As those who have been reading the Sunday Times over the past couple of weeks may know, St. John’s College, one of Johannesburg’s most prestigious private schools, was recently embarrassed by a mock Nazi demonstration conducted by some of its pupils at a school assembly. What happened was that for “Moustache Day”, one of the […]
David Saks
David Saks has worked for the South African Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD) since April 1997, and is currently its associate director. Over the years, he has written extensively on aspects of South African history, Judaism and the Middle East for local and international newspapers and journals.
David has an MA in history from Rhodes University. Prior to joining the SAJBD, he was curator -- history at MuseumAfrica in Johannesburg. He is editor of the journal Jewish Affairs, appears regularly on local radio discussing Jewish and Middle East subjects and is a contributor to various Jewish publications.
Posted inGeneral
How communists paid the price and capitalists scooped the pool in post-apartheid SA
When Mandela first met with Sol Kerzner it was not, as was the case with most of his post-release meetings with big-hitting capitalist exploiters, to solicit (or more accurately, quietly demand) a large donation for black upliftment projects. Instead, the purpose was purely political. This was mid-1990, a time when it was not at all […]
Posted inGeneral
Pretoria or Tshwane?
To me, it’s a no-brainer. There was never a pre-existing place called ‘Tshwane’ that Pretoria replaced. Instead, an entirely new population centre came into being, in due course assuming city status. It was named ‘Pretoria’ by its founders, and that it was what was called for over 140 years before it was arbitrarily renamed Tshwane […]
Posted inGeneral
My bruising encounter with the PC brigade
Every now and again, as a columnist for the SA Jewish Report, I drop a proverbial brick in a hornet’s nest and end up diving for cover. Thus it was a couple of weeks ago, when a column I wrote poking fun at a newly established Jewish women’s lobby group generated far less amusement and […]
Posted inGeneral, News/Politics
Zuma’s privates and the black male sexual potency myth
Tom Sharpe’s comic novel Indecent Exposure mercilessly lampooning white racism in South Africa was predictably banned under the apartheid government. I managed to get my copy during a visit to Sun City, where such contraband was legally obtainable (since it fell within the boundaries of the ‘independent’ homeland of Bophuthatswana). In one scene, a distraught […]
Posted inGeneral
Game of Thrones and the brutalisation of popular entertainment
Few would disagree that the hit fantasy-adventure TV series Game of Thrones is, from a purely aesthetic point of view, an outstanding achievement. Its production values are top notch and the acting and scripting are of a consistently high standard. Certainly, it is a yardstick by which the impressive advances made in television entertainment over […]
Posted inGeneral
Condoning corruption: The Achilles heel of SA’s democracy
In the dying days of the old National Party regime, when I was still working at the old Africana Museum (now Museum Africa), I was given a first-hand taste of the corruption that was by then running rampant at all levels of government. It was just before the 1992 summer Olympics in Barcelona, Spain and […]
Posted inGeneral
Death of a school friend
The first time I encountered Robert Jackson, as a seven-year-old in the Sandown Primary School playground, I hit him in the teeth and made him howl. This was ironic in that during our respective school careers I was a first-class wuss whereas Rob had a reputation as something of a fighter. The second irony was […]
Posted inLifestyle
The twilight of testosterone
Something truly extraordinary is happening in the US labour market. At the beginning of 2010, it was revealed, that for the first time in the country’s history, women held a majority of the nation’s jobs. The dramatic rise of women within the ranks of the gainfully employed shouldn’t be seen as solely an American phenomenon. […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Elections 2014 — last chance to save SA?
When the Zimbabwean parliament voted overwhelming in August 2005 to endorse constitutional amendments that would further restrict private property rights and allow the government to deny passports to its critics, exultant Zanu-PF MPs danced and cheered in the aisles. Several apparently even did cartwheels. Similar displays of vindictive glee had reportedly taken place previous, such […]
Posted inGeneral, News/Politics
Christians – the world’s most persecuted faith group
While Jews agonise over anti-Semitism and Muslims rail against Islamophobia, both of which are supposedly on the rise everywhere you look, remarkably little is being heard on behalf of arguably the world’s most persecuted religious group today, namely Christians. I say “arguably”, because anti-Buddhist persecution in Tibet and Myanmar/Burma is also an unhappy reality. Still, […]
Posted inGeneral
Mandela and the Dalai Lama
So damaging was the fall-out over South Africa’s denying the Dalai Lama a visa when he wished to attend a peace conference a couple of years ago that it was hard to imagine such a blunder being repeated. At the time, it was perhaps the most egregious example of the last administration’s penchant for shloeping […]