There are 1 Jews among the 296 candidates nominated for the 156 seats open in next month’s general election for the South African Parliament, a survey revealed here today. Of the 11, eight are candidates of the United Party, two of the Labor Party and one is an independent who supports the Nationalists.
They are: Dr. Bernard Friedman, Dr. Henry Gluckman, Mrs. Bertha Solomon. Mrs. Helen Suzman, A.E.F. Robinson, M. Kentridge, A. Bloomberg and H. F. Oppenheimer, United Party; Leo Lovell and H. Davidoff, Labor Party; and L.H. Hirschsohn, Independent. With the exception of Mrs. Suzman and Mr. Hirschsohn, all are members of this Parliament.
Making a policy statement at a public meeting in the Reef town of Springs, Prof. L.I. Coertze, a Nationalist Party candidate, directed part of his speech to members of the Jewish community present at the meeting, and assured them of the government’s continued goodwill towards their people. He said there was much in common between Afrikaner nationalism and Jewish nationalism as manifested in Israel, and the Afrikaner Nationalists had great admiration for what the Jews were doing in Israel.
“We are continually depicted by some newspapers.” Prof. Coertze said, “as having a Herrenvolk mentality, bent upon destroying everybody disagreeing with us. If that is the picture you have in mind when you think of us, you have got us all wrong. Nothing is further from the truth. My plea to the Jews is that we must make a plan to remove such misunderstandings between us as there are.
“For my part. I want to say with the strongest emphasis that by far the great majority of Nationalists are your friends. It will be contrary to your sense of religion and psychology to lock you up in concentration camps confine you in ghettoes as you are spurred to believe by hostile propaganda. Even if we were so inclined, it would be idiotic for us to pursue such a course, seeing how much we need white men in this country.
“Such inclinations, however, are entirely lacking,” Prof. Goertze continued” Proof of that you have in our history, including that of the past five years. In not a single instance has the government, by word of mouth, administrative act or legislation, discriminated against Jews. Such anti-Jewish comment as there has been in the past has petered out when men come to grips with reality, “he pointed out.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
