South African Jewish Youth and Democracy by Eden Plein (From State of Jewish Democracy in 2020 Event)

It’s an honour and a pleasure to speak tonight. This is such an exciting topic to me. With a background in politics, philosophy and development studies really stimulating my interest in political theory as well as the unique situation in South Africa; coupled with my experience in Habonim Dror, dealing with the youth perspective, and of course zooming right in to how young people experience our community and our politics. 

I’m a fairly optimistic person, but to be honest, when Gabi was briefing me on the topic, I found it particularly difficult to draw positive conclusions from my immediate thoughts, which I will expand on in this session—as well as my reconciliation of the facts. 

A bit of background that may have been in my bio is that I grew up in Johannesburg, attended King David Linksfield for 12 years, was a highly involved in extracurricular activities and even attended some Bnei Akiva machanot in high school which might surprise some of you on this call. What I want to say tonight reflects my experience as a traditional Jew, in these circles, I believe with a curiosity to understand how the world worked and a fair amount of chutzpa. 

Since Erwin spoke about the past, I am going to try and focus on the future. I want to give my perspective on how youth relate to democracy inside and outside of our community. Ultimately, my end goal should be to enable you to assess whether there is a future for a Jewish community in South Africa, what that looks like, what it is contingent upon; and then who and what its leaders strive for. 

To me, as a young person, who is proudly Jewish, left leaning and has every intention to raise my future children Jewish and in South Africa, I find this conversation incredibly important. 

What we seldom speak about but all know too well is that the community is aging and shrinking, with steady emigration to resettle elsewhere. The most recent survey, done by the Kaplan centre and published in April this year estimates just over 52 thousand Jews in South Africa, where in the 1980’s, that number was supposedly around 120 thousand. Despite this, South African Jewry continues to succeed in disproportionate ways in the public realm, specifically though communal activity. As a fraction of a percentage of the South African population, Jews are significantly over represented in the higher echelons of public service and professional sectors. If any of you watched the Jewish Achiever Awards last night, you will know what I am saying. This year it was made clear that in various ways, the ideas created and plans undertaken by Jewish South Africans have saved hundreds of thousands of lives during the Covid pandemic. 

Now I know this is not the Jewish achiever awards, and I am not here exclusively to preach the importance of this community. But I think that it’s so important to frame our discussions with JDI not as critiques, but as deeply engaged discussions about how important this community, and our participation in it, isto us. I think we can all agree that if it didn’t matter, we wouldn’t have bothered logging on tonight. Ironically, our freedom to—or not to—have formal sessions like this, is the very democracy that this session aims to explore. 

I always find that framing these conversations—especially in this case, a conversation about representation—with Kaplan centre statistics is not only nice but absolutely necessary. So in my session I have planned to throw around a few of the key statistics from the Jewish community survey of South Africa published this year because I believe this situates anything I say in sober reality. 

Ok. To get straight into it, my feeling is that majority of Jewish kids here are despondent about their future position in South Africa. Emigration rates are really high. In the survey 15% of Jews said that they would probably leave South Africa in the next 5 years, 50% of them said to Israel. 43% of Jews have considered leaving South Africa in the last 12 months—with this data captured prior to the pandemic, related issues in governance and economic confidence. 32% of Jews said that they intend to permanently settle in Israel at some point in the future. This coupled with a statistic of 3 deaths to every 2 births really should ring alarm bells about the future of this community. 

Now why am I talking about this during a session about democracy? 

Because, as I said, it frames answering the questions set out at the beginning. 

Is there a future for this community? Yes I believe there is. Perhaps it’s naïve that despite the evidence I believe I will be able to bring up my future children in the South African Jewish community—but I believe this. 

Why? Because the other side of the coin is an infallible network of vital infrastructure that caters to a South African Jew’s every need, and that some may argue makes staying worthwhile. Statistics on this side expose 71% of Jews saying that they give more than half of their charitable donation to Jewish organisations.

