The pro-Israeli SA Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD) has been vocal in its disagreement and hostility towards the Palestine solidarity movement and the non-violent BDS boycott of Israel campaign. The SAJBD also falsely tries to claim that the BDS movement is anti-semitic. However, the principled voice of Denis Goldberg and many other Jewish comrades is testimony to the fact that the SAJBD is not the sole representative of the Jewish community in SA and, in fact, there are many members of the SA Jewish community who are critical of Israel's occupation and oppression of the Palestinian people.
It is unfortnate that the SAJBD supported the Apartheid regime against black people in the 1980s and today still supports Israel's apartheid policies against the indigenous Palestinian people. In a short video released last year, Goldberg commented that: "I found it disturbing, after the end of Apartheid, for the Jewish establishment [including] the SA Jewish Board of Deputies, to suddenly claim us [Jewish anti-apartheid activists] as heroes of the anti-apartheid struggle when during the struggle we would be attacked [by them] because Nelson Mandela embraced [Palestine's] Yasser Arafat".
"So if the SA Jewish Board of Deputies today claims that as the SA Jewish Board of Deputies they took a stand against Apartheid, this is untrue. There were Rabbis for example, and there were one or two, who would take a stand against Apartheid, they would be isolated and condemned and driven out of their communities and congregations. Just recently I took part in a discussion at Lilliesleaf Farm and the current president of the SA Jewish Board of Deputies made an apology, publicly, for the lack of support for us [Jewish anti-apartheid] freedom fighters. And I said it's nice of you to make the apology, but I don't need an apology....If you want to make an apology, make an apology to the majority of our people who were oppressed, because you didn't do enough".
