The South African Jewish community has gone to court to demand an apology from a local fringe politician who tweeted mockingly about the Holocaust.
In a petition to the Equality Court, the South African Jewish Board of Deputies alleged that Andile Mngxitama, the head of the Black First Land First (BLF) party, a Pan-African party with no seats in the country’s National Assembly, had violated a local law banning hate speech.
"For those claiming the legacy of the holocaust is ONLY negative think about the lampshades and Jewish soap,” Mngxitama tweeted last month.
A contentious politician, Mngxitama has been expelled by both the ruling African National Congress (ANC) and the Economic Freedom Fighters party following disputes with the leadership of both factions.
“Mr Mngxitama has engaged in conduct that amounts to hate speech against the South African Jewish community‚ and Jewish people in general‚” SAJBD National Director Wendy Kahn wrote in an affidavit.
“Such comments create an environment within which racist and hateful attitudes are allowed to flourish and a hostile and intimidating environment is created for persons at whom the racist commentary is directed,” she continued, adding that Mngxitama’s tweet had “depict[ed] atrocities visited upon Jewish people as something to be mocked and joked about”.
According to the Times, Kahn asked the court to sentence Mngxitama to apologize and undergo sensitivity training in order to “become aware of the horrors of where his racist hate-filled conduct could lead.” She also asked that the court fine Mngxitama should he fail to complete such a course.
This is not the first time that members of the South African Jewish community has taken local politicians to task over statements or positions perceived to be either anti-Semitic or anti-Zionist. During Operation Protective Edge in 2014, South African Chief Rabbi Warren Goldstein demanded that the ANC retract an official party statement comparing Israel with Nazi Germany and accused a senior party official of having “betrayed the South African dream of peaceful and dignified dialogue.”
He was responding to ANC Deputy Secretary-General Jessie Duarte’s statement condemning Israel’s strikes against Hamas targets as “barbaric attacks on the defenseless Palestinian people of Gaza.” Duarte also accused Israel of having turned the “occupied territories of Palestine into permanent death camps” and called for South African citizens to boycott the Jewish state.
