Page 27 - Issue 25

The late Zeev Mankowitz wrote in 1963: “The
Jews will find themselves in an untenable position
and the feeling was that we had to get ready to
move as many young people out of South Africa
as possible.”

What about our Jewish values and the moral
imperative to become part of the struggle for
human rights here on our own doorstep?

As Giddy has pointed out we lived as part of the
privileged White society and while advocating non
involvement as a movement we continued
educating our members towards an awareness of
the inherent inequality and discrimination
surrounding them. There were various attempts at
social activism such as physically protecting the
Black Sash demonstrations, adopting schools in
Soweto, participating in demonstrations at the
universities etc. but we were very soon officially
warned to cease all such activity.

Many of our members left the movement and
became involved as individuals in the resistance to
the Apartheid regime. The dilemma facing us was
self preservation and non involvement versus
embarking on a course of action as a Jewish youth
movement thereby endangering the very existence
of Habonim and perhaps also implicating the
entire Jewish community. This dilemma became
very real, very personal and very frightening when
the Habonim offices were raided by the so called
“Special Branch” both in Johannesburg and in
Bloemfontein. Then following the arrest and