As David Saks, researcher for the South African board of deputies wrote already in the early 2000’s; “In summary, while South African Jewry is in decline, it is certainly not in collapse. Given the strength of its institutions, coupled with the fundamental soundness of the South African economy and the enduring political stability that characterizes Africa's most democratic and human rights-conscious state, it could even be reversed if the will is found to do so. Another very important factor is the relatively low level of anti-Semitism that exists in South Africa compared with other Diaspora communities. All these positives aside, however, there is no doubt that the long-term viability of South Africa as a center of Jewish life is under threat as emigration continues apace.”

Noticeably, the departure of so many in the 18-35 age bracket has created a leadership vacuum, with fewer young members joining the ranks of established Jewish organizations. With the exception of the religious Zionist movement Bnei Akiva, youth movement membership is significantly down, and outside the main centres of Johannesburg and Cape Town, organised youth activities as a whole have virtually ceased. 

Now, I argue that the future-looking question of democracy is actually central to this phenomenon. 

The conservative outlook of community organisations who are grasping so tightly to keep a sizeable constituency undermines democracy by being so narrow minded. In my opinion, critical thinking and progress is not fostered. The reality has become that kids who otherwise want to engage in community work are despondent because they know that representation of the majority entails representation of a particular narrative which is limited, and quite frankly out of date. Not only is this perpetuated year after year, but the polarisation is heightened as children engage with politics through social media, internalising entitlement to the use of divisive language and adopting simplified ideas that completely dehumanise political dialogue. 

This is the crux of it, in my estimation:

On the right there are young people who are supported to take up roles in community leadership but because of the national landscape, would prefer to be in Israel or perhaps even the US or UK. 

On the left, there are young people that have been alienated from processes of representation at the community level and but would most likely want to stay in South Africa. 

This is of course a generalisation. I do think that there is a small but increasing group that love Israel and find themselves on the more conservative side of the political spectrum but are in South Africa and while they are here are engaging with South African civil society as well. 

Ultimately I suppose that this suggests, from my perspective, that the question of freedom of opinion on Israel is inseparable from freedom of speech in our community, -- and the contingent nature of freedom of speech is creating a situation where a very particular kind of person is welcome to sit at the table of Jewish community leadership, with others who might diverge from the narrative being passively disqualified. 

I understand the situation to be significantly different in Cape Town but in Johannesburg this is happening at a religious level as well. If we refer back to the statistics, only 57% percent of households have shul membership, and 48% of Johannesburg Jews identify as Orthodox but the Jewish Board of Education is making decisions in accordance with orthodoxy and right wing Zionism on behalf of 75% of Jewish children. I am a social science major and I won’t attempt to explain those numbers—but clearly there is a mismatch. 

When it comes to tolerance and acceptance, an overwhelming 67% of Jews in this community feel well accepted. Of course we can speak about what that really means and about interviewer bias and so on—but the major takeaway is that 33% of community members do not feel accepted. With a 50 thousand person community, -- as well as of course, an assumed aspiration to show respect to every person -- we can’t afford not to “count the cents”. 

My belief is that the community institutions that at the same time enable the success of this community, and limit it as I have described—need to make a conscious turn away from reinforcing polarisation and work towards community reconciliation if there is to be a vibrant Jewish community in South Africa in 10 years’ time. I believe the youth is ready for this and frankly I don’t believe that there is an alternative. 

The situation played out 20 years ago in Habonim Dror where the largest local Zionist movement lost its position because it was a victim of its own success.

In the same piece, David Saks says: “A high proportion of young leaders and communal professionals who had formed the backbone of Zionist activity in the country chose to take the culminating step of making aliyah, which naturally left a leadership vacuum. Even in these times, when concern over Jewish emigration is at a high level people are encouraged to consider making aliyah. The standard approach of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies to the emigration question remains, "Stay home or go home;".”

Today there is an added layer that sets up the desirability of emigration in community dialogue to be more about escaping the political and economic instability of South Africa and less about “going towards”. 

But the community survived this, more than once and we will survive it again. The truth is that we are unlikely to find a community quite so well organized, cohesive, and committed as the one we enjoy today, but that does not mean that we shouldn’t strive to make it even better. Especially with so many choosing the alternative with less resistance, it becomes the responsibility of those of us who notice a problem to try our best to deal with it. As Gabi said, I hope what we are doing tonight is starting the conversation.