Towards the end of the 19th century, a belief in the innate superiority of the Nordic, or “Aryan”, races — specifically of the Germanic and…
Posts published by “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.
Age is often the determining factor when judging certain modes of behaviour. Take drunkenness, for example. A twenty-year-old who drinks too much and ends up…
It’s a no-brainer, surely? The ANC was founded as long ago as 1912, making it today by some way the country’s oldest extant political party.…
So deep seated was the unpopularity of the last war against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq that it was strongly in evidence even within the US and…
A couple of weeks ago, the Mail & Guardian featured a “for” and “against” exchange on the subject of women going bare-breasted on public beaches.…
WS Gilbert pokes fun at ancestral one-upmanship in The Mikado, with the absurd Pooh Bah boasting how he could trace his ancestry “back to a…
Thinking people generally resent being presented with take-it-or-leave-it dogmatic certainties, especially when it comes to the “Ultimate Questions” of humanity’s origins and purpose. That being…
“When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth”. These words were put by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle into the…
Sometimes, reality satirises itself. I would like to share the following advertisement for Bronco toilet paper (“It’s a healthy sign when there’s a Bronco in…
The good news regarding my recent visit to the Anglo-Boer War battlefields around Ladysmith is that the numerous military cemeteries scattered around there are in…