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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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Gal Gadot’s $1 Million Genesis Prize to Be Doubled to Help Israelis With Trauma Post-Oct. 7
Actor Gal Gadot gestures during the unveiling ceremony for her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in Los Angeles, California, US, March 18, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni
The Genesis Prize Foundation (GPF) and the Jewish Funders Network (JFN) launched on Sunday a $2 million matching grant program in honor of 2026 Genesis Prize Laureate Gal Gadot to help Israeli healing with emotional and physical trauma in the aftermath of the deadly terrorist attack in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, the subsequent Israel-Hamas war, and now the ongoing war with Iran.
The initiative was spearheaded by Gadot, who was announced as the recipient of this year’s $1 million Genesis Prize in November 2025. The Genesis Prize Foundation has committed $1 million to the prize award, and members of JFN and other donors are expected to contribute at least $1 million more through participation in the new matching program.
The $2 million will be given to Israeli NGOs, nonprofits, and professionals who are helping Israelis in their long-term recovery from trauma and mental health issues. Participating NGOs must first secure funding contributions from individual donors or foundations, and can then apply to have those gifts matched by The Genesis Prize Foundation.
“The program will prioritize initiatives that train and develop frontline professionals, strengthen retention, well-being, and resilience among caregivers, expand human capital in mental health and community care, and deploy innovative tools that support and scale professional services,” GPF and JFN announced. “Emphasis will be placed on sustainability and long-term impact rather than short-term interventions.”
“At a time when Israel’s caregivers are stretched beyond capacity, we must ensure that those who are helping others heal receive the support they need,” said JFN President and CEO Andres Spokoiny. “JFN is proud to steward this collaborative effort, and we call on donors and foundations to join us in meeting these critical needs.”
“In this moment, and in honoring Gal Gadot, the most urgent investment we can make is in Israel’s human infrastructure: the therapists, educators, and caregivers who sustain national resilience, helping communities heal from the trauma of Oct. 7 and the ongoing conflict with Iran and Hezbollah,” said Stan Polovets, co-founder and chairman of The Genesis Prize Foundation. “Working with Jewish Funders Network allows us to mobilize philanthropy in a thoughtful, collaborative, and lasting way.”
The annual Genesis Prize is given to individuals “for their professional excellence, significant impact in their fields, and dedication to Jewish values.” Gadot was named this year’s Genesis Prize Laureate in recognition of her strong support and advocacy for her home country of Israel amid the Israel-Hamas war.
“I am humbled to receive the Genesis Prize and to stand alongside the amazing laureates who came before me,” she said last year. “I am a proud Jew and a proud Israeli. I love my country and dedicate this award to the organizations who will help Israel heal and to those incredible people who serve on the front lines of compassion. Israel has endured unimaginable pain. Now we must begin to heal – to rebuild hearts, families, and communities.”
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Harvard’s Jewish Enrollment Drops to Pre-World War II Levels, New Report Shows
Demonstrators take part in an “Emergency Rally: Stand With Palestinians Under Siege in Gaza,” amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US, Oct. 14, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Brian Snyder
Jewish undergraduate enrollment at Harvard University has plummeted to lows not seen since the eve of World War II and the Holocaust, falling to just 7 percent, according to a new report issued by the Harvard Jewish Alumni Alliance (HJAA) that describes the statistic as an “anomaly.”
“We want to be direct about what this report does and does not claim,” HJAA said in a statement. “It does not assert that Harvard intentionally discriminates against Jewish applicants. What it finds is something more specific and, we believe, more actionable.”
The group went on to deny that declining Jewish enrollment at Harvard is alone the result of racial preferences in admissions — popularly known as “affirmative action” — which, in the name of “diversity,” affords preferential consideration to applicants whose academic achievement and standardized test scores fall outside the range of the typical elite students who schools like Harvard select for membership in the Ivy League.
In 2023, the US Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that Harvard University’s racial preferences in its admissions policy violated the Constitution for its discriminatory effect on Asian American enrollment.
