South African Jews slam fringe politician who made mockery of Holocaust on social media

The South African Jewish community on Thursday spoke out against a fringe politician who made a mockery of the Holocaust and its victims on social media.

"For those claiming the legacy of the holocaust is ONLY negative think about the lampshades and Jewish soap,” tweeted Andile Mngxitama, the head of the Black First Land First (BLF) party, a Pan-Africanism with no seats in the country’s National Assembly.

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.

The South African Jewish Board of Deputies responding with a statement saying that it was considering its options in terms of what action to “take against” Mngxitama, whose tweet the Jewish representative body described as "crassly offensive, demeaning and hurtful.”

"With this ugly, jeering remark, Mngxitama has portrayed not just the deliberate murder of Jewish people but even the supposed reduction of their remains to everyday objects as something to be treated as a joke,” the SAJBD asserted. "It is deeply distressing that anyone could so casually and publicly dehumanise an entire people in this way. How much more outrageous it is when emanating from a public figure who heads up a political voice.”

"Mngxitama scoffing reference to how Jews became victims of one of history’s most appalling crimes displays outright contempt for basic humanitarian, non-racial values, together with a complete lack of compassion for human suffering. His overtly hateful tweet is a flagrant attack on the fundamental rights to dignity and equality of Jewish South Africans and should be strongly condemned by all in our country. Civilised society, and certainly South Africa with its stained history of human rights abuses, has no place for those who condone the merciless massacre of millions of innocent people in the most cruel way.”

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.