This post was published yesterday on Muzzlewatch, a project of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP).
JVP joins with people and communities across the globe in expressing our admiration, love, and gratitude for Nelson Mandela, a giant in the struggle for justice and an inspiration to us all.
Had Muzzlewatch existed 23 years ago when Mandela, newly released from prison, made a thrilling visit to New York, the shameful response of the “official” Jewish community would have been the lead story here for days. While 750,000 New Yorkers of all sorts poured into the streets to cheer this courageous hero, the Jewish establishment sat out the festivities. Why? Muzzlewatch readers need no hints: This world leader who sat in jail for 27 years for fighting apartheid was not an acceptable Zionist.
His visit coincided with the moment we were co-founding the NY-based organization, Jews for Racial and Economic Justice (JFREJ), and we were disgusted that the Jewish establishment announced that they were withholding their welcome of him to our city unless he satisfied them on his support for Israel. It was a stark demonstration of the way rightleaning Israel politics were skewing Jewish participation in progressive causes here — which is part of why we formed JFREJ. We decided that our inaugural event should be a symbolic welcome of Mandela from the substantial wing of the Jewish community that was happy and grateful to embrace him.
More than 1,000 people from across the city attended the Shabbat service and celebration of his achievement. Among the speakers: Harry Belafonte, Henry Schwarzschild, Grace Paley, and the ANC representative, Susan Mnumzama, with a closing song by Bernice Johnson Reagon. The service was led by Rabbis Marshall Meyer, Rolando Matalon, and Balfour Brickner.
We raised $30,000 to present to the ANC that evening, along with a statement applauding Mandela “as a moral voice for peace, justice, and self-determination for all peoples.”
We managed to get word out in other ways, too. JFREJ founding board member Alisa Solomon landed an op-ed in the New York Times (despite the NYT editors’ cautious hands, what was a radical critique in the mainstream media at the time could today have been penned by J Street).
We share her text and the rousing remarks of Harry Belafonte below.
Belafonte’s Remarks on Mandela
This post first appeared on Muzzlewatch earlier today.
It was quite a bit more than “refusing to embrace.” The ADL was infiltrating and illegally collecting non-public info on Apartheid opponents. http://www.IRmep.org/ila
Other orgs were promoting Israel (with its FTA) as a “gateway” for trading South African goods.
The article fails to point out that Mandela criticized Israel in televised interviews during his visit. Those remarks have subsequently been downplayed and expunged by the mainstream media.
In Joshua Muravchik, “Mandela in America”, Commentary Magazine, October 1990 the author and various American Jewish leaders, including Abe Foxman and Henry Siegman complained about the comments Mandela had made in the past and in those televised interviews during his visit to New York.
That included the fact that Mandela was unapologetic about his past and present support for the PLO and his condemnation of the government of Israel as an apartheid regime:
– link to commentarymagazine.com
I am not surprised the upper echelon of the Jewish community weren’t interested in Mandela. Israel made a lot of money selling arms to apartheid SA. Peres did a lot of brokerage.
Jewish values are just crap for the middle and lower classes. Higher up it’s all about business.
for a long time now the jewish establishment hasn’t represented the interests of the community, only the interests of themselves and their zionist project.