HJAA found a similar trend occurring at Yale University, which infamously adopted racial preferences under the leadership of President Kingman Brewster in the 1960s, despite growing evidence that the practice created an environment of academic maladjustment and racial division. This led to the creation of segregated programming and amenities for African Americans, as well as a summer remedial program for minority students — PROP (Pre-Orientation Program) — that was eventually rebranded in the late 1990s when its apparent subtext proved unpalatable to a new generation of students.
“Yale added 1,281 undergraduate seats in 2018. Hispanic, Asian, and Black enrollment all grew in absolute terms. Jewish enrollment fell by approximately 256 students,” the group stated. “The report tests seven structural explanations for this divergence, including geographic diversification, socioeconomic targeting, Asian enrollment growth, international expansion, and athletic recruitment, individually and in combination. None of them explains the gap.”
The first Jewish alumni association in the history of Harvard University, HJAA was formed in the fall of 2023 in response to Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel and the wave of antisemitism around the world that it triggered. The following month, more than 1,200 of its members signed a letter which gave notice to then-Harvard president Claudine Gay that Jewish community members would no longer walk delicately around the college administration when it comes to the issue of campus antisemitism.
The HJAA report came after Harvard last year released a major report on campus antisemitism along with an apology from new campus president Alan Garber which acknowledged that school officials failed in critical ways to address the hatred to which Jewish students were subjected following Hamas’s Oct. 7 atrocities.
Recent political developments have caused some Jewish students affiliated with the Ivy League to temper their criticisms of elite higher education due to concerns that it validates US President Donald Trump’s coupling addressing campus antisemitism with pursuing higher education reform preferred by political conservatives. In pursuing his policy agenda, Trump has cconfiscated billions of dollars of taxpayer-funded research grants from private universities.
Just last month, The Algemeiner covered Harvard University student Sarah Silverman’s scolding Trump during a hearing on campus antisemitism held by the US Commission on Civil Rights. Screaming the entirety of her seven-minute statement, she at one point charged that “policy described as protecting Jewish students did not make me feel protected,” adding, “In a deeply troubling way, I felt blamed. I knew I had done nothing wrong, but when decisions are made in your name without ever speaking to you but are affecting your academic community in extremely negative ways, you begin to worry that others believed you asked for these actions.”
Nonetheless, HJAA is calling on Harvard to hold itself accountable, unfettered by politics and outside commentary.
“What we are asking of Harvard is straightforward: count, audit, and report. Harvard already tracks enrollment by race, gender, income, and first-generation status,” the group said. Its president, Adrian Ashekenazy added, “This report is not an accusation. It is an invitation to build the infrastructure that makes accountability possible.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Top Iran Official Larijani Was No ‘Pragmatist,’ His Death Strikes Major Blow to Regime: Analysts
Ali Larijani, top Iranian national security official and former chairman of the parliament of Iran, attends a press conference after meeting with Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri in Beirut, Lebanon, Nov. 15, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Thaier Al-Sudani
Israel’s announcement that it had killed de facto Iranian leader Ali Larijani was cast by some Western analysts on Tuesday as a blow to any remaining chance of a ceasefire, but Israeli officials and Iran watchers pushed back sharply, arguing Larijani was not a pragmatic off-ramp figure but a central architect of the regime’s wartime strategy and internal repression.
Meir Ben-Shabbat, Israel’s former national security adviser, described Larijani’s removal as a significant escalation in the campaign against Iran’s leadership, arguing it further erodes the regime’s ability to function at the highest level.
“It is not merely a symbolic step,” he told The Algemeiner. “Larijani was considered one of the most influential figures in the Islamic regime … shaping Iran’s military and political responses. His elimination intensifies the regime’s disarray.”
The killing will severely impede the regime’s efforts to recover, Ben-Shabbat said, forcing its senior figures to lower their profile even further.
