantly stealing land.”
The congressman claimed that his view on Israel’s air defense system has changed, arguing that it represents “a weapon to use and continue apartheid, oppression, open-air prison, occupation, and now the genocide” of Palestinians. He said that he regrets voting in favor of Iron Dome funding, and that the missile defense system should only be replenished if the Palestinians are given a fully-funded army on Israel’s borders.
Bowman also criticized a congressional resolution condemning the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s massacre across southern Israel last Oct. 7, suggesting that AIPAC authored the document. He dismissed the notion that the mass murder, rape, and kidnapping of Israelis on Oct. 7 was “unprovoked,” claiming that Israel initiated the aggression by enacting “apartheid” on Palestinians. He then lambasted American governors, senators, and President Joe Biden for immediately showing empathy to Israelis, saying that legislators were being “dishonest” and not having a “full conversation” about the Jewish state.
In the year following the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, Bowman intensified his rhetoric against Israel and pro-Israel organizations. Over the summer, he condemned AIPAC as a “Zionist regime.” In a desperate attempt to salvage his ill-fated primary effort, he promise the Democratic Socialists of America — a prominent far-left organization that has made anti-Israel activism a top priority — that he would vote against future Iron Dome funding in exchange for financial backing of his campaign. Bowman infamously dismissed the widely reported and corroborated allegations of Hamas terrorists raping Israeli women during the Oct. 7 onslaught as “propaganda” before being forced to walk back his remarks.
In June, Latimer cruised to a commanding victory over Bowman, winning by a margin of 58 percent to 41 percent.
The post Jamaal Bowman Continues Diatribes Against Israel, AIPAC; Expresses Pride in Not Condemning Oct. 7 Massacre first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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