“There is no such thing as a Jewish question in South Africa, “former Premier Daniel F. Malan told a Jewish delegation which visited him at his home at Stellenbosch, near Capetown, to present him with a certificate of his inscription in the Jewish National Fund’s Golden Book by a group of Jewish admirers.
Dr. Malan expressed appreciation of the contributions of the Jews to South Africa, declaring. “It is true that the Jews are a particular racial group proud of their origin and history and determined to maintain their own integrity, but South Africa is a multiracial country and the Jews are only one racial element among several others. Jewish history is not a monopoly of the Jewish race, but is universal.”
He pointed to the “remarkable contributions” of the Jews to the material welfare of the country, especially in the areas of commerce and industry. He asserted that the Jew is a “powerful influence” for “mutual respect and goodwill fundamental to the national unity” of South Africa. “His adaptibility,” Dr. Malan continued, “makes him a good national as well as a good Jew, and a good South African as well as a true son of Israel.”
The certificate to Dr. Malan, in Afrikaans, was presented to him together with a silver plate on which was engraved, also in Afrikaans, the inscription: “To a great Afrikaner, a promoter of good relations between Jews and Afrikaners and a true friend of the land of prophets.”
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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.
