Taken from The Forward
November 9, 2001

The Other Lesson of Durban

Should death or maiming occur while on the premises, a sign informed me, the Jewish Club of Durban could not be held responsible. After that jarring welcome, I joined the Jewish community of this South African city as it struggled to sort out the odd mixture of inspiration and fear generated by the United Nations World Conference Against Racism. Sitting in its great hall in September, I was forced to contemplate the effect that the anti-Zionism at the conference was having on our struggle against racism.

I had traveled from New York City and — through a string of Jewish connections — lodged at my dad's best friend's sister's coworker's niece's bed and breakfast. But at the conference any benefits my connections might bring had clearly run out. I was terrified for my life.

I know this fear was irrational. I was among anti-racism activists, for goodness sake, not terrorist suicide bombers. Still, I imagined my untimely death again and again. Just the scar of anti-Semitism, enflamed? Perhaps. But there was much at the conference to feed my fears.

The shocking insensitivity and outright anti-Jewish sentiment of the pro-Palestinian activists was rarely, if ever, interrupted by the more reasoned or diplomatic voices in attendance. For example, anti-Zionists disrupted a press conference of the Jewish caucus, while anti-Semitic lies and distortions equating Israel with an apartheid state and Zionism with Nazism were hard to avoid.

Unfortunately, the media was often at its worst, focusing only on examples of conflict while ignoring peace offerings and signs of hope. The ultra-Orthodox rabbis from Brooklyn holding signs reading "Authentic Rabbis Against Zionism" received worldwide coverage while local Zulus wearing a Star