In South Africa, antizionist agitators chose to target the Jewish community with protests and hate on 7 October, a day that marks the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. The protests were organised by South African Jews for a Free Palestine (SAJFP), who carried a shroud with the names of Palestinian children killed in Gaza. However, there was no mention of the children and other innocents who were slaughtered or taken hostage on 7 October.
The executive director of the South African Zionist Federation Cape Council, Joshua Schewitz, described the protests as "a week-long programme built around the anniversary of the 7 October massacre, culminating in an effort to appropriate a sacred site of Jewish remembrance and recast the meaning of the day itself". Schewitz expressed concern that the protests ended on the doorstep of a Holocaust memorial, allowing Cape Town residents to judge the intentions.
The Jewish community has held firm in response to the protests, with Daniel Bloch, executive director of the Cape South African Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD), stating that "7 October will not be erased. It will not be appropriated, rewritten, or inverted". The community has also taken to the streets in seven South African cities to confront denialism by placing seven documented, undeniable facts directly on the public record.
The SAJBD stated that the nationwide action was a direct answer to the intimidation experienced by the Jewish community. Over the past three years, South African Jews have faced organised boycotts, harassment, and aggressive attempts to silence anyone who speaks out. The Jewish community is stepping into the public square to make it clear that they will neither hide nor be intimidated.
Antizionists' targeting of Holocaust centres and Jewish institutions, the exclusion of Jewish victims from events purportedly concerned with human suffering, and the deliberate decision to stage protests on 7 October itself cannot be dismissed as coincidence, according to Bloch. He emphasised that 7 October began with the murder and abduction of innocent people, and that truth cannot be edited out of history.
The harassment and gaslighting of the community included a protest on Sea Point Promenade on 3 October, which coincided with Shabbat and Simchat Torah. About 1 000 people gathered in an attempt to intimidate the many Jewish Sea Point residents, with protesters shouting slogans and flying Hezbollah and Islamic Republic of Iran flags.
Several other antizionist events took place around the country, including a protest at the University of the Western Cape (UWC) on 6 October, where protesters shouted slogans and held signs with anti-Israel messages. Experts, including Milton Shain, an antisemitism expert and emeritus professor of history at the University of Cape Town, have condemned the protests as acts of painful insensitivity.
Key points
- Antizionist agitators targeted South African Jews with protests and hate on 7 October.
- The protests were organised by South African Jews for a Free Palestine (SAJFP).
- The Jewish community has held firm in response to the protests, confronting denialism and making it clear that they will neither hide nor be intimidated.
