The Jewish community of South Africa does not have, nor can it have, a common point of view toward the explosive racial problem in this country, it was indicated here last night at the 21st biennial convention of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies. In his keynote address, Board chairman M. Philips asserted:
“There is not and there cannot be a collective Jewish viewpoint regarding racial policies in South Africa. The viewpoints of individual Jews vary as much as their fellow citizens. The Deputies, therefore, cannot purport to speak in the name of South African Jewry on these highly controversial matters.
“These racial problems are the most important issues which face South Africa and at this critical period each of us owes to himself and to the community and to South Africa to think earnestly about these problems and stand up for those policies he regards as just, and in the true interests of South Africa and all its inhabitants.”
A report by the executive of the Board, dealing with the forthcoming national election, declared: “On the eve of the South African general election it is opportune to recall the view consistently held by the Deputies that for the citizen of the Jewish faith there is no question of attachment or subservience to a Jewish group standpoint in exercising his civic responsibilities at or during an election. There were, happily, no specific ‘Jewish issues.”
The executive’s statement added that it was the right and duty of every Jewish voter to follow the course advised by his own judgment on the issues before the electorate. This, it said, would be determined by the convictions he regarded as being in the best interests of the country.
Mr. Philips, in a review of Board activities since the last convention, two and a half years ago, noted the organization’s identification with Jewish groups abroad, its involvement with world Jewish problems, with Israeli developments and with domestic issues. He stressed the Board’s work in behalf of improving Christian-Jewish relations in South Africa and its cultural program in relation to the Jewish community, particularly to rural Jewish families.
Johannesburg’s Mayor Glyn Morris, who greeted the delegates from all parts of the Union, paid tribute to Jewish contributions to this country. “In the phenomenal development of Johannesburg,” he pointed out, “its Jewish citizens have played an outstanding part–all out of proportion to their numbers–from the city’s beginnings to the present day.”
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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.
