Limmud in South Africa has long been a portal for Jewish learning and ostensibly, helping to unify the Jewish community and educate all on the issues affecting them. The Limmud website states several times that it is for all Jews, no matter their level of learning and involvement. Despite the attempt as the “be all and end all” for the Jews in South Africa, they are doing very little to unify the Jewish community. Quite the contrary, they are subtly and not so subtly, trying to influence the Jewish population towards a borderline Anti-Israel stance and a shifting away from the values and morals that define the true humanitarian heart and compassion that has always marked this people group.
Before you decide that this is ridiculous-ask yourself this: Would you allow people that have sworn to tear your heart out of your chest, roam freely in your country and hand them the knife to kill you with?
Heidi Grunebaum, former Limmud speaker, at the table with her BDS comrades.
It is what Heidi Grunebaum of SA Jews for a Free Palestine promotes as she says that the Palestinians should reclaim the entire State of Israel. She proudly announces her derision for the State of Israel at the South African March for Palestine & Against Israeli Apartheid in May of 2018 in Cape Town. “Enough shooting unarmed protesters!” She cries. The March organizers reads off the names of 53 persons killed on the border clashes with Israel.
What NO ONE mentions is that Hamas claimed approximately 50 of those deaths were their soldiers, not unarmed protesters, but trained soldiers who wore civilian clothes to hide in the crowd deploying their usual method of civilian shields.
What NO ONE mentions is the Israeli Army knows the faces of many of the Hamas soldiers and identifies them in the crowd.
And what NO ONE mentions in this March for Palestine, is the violent speeches given by Hamas leadership to stir the crowd into a frenzy and hopefully sacrifice themselves for the media machine.
The Limmud website states clearly that it “does not participate in legitimising or delegitimising any religious or political position found in the worldwide Jewish community”. So then why has Heidi Grunebaum been a speaker at Limmud?? And she is not the only one.
We are once again fighting the scourge of rising anti-Semitism worldwide. As “political correctness” also sweeps the world, it has become acceptable to hold extreme anti-Zionist/Anti-Israel views.
This is quite simply a euphemism for anti-Semitism. Many anti-Israel rallies have morphed into anti-Semitic rants, oftentimes accompanied by violence. This is a just a taste of the worldwide phenomenon of anti-Israel vitriol now accompanied by a rise in anti-Semitic expression and action.
Here in South Africa, this is particularly true and in recent times we have dealt with a spate of particularly nasty and frightening anti-Semitism. There is no doubt that the very loud anti-Israel sector of South Africa has contributed to this.
The Jewish Board of Deputies has spent inordinate sums of money and time in trying to combat this rising tide. How is it possible then that Limmud SA feels justified in using Jewish communal money for a Jewish communal event in a Jewish communal facility to give a platform to people like Heidi Grunebaum, and others who are loud and proud BDS supporters calling for the complete destruction of Israel?
The “others” we speak of are Mitchel Joffee Hunter, a long time BDS activist and a member of SA Jews for a Free Palestine, a BDS organization. And Jeremy Philips, the Head of the Palestinian Solidarity Forum (PSF), the BDS organization that runs Israel Apartheid Week on UCT campus. He has claimed that “students condemn the institutionalized efforts that Israel has been deploying at tertiary institutions to normalize the Zionist Occupation.”
These three, Grunebaum, Hunter and Philips, were ALL on the list of speakers for Limmud 2018 to take place in August. They have since been removed.
In conversation with the Limmud committee, the decision to disinvite the speakers was described as “painful”. Surely what is “painful” is the fact that the SA Jewish community has Jewish BDS activists working dedicatedly to damage the state of Israel!
Clearly, therefore, the decision to disinvite the speakers was because of pressure placed on Limmud to do so, not because of any profound insight, realization or acknowledgment of wrongdoing.
Limmud is clearly not apologetic nor remorseful and so those who do not wish to associate with BDS should have no association with Limmud either. It seems that to be part of the crowd that speaks the loudest is more desirable than to be a part of the crowd who stand for morality, compassion, and justice. Limmud is clearly not with the latter.
