Anti-Semitism skyrockets with violent assaults, including against a rabbi and school

On Tuesday, former Joburg mayor Thapelo Amad posted on X pictures of himself clutching an AK-47, and standing next to the flags of Hamas.

This is the same organisation that savagely killed 1 200 Israelis on 7 October and is holding 240 civilians hostage in Gaza.

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His post read: “We stand with Hamas, Hamas stands with us, we are Palestin (sic) and Palestin (sic) will be free. With our souls and with our blood, we will conquer Al AQSA.”

This violent image, coupled with his inflammatory words, leaves SA Jewry anxious and insecure.

I continue to be astonished at the levels of unbridled thuggery and bullying we are seeing against anyone daring to have a different view of the tragic war between Hamas and Israel.

Threats and intimidation

Unable to influence events on the ground, the anti-Israel lobby has embarked on a process to threaten and intimidate local Jewry – and indeed anyone who dares express any form of support for Israel.

Any attempt to project a different narrative is met with hysterical invective, intimidation and increasingly violence.

In Cape Town, a group of Christian leaders coming to pray for peace were violently confronted and forced to abandon their city-approved event on the Sea Point Promenade.

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Hamas supporters assaulted a pastor, breaking his finger, and beat a Jewish community member with a flag pole.

The week before, they had assaulted a group of Israel supporters who have been meeting weekly outside parliament for decades.

As the Economic Freedom Fighters’ Nazier Paulson put it, “here in CT we moer Zionists”. The thuggery isn’t only in Cape Town. In Alexandra a participant in a pro-Israel rally was beaten up, leaving him with a gaping wound that required hospitalisation.

Business targeted

Then there was the case of a Johannesburg billboard calling for the release of nine-month-old Kfir – one of over 240 civilians taken hostage by Hamas.

It was torn down by two men, who pulled a gun on the security guard who tried to stop them. When it was put up again, the men arrived with rifles, threatening the shops in the building where the billboard was hung, unless it was removed.

To date some two dozen Jewish-owned businesses are being targeted for boycotts. It is not even that the companies concerned are selling Israeli products – they sell locally-made ones.

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Instead, they are being targeted because they are founded, headed or owned by Jewish people. This is not aimed at assisting Palestinians, since it obviously does no such thing, but about trying to harm Jews, even if this means endangering people’s jobs.

Is the business community going to allow these threats to continue? Since the outbreak of the conflict, local anti-Semitism figures have skyrocketed, with incidents having increased tenfold.

Moreover, while in the past incidents seldom involved violence this, too, has changed. We have seen violent assaults outside synagogues and in the streets, including against a rabbi.

Threats against school

There have also been numerous threats of violence, including against Herzlia, the main Jewish day school in Cape Town. Among those orchestrating this hate is Pagad leader Abdus Salaam Ebrahim.

Addressing protesters outside the US Consulate in Sandton, he stated: “If we are serious, then we must fight wherever we find them.

“We must boycott them, we must go to their homes, we must go to their schools, where they train people to go to Zionist Israel to kill our brothers and sisters in humanity… Let’s take the war to them right here.”

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Governments around the world have joined in expressing solidarity for their Jewish citizens. Yet, in our country,

inflammatory political rhetoric is further exacerbating the hideous levels of hate and intimidation.

It is time for our leadership to prioritise the welfare of their own citizens above their obsession with a conflict on another continent, one where they’ve contributed nothing towards resolving.