Special Hearings — Faith Community Hearings — 1997-11-17

UNKNOWN: I have to apologise, beg the commission's forgiveness   twice. Once because I don't speak English, I speak Scottish and secondly I speak   far too quickly. Okay, I'm going to go to the limit of 59 km's per hour, I'll   try not to overdo it.
The silence is a question of discretion. A lot of people feel that speaking   out can be dangerous and that speaking out can be futile. Now it is true to   Jewish tradition that the citizen has never been empowered to surrender the   use of his or her moral conscience. Civil disobedience has a long and honourable   tradition in Jewish history. And against the argument that it is courting danger   to challenge authority and that the exercise may well prove futile, traditional   Jewish sources suggest it's not for the protesters to judge the outcome, that   wrong must always be opposed, irrespective of the consequences. I want in this   company of religious people to quote from the Talmut in Shabbat. It says as   follows "Rabbi Zera once said to Rabbi Simon, 'You must censure the ...[inaudible].   They've done something wrong and you have to tell them off'. He replied 'They   won't listen to me, it's a waste of time'. Rabbi Zera retorted, 'You must censure   them all the same. You have to speak out'. This accords with the view of Rabbi   Agga, who said that the good Lord himself never reversed a decision except once.   The Holy One, blessed be he, he said to the Angel Gabriel, 'Go through the city   of Jerusalem and on the foreheads of the righteous mark an X with ink and on   the foreheads of the wicked mark an X of blood and the Angel of Death is going   to move through Jerusalem and slaughter the wicked and preserver the righteous.'   Hearing that Justice became before the throne of Almighty God. 'Lord of the   universe, what are you doing? What is the difference between them?' God answered,   ' What a question is this? These are Holy righteous, and these are Holy Wicked'.   Justice replied, 'Lord of the Universe, you are not giving the righteous people   an opportunity of asking the wicked to repent'. God said to Justice, 'I know,   but even if they protested, nothing would happen, nobody's going to listen to   the Righteous, therefore they shouldn't speak out'. Said Justice to Almighty   God, 'Lord of the Universe, you know that, but did they? They should still have   spoken out'".
In contradiction to this view, there is a commentary, a selection of commentators   called ...[inaudible] and they offer a cautionary note on this passage in the   Talmut, indicating that in a situation where it is quite clear that the ruling   authority will dismiss the protest out of hand, one may be justified in keeping   silent. There is no moral compunction to speak out when one's word will be brushed   aside. Indeed, the effect of protest may be to harden the transgressor in their   misdirected path and make the situation even worse. Sometimes discretion is   the better part of valour. It must be emphasised, however, that in Judaism the   normative view prevails. It is insufficient to stand apart from violations of   human rights and dissociation is inadequate where vocal protest is urgently   called for and positive steps must be taken to rectify injustice. The Jewish   sources also tell us that Job, the book of Job in the bible, that the reason   he was punished by God, was that he failed to speak out against the injustices   in his own time. So the Jewish community in South Africa, confesses a collective   failure to protest against apartheid. The situation here was not one in which   the human rights of the minority were adversely affected. That in itself would   have been wrong. It was a situation in which the human rights of the vast majority   were systematically and forcibly denied and that is a monstrous aberration.   The entire purport of Jewish moral teaching, together with the essential lesson   of Jewish historical experience as the most consistent victim among the peoples   in the world (have a look at the Jewish history) should have moved the community   to do everything possible to oppose apartheid, distancing oneself from the anguished   cry of the majority in one's own midst and myopically pursuing one's own interests,   whether personal or communal can never be morally justified. The American Jewish   philosopher, Abraham Joshua Heshel once wrote, "Indifference to evil is   more insidious than evil itself. It is more universal, more contagious, more   dangerous. A silent justification. Indifference it makes possible an evil erupting   as an exception, becoming the accepted rule and being in turn accepted."   Because of the evil of indifference which so many in the Jewish community professed,   we confess that sin today before this commission and we ask forgiveness for   it. The pivotal issue of this commission is to turn the inequities of the past   towards advantage for the future. That the reason we must endeavour to understand   the feelings of the past is so that we can become fully aware of our responsibilities   now, to help repair the damage. Please God, to build a better future, not that   in spite of the past we must do better, but because of the past, we must do   better. 
In the Jewish community, we are developing a programme called Tekun. There   has been a great deal of hot air yesterday and this morning about what ought   to be done, but there have been very few practical examples which are influencing   the grassroots, and if I may, I want to explain in a few moments the range of   practical projects the South African Jewish community is undertaking under the   broad umbrella of a programme called Tekun, which Bertie Lubner and I have the   honour of being co-chairman. Tekun is a Hebrew word meaning repairing, trying   to put things right. It is a wonderful exercise, we are trying to apply Jewish   resources, skills, expertise and know how, to be of maximum benefit to the upliftment   programme. One instance in food the Jewish housewife, when she shops, is asked   to buy an extra tin or extra packet. She is buying half a dozen tins, buy a   seventh tin. A dozen packets of something, but a thirteenth packet. That goes   in a separate part of the trolley, goes to the nearest Synagogue, some of the   Hypermarkets have actually gotcalled the ...[inaudible] and we take that   to the hungry.