Larijani’s elimination, alongside that of other senior Basij officials, “sends a sharp and clear message to regime opponents and protesters: The opportunity to bring about change is real, perhaps even just around the corner,” Ben-Shabbat said.
Israel said it also killed Gholamreza Soleimani, the head of Iran’s Basij paramilitary force which is affiliated with the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The news of both killings was later confirmed by the regime in Tehran.
At the time of his death, Larijani had been overseeing multiple overlapping crises that defined Iran’s wartime posture.
The Iranian hardliner was deeply involved in shaping the country’s response to joint US-Israeli strikes, advocating for a long campaign and widening the conflict across the region, including pressure on Gulf states and maritime routes such as the Strait of Hormuz.
At the same time, Larijani was grappling with fallout from a surge of domestic unrest, which was met with a sweeping crackdown in January, killing tens of thousands of anti-regime protesters.
He was also managing Iran’s nuclear file, including stalled indirect talks with Washington that had already been thrown into disarray by the fighting. He previously played a central role in shepherding the Obama-led 2015 nuclear agreement between Iran and world powers — a deal later abandoned by US President Donald Trump.
Trained in Western philosophy, Larijani had close personal ties to the US, and his daughter, Fatemeh, lived and worked there as a doctor for more than a decade. Earlier on Monday, Larijani referred to the US as the “Great Satan” when he condemned the UAE and other Islamic countries for abandoning Iran.
“You know that America is not loyal and that Israel is your enemy,” Larijani said, arguing that “the unity of the Islamic ummah, if realized with full strength, can guarantee security, progress. and independence for all Islamic countries.”
“Iran continues on the path of resistance against the ‘Great Satan’ and the ‘Little Satan,’” he added, referring to the US and Israel, respectively.
Nevertheless, much of Western media has cast Larijani in more nuanced terms, often describing him as a pragmatic conservative or potential interlocutor with the West who could have played a role in future diplomacy.
The Guardian, citing a Middle East analyst, reported that Larijani was seen as a potential channel for any future diplomacy, someone who could have been tasked with advancing ceasefire discussions or follow-up talks with Washington.
“Larijani would have been the man to get that job done,” the newspaper cited Ellie Geranmayeh, an Iran expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations, as saying. She added that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s focus was on “on blocking Trump’s pathways” to ending the war.
Ron Malley, the former US special envoy for Iran, went further, describing him as “one of the smarter, maybe ‘pragmatic’ members of the leadership,” a figure some diplomats saw as capable of reengaging on nuclear talks.
BBC veteran correspondent John Simpson came under fire for casting Larijani as “clever and reasonable.”
“I’ve met Ali Larijani several times over the years. Yes, he was a top figure in a nasty regime,” Simpson wrote on X. “But he always seemed clever and reasonable – the kind of person you might want to negotiate a peace deal with.”
“Is it a good idea for Israel to take out people like him?” the journalist added.
Sima Shine, head of the Iran program at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, rejected portrayals of Larijani as a pragmatic counterweight within the regime, calling such characterizations “wishful” external projections to find a moderate figure inside the regime who could “take Iran on a different course.” She pointed instead to his record during the regime’s brutal crackdown on protesters earlier this year, saying “he was very much involved in the oppression of the Iranian people in January.”
Larijani was instrumental in reinforcing the regime’s strict religious and social controls, reshaping state broadcasting into a vehicle for official propaganda and targeting any reformist voices.
“He was nominated by [former Supreme Leader Ali] Khamenei to lead this operation not because he was a pragmatist, but because he could be counted on to stand fast and strong vis-à-vis the US and Israel,” she said on a call with reporters on Tuesday.
At the same time, Shine warned against assuming that removing senior figures would translate into a strategic breakthrough. “We’ve never succeeded in toppling a regime,” she said. “One cannot count on elimination as the main tool to a change of regime.”
Iran’s leadership, Shine continued, is “a system, not a person,” a structure built not only on senior officials but on institutions, coercive power, and a residual support base of “some millions that are still supporting the regime.”