Will humanity one day look back on the days when people were regarded as greater or lesser beings because of their racial origins in the same way as we now look back on the era of witch hunting? This question assumes that at least some progress has been made in eliminating racial prejudice, and certainly […]
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
Is there really a ‘left-wing’ and ‘right-wing’ point of view?
“If you’re a university student and you’re not a communist, start worrying. And if you’ve left university and you’re still a communist, start worrying,” someone once told me. In my case, there was no cause for anxiety. At university, I initially drifted into a lukewarm flirtation — including a bizarre and mercifully brief championing of […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Heretical Helen
One of the deadliest political put-downs I have seen was actually framed as a compliment. The then prime minister, BJ Vorster, when commenting on the performance of United Party leader Sir de Villiers Graaff, emphasised his gentleman-like qualities and concluded that no prime minister could have wished for a more suitable leader of the opposition. […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Bill Clinton got away with it, why not Zuma?
Even before the Lewinsky affair made him a by-word for sexual incontinence, the libidinous Bill Clinton had been embroiled in a sex scandal that nearly toppled his presidency almost from the outset. In 1994, a certain Paula Jones sued him for sexual harassment, claiming he had propositioned her three years earlier, exposing himself in the […]
Posted inNews/Politics
The ANC had better keep on winning
Only two parties can really look back on the 2009 elections with any real satisfaction. The ANC, while shedding a few percentage points for the first time since 1994 and dropping slightly below the 2/3rds threshold, did an impressive job of damage control, largely offsetting the Cope breakaway. As for the DA, it now enjoys […]
Posted inNews/Politics
I’m voting ACDP
Well, it wasn’t quite like blackballing Mother Teresa, but it came close. In the context of the free world, the Dalai Lama enjoys something approaching Gandhian status. He is a true icon of peace and of a people’s struggle to be free, with these two ideals, so unusually, being complementary, not contradictory. Perhaps the most […]
Posted inGeneral
Is our democracy unravelling?
When Zapiro caused an uproar last year with his now notorious cartoon depicting Jacob Zuma about to take the lead in gang-raping a woman representing Justice, it said two things about the state of South African democracy. On the positive side, where else but in a true democracy would a newspaper be allowed to get […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Anti-Semitic conspiracy theories have abounded for centuries
What I find especially striking about Sentletse Diakanyo’s post of January 30 endorsing the myth of world Jewish power was the number of readers it attracted — at the time of writing fast approaching 9 000 (a record for Thought Leader?). Why has this grubby piece of crude conspiracy-theorising struck so responsive a chord? Maybe […]
Posted inGeneral
The Jew as Nazi — A new form of blood libel?
Jew-baiters have long invoked Nazism and the Holocaust as a way of getting up Jewish noses. This usually takes such trite and puerile forms as “Hitler should have finished the job” taunts or making mock “Heil Hitler!” salutes, but it generally hits the target. Indeed, Jewish sensitivities in this area are so pronounced as to […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Middle East fallout is poisoning our society
Let me state unequivocally from the outset that I fully supported Israel’s operations in Gaza. I have no doubt whatever that these were both justified and necessary given more than three years of almost constant missile attacks against its citizens, that Israel acted throughout with commendable restraint and that Hamas, through its cowardly and despicable […]
Posted inNews/Politics
If only Barack Obama was a Republican
In 1964, three young civil rights workers were abducted by die-hard white supremacist rednecks in Mississippi and cold-bloodedly murdered. Their crime? Assisting blacks to register as voters. James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner – one a black Mississippian and the other two Jewish human rights activists from New York – paid the ultimate price […]
Posted inLifestyle
Jewish reflections at an Afrikaner shrine
I had never been all that enthusiastic about adding Blood River (Ncome) to my tally of battlefield rambles, and certainly never envisaged being there on December 16, once the Day of the Vow and today the Day of Reconciliation. The famous Voortrekker victory over the Zulus on that date became invested with profound meaning by […]