We have many projects, I give you one instance on welfare. Nokatula, which   is a home for the physically and mentally handicapped in Alexandria Township   is consistently visited by the Selwyn Segal Centre, which is a similar home   for physically and mentally handicapped people in Johannesburg. We share expertise   and facilities and we all go together to Camp David at Magaliesberg. May I point   out that here we are not being patronising. I know it sounds terribly patronising,   we are trying to empower people to help themselves, and that's why we are handing   over the skills. We have a major agricultural project at Rietfontein. It is   an educational experience in farming, based on the success in Israel. Many of   our projects, I mention this not God forbid to make a political point! I mention   it because the state of Israel has expertise in things like water conservation,   solar energy and all forms.helping at the moment seventeen African countries,   and we feel very proud that the Israelis want to help us with some of our projects.   And they are helping us with this Agricultural Education Centre at Rietfontein.   Two weeks ago 100 000 spinach seedlings (I love spinach because it's good)spinach   gives you energy Mr Chairman! Spinach seeds were planted and we are all helping   with this exercise. We have very many educational projects. We have enrichment   programmes which SADTU and COSAS have co-operated with us. Sometimes they have   requested, sometimes we have gone to them. Our King David Schools in Johannesburg   and the schools in Cape Town are helping in the townships with computer literacy   programmes. It's where I'm computer illiterate but the youngsters, bless them,   have to be computer literate, and we're helping in East Bank High School for   example, in Alex, with many adult education programmes. Basic literacy courses.   My wife, bless her, she insists that I mention this (she's a good girl) is the   Chairperson of Ossac. Ossac is a black adult education school in Killarney,   run in the Oxford Synagogue, we get over 100 every evening. The ages range from   20 to 60. There are domestic workers, security personnel, shop assistants, unemployed   people. They do the IEB tests in English and Maths, and we have a 95% success   rate, and there is nothing more joyous in the world than seeing somebody over   50 who has been denied an education actually coming every night and studying   and the glow on that person's face when they hold their certificate, it is wondrous   to behold. We are encouraging education in many ways. Our Union of Jewish Women   has programmes in Soweto in HIPPI (home instruction for pre-primary youngsters   which is geared to the mothers) and MATAL (upgrading the qualifications of pre-school   teachers). 
There was, many years ago in Israel, an Afro-Asian institute which actually   taught very many in the trace union movement. Very many years ago. Some of the   things I mentioning to you have been going on for donkey's years. The Rabbi   Wyler's School in Alexandria was founded by the Reformed Jewish Movement over   50 years ago. Rabbi Wyler put in a primary school then and thank God it's still   going. We have arranged to take groups of young professionals to Israel to train   them in entrepreneurial skills, business development skills, banking skills.   We are already on our fourth group there. Every single person who has been in   one of these groups and come back, they have actually been given promotion.   If they were a bank clerk, they are now assistant manager in the bank. And it's   a wonderful thing.
We are using the expertise of ORT which is an international Jewish organisation   and we have at Midrand a college of Science and Technology, which is again wonderfully   successful. We are doing things for employment and there is a very wonderful   lady called Helen Leverman, in the Cape, who does .la Bantu, it's making   toys and bead decorations and they are sold all over the world, in Paris, London   and New York. And it's a way of getting, including blind people, who can be   taught how to string the beads and by the touch on a colour system, and it's   a marvellous thing. We have sporting activities, Makabe goes in, and we have   soccer in Soweto and they love it. And we have cultural activities. We have   joint choral concerts. We have the black choir of Soweto, the Johannesburg Jewish   Choir and something called the Welsh Male Choir. We are trying to build bridges,   we are going across the board. 
I have only given you, Mr Chairperson, dear, dear friend, I have only given   you a few examples. I know it's a drop in the ocean, but we are trying to galvanise   our Jewish community in order that we can actually help. It is our responsibility   to be of help.
Finally, I want to say this. It's our job as religious people, if I may be   bold to say so, it is the job of all of us to try to apply the antidotes. This   TRC has become famous throughout the world because of the horror which has unfolded   in testimony so many months before you. There is no-one who has listened in   the radio, or who very humbly has come to sit at the back and listen to the   testimony, there is no-one that hasn't been moved to tears, because we have   had here a record of inhumanity. The worst things that human beings can do to   other human beings and what we need in our country is to now change because   of that. To change to the best, to display the best that human beings can do   to fellow human beings. Not the hurt and the torture and the shame, but the   love and the friendship and the mutual help to lift our country up. If apartheid   was divisive, the antidote is building bridges and coming together. A togetherness   which will spell the great future of our country. I want to finish by quoting   Abraham Joshua Hershell once again. He said an incredibly beautiful thing about   mission. 
He said "We all carry within our souls the gold to forge the gates of   the kingdom". That's an incredibly beautiful statement to make, that God   has blessed each of us, deep within us with the gold to fashion out and to make   the gates of the kingdom. If we, together, all of us, all religious groups who   are so meaningful in this country and have such an impact at the grassroots,   if we can dig deep within ourselves for the gold of goodness within us, and   we can make those gates and we can go through them, then we will have in our   beloved country of South Africa, please God, a bright and wonderful future.