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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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Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie team up to strip US-Israel military tech cooperation from defense bill
(JTA) — In one of the latest examples of political extremes converging over Israel, Reps. Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie joined forces this week to challenge a provision expanding U.S.-Israel defense cooperation.
Khanna, a progressive California Democrat, and Massie, a Kentucky Republican, both said over the weekend that they would seek to remove a provision from the House’s annual defense bill that would expand U.S.-Israeli defense technology cooperation.
“If the provision in the NDAA to integrate/synchronize the U.S. and Israeli militaries (section 224) makes it out of committee, I’ll offer an amendment to strip it from the bill on the floor,” Massie, who lost his bid for reelection last month against a President Donald Trump-endorsed primary opponent, wrote in a post on X. “We are a sovereign country…”
The section of the National Defense Authorization Act for 2027 that Khanna and Massie have taken aim at would require the Secretary of Defense to designate an “executive agent responsible for synchronizing cooperative efforts between the United States and Israel, including bilateral defense technology research, development, testing, evaluation, integration, and industrial cooperation.”
The cross-ideological alliance marked the latest instance of the progressive Democrat and libertarian Republican finding common cause on Israel-related foreign policy, after the pair previously teamed up to oppose U.S. involvement in Israel’s war in Iran last year.
The pledge by Massie, a leading anti-Israel Republican in Congress, was quickly joined by Khanna, who has been staunchly critical of Israel’s conduct during the war in Gaza and recently opposed American funding for Israel’s Iron Dome defense system.
“And I will be offering an amendment in the committee itself to strip section 224 out, @RepThomasMassie,” Khanna wrote in a post on X. “Trump can’t kill the Massie/Khanna partnership no matter how much he posts on Truth Social.”
Khanna lamented Massie’s primary loss on NBC’s “Meet the Press” last month, telling the outlet that he had been “taken out” because of the pair’s collaboration on opposing the war in Iran and the Epstein Transparency Act.
“Thomas is a real friend. He’s a good man, and he was taken out for two reasons,” Khanna said. “One, he had the courage to go after some very powerful people in working with me to get the Epstein Transparency Act passed. As he mentioned, that’s historic bipartisan legislation that finally got justice for the survivors, and he had people spend millions of dollars, and had the President of the United States after him. And second, he worked with me to stop this war in Iran.”
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Hasan Piker blames Israel after UK bars him from entry, citing ‘potential risk’
(JTA) — Leading British Jewish groups are applauding the UK government’s decision to bar the influential anti-Israel streamer Hasan Piker as well as his controversial uncle Cenk Uygur from entering the country.
The British interior ministry revoked Piker’s and Uygur’s travel authorizations on Monday, saying in a statement that “their presence in the UK may not be conducive to the public good.”
The ministry’s statement did not specify its concerns about the men but added that decisions to refuse or cancel ETAs are based “solely on an assessment of the potential risk an individual may pose to UK society.”
The revocations follow advocacy by Jewish groups against Piker’s planned appearance this week at the South by Southwest London festival, where he was due to speak on “How the American Left Learned to Speak the Internet.”
A number of Jewish groups urged the government to block Piker’s entry. The Community Security Trust said that he “has a record of promoting rhetoric that includes antisemitic themes, denial of well documented atrocities and apparent support for extremist groups.” Last week, a lawmaker from the Labour party, David Taylor, publicly called on the Home Office to revoke Piker’s visa.
Piker has also drawn sharp opposition from U.S. Jewish groups in recent months, as he has played an increasingly prominent role in advocating for progressive Democrats. His critics note that he has said he prefers Hamas to Israel and said “I don’t have an issue” with Hezbollah. Hamas and Hezbollah are considered terrorist groups under UK law.
In social media posts, both Piker and Uygur blamed Israel for their being barred from entering the UK.
“I’ve been banned for criticizing Israel. Are we free anymore?” Uygur tweeted, in one of multiple posts making the claim. “This is oppression of Western citizens by our own governments on behalf of a different country!” He later said it was “an honor to have made Israel’s enemies list.”
Piker responded to his uncle’s post on X, saying, “The uk has revoked my visa as well. all at the behest of israel. the west is betraying ‘liberal values’ for a genocidal fascist foreign government. soon we will all become Israel.”
The revocations come as the British government is under extreme pressure to demonstrate strong opposition to antisemitism, following a string of attacks that have unsettled British Jews. In recent weeks, the government has allocated new resources for security in Jewish communities and canceled the travel authorization for Ye, the American musician with a history of antisemitic remarks and a recent single called “Heil Hitler.”
Multiple Jewish leaders said they were pleased that the government had moved to block Piker’s entry.
“The government is right to ban those who seek to spread hatred from entering the UK,” the Jewish Leadership Council’s director of public affairs, Russell Langer, said in a statement. He added, “When Jews are being stabbed on the streets of London and Manchester, we should not be importing more antisemitism into this country.”
The acting president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, Adrian Cohen, applauded the decision in a statement. “Where there is clear risk of individuals breaking UK laws and stoking community tensions, by showing support for banned terrorist groups or inciting hatred, and where event organisers have failed to show responsibility, it is right that government step in,” he said.
And the CST said that while criticizing Israel can be legitimate, Piker had exceeded the bounds of acceptable discourse.
“There must be consequences when public figures cross into hate speech,” the group said in a statement. “Piker has a record that goes far beyond robust or controversial political speech, including rhetoric that contains antisemitic themes, the denial of well-documented atrocities and language that risks fuelling antisemitism.”
The interior ministry said anyone who has an ETA revoked can apply for a visa, which would afford them a reconsideration.
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New York’s Israel Day parade was a shanda — but not because of Mamdani
Mayor Zohran Mamdani made the right decision in skipping the city’s annual Israel Day Parade — because of the specific Israeli officials the parade honored.
