Cape Town - Taking their message “Never Again for Anyone” because it encompasses all and should not be selectively applied, SA Jews for a Free Palestine (SAJFP) held a silent protest outside the Cape Town Holocaust & Genocide Centre.
Ten SAJFP members held a protest outside the centre in Hatfield Street, Gardens, where a conference, “Building Resilience Through Holocaust and Genocide Education” was being held.
Hosted by the centre, the conference marked the centre’s 25th anniversary, while coinciding with the 30th anniversary of the end to apartheid in South Africa and the Rwanda genocide.
Protesters taped their mouths signifying the silence of the centre on the genocide in Gaza, wore keffiyeh, waved Palestinian flags, and recited Jewish prayers.
Runners participating in the Totalsports Women’s Race expressed their support in droves, screaming with fists raised “Free Palestine”.
While the group saw much support from passersby, they were also met with hostility from event attendees, with heated exchanges as SAJFP members were shoved, shouted at, and threatened with violence.
Protester Julia Hope said: “It’s deeply hypocritical because there’s talks here, discussing what it means and what denialism in the moment of a genocide implies for people whose lives are going to be lost and what a lack of acknowledgement of what’s going on can result and prime the globe to look past the genocide. We see the centre grappling with these issues but then taking a deeply hypocritical position in failing to speak about Palestine and mention the ICJ case.”
Israel Defence Forces have killed at least 40 000 and wounded over 90 000 Palestinians in Gaza. Since October, the organisation has been hosting public Shabbats Against Genocide, with many of these held at other religious and public spaces in Cape Town.
Prior to October 7, its Cape Town chapter had four members, with a massive increase in participation and membership now at 50 people.
SAJFP’s Mitchel Joffe Hunter said: “For us, the Holocaust is obviously a traumatic memory, many of us have our ancestors and great-grandparents who were murdered in the Holocaust and what we’ve learnt from that is the slogan ‘never again means never again for anyone’. Many Jews, mostly Zionists, have learnt another lesson, that never again means never again for Jews.”
Centre director Jakub Nowakowski said the conference allowed for the museum educators to discuss achievements of the past 25 years, but also critically evaluate on how it had faltered and ways to improve in the future.
“Obviously, the war in Israel, Gaza is terribly important on every possible level for all the participants and yes, it was a very important subject of discussions and the conference was designed in a way that there were public programmes open for everybody but there were closed sessions where only the professional museum workers were able to discuss,” Nowakowski added.
“It’s inevitable for us to be discussing that because it is affecting us again on every possible level. So yes, it was discussed in the context of our work in museums in terms of our educational programmes.
“It was not about discussing the policies of the Israeli government, or any other government, but to discuss how in our educational work, we are to respond to what is happening. The goal of this conference is most of all to ask questions, to encourage discussions because we are also looking for answers,” Nowakowski added.