American Jews have the right to celebrate Israel’s existence, if they find it to be a meaningful part of their personal Jewish identities. But Mamdani’s specific decision not to march in this specific parade, this year, alongside far-right ministers Bezalel Smotrich, Amichai Chikli and Ofir Sofer, is defensible. Those painting that choice as a sign of antisemitism have a lot of explaining to do about whose company they choose to keep.
Chikli, Israel’s minister of diaspora affairs and combating antisemitism — the man who is supposed to be the voice of diaspora Jews in Israel — has used his platform to spread hatred. He has described LGBTQ+ Pride events as “disgraceful vulgarity”; courted far-right European extremists like Tommy Robinson while parroting their Islamophobic statements; and called antisemitic dog whistles deployed against George Soros by the like of Elon Musk “anything but antisemitism” — while serving as the minister tasked with combating antisemitism.
His behavior has been so outrageous that in 2025, hostage families and Jewish community leaders across Europe signed letters calling him an “inappropriate representative,” citing his statements calling for the expulsion of people from Gaza and southern Lebanon, which they said amounted to support for ethnic cleansing.
Smotrich’s record of inflammatory statements is even more extensive. In 2023, he called for the Palestinian village of Hawara in the West Bank to be destroyed by the state, saying “I think the village of Hawara needs to be wiped out” shortly after a shocking settler attack there that some compared to a pogrom. The United States State Department decried those remarks as “repugnant” and “disgusting.”
Smotrich has since called for Gaza to be emptied of its Palestinian population, and has spearheaded the radical expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, advocating for annexation with the explicit intent of preventing the establishment of a Palestinian state. He himself says the International Criminal Court’s Office of the Prosecutor has reportedly filed a secret arrest warrant application against him for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in the occupied West Bank.
At the Sunday parade, Smotrich approvingly told attendees that the event reminded him of the Jerusalem Flag March, an ultra-nationalist procession where participants this year chanted “Death to Arabs” and attacked Palestinian residents.
And Ofir Sofer, Israel’s immigration and absorption minister, has called for changes to Israel’s Law of Return, complaining that many new immigrants to Israel are not Jewish under Orthodox halachic standards. His vision of Israel includes no room for Reform Jews, secular Jews or partial-heritage Jews.
These are the people Mamdani was supposed to join in celebration?
Mamdani did not refuse to celebrate Jewish life. He refused to endorse these deeply problematic Israeli officials by appearing alongside them. That is not a slap in the face to Jewish New Yorkers. It is, if anything, a gesture of respect toward the many Jewish New Yorkers, including me, who find Chikli, Smotrich and Sofer an embarrassment and a threat to the diverse, pluralistic, egalitarian Judaism we actually practice.
Mamdani has stated clearly that he believes Israel has a right to exist, although not as a hierarchy that favors Jewish citizens over others. He has backed his administration’s Office to Combat Antisemitism and proposed expanded funding for hate crime prevention. He guaranteed a robust police presence at the Israel parade, spending weeks planning to ensure it proceeded, in his words, “seamlessly and peacefully” — as it did.
None of this fits the profile of an antisemite.
And those who criticized Mamdani’s refusal to participate are failing to grapple with an important truth: Mamdani’s politics, whatever one thinks of them, are not alien to American Jewish life. They are, instead, increasingly central to it.
A poll by the Jewish Voter Resource Center, released just this week, found that almost half of American Jews under 35 support a binational state: a single country in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, governed by all its inhabitants together. Among non-Orthodox Jews under 35, that figure reaches 51%.
This is not a fringe position on the left flank of the community. It is a near-majority position among the next generation of American Jews. Add to that the fact that a 2025 survey by Jewish Federations of North America — not a left-wing organization — found that only 37% of American Jews overall identify as Zionist at all, while among young Jews aged 18 to 34, the share identifying as anti-Zionist or non-Zionist has reached nearly a third.
As J Street president Jeremy Ben-Ami put it: “The growing disaffection of younger Jewish Americans from Israel is a direct consequence of the policies of Bibi Netanyahu and the way the American Jewish establishment has demanded an ‘Israel right or wrong’ loyalty.”
When we ask whether Mamdani’s absence alienates Jewish New Yorkers, we need to ask: which Jewish New Yorkers? Did Mamdani marginalize himself from American Jewish life — or did the parade organizers, by welcoming these ministers, marginalize themselves from a large and growing portion of it?
The questions at the heart of this controversy — what Zionism means, whether anti-Zionism is compatible with Jewish solidarity, and how to honor Israeli independence while acknowledging Palestinian catastrophe — are genuine, difficult and deeply contested. I have colleagues I respect on multiple sides. I have family members who would disagree with everything I have written here.
But a parade is the worst possible venue for this conversation. A parade is not a symposium. It is not a town hall. It is a celebration, a statement of solidarity, an embodiment of a particular political position. Attending it is an endorsement of that position. And when the parade features ministers who demean Reform Jews, court European neo-fascists, advocate for the further reduction of Palestinian rights and liberties, and favor restricting who counts as Jewish enough to return to a Jewish state, the act of marching becomes an endorsement of those things, too.
We do need richer, more honest, more nuanced conversations about Zionism, anti-Zionism, Israel, and diaspora Jewish identity. Those conversations are happening, in synagogues, in classrooms and in the pages of Jewish publications like this one. They deserve serious venues and serious interlocutors.
Fifth Avenue on a Sunday afternoon, with Chikli, Bezalel and Sofer as honored guests, is not that venue.
Mamdani was right to decline to issue that endorsement. To the Jewish establishment that has called him an antisemite for it: I would ask you, with all due respect, to look again at who you invited to the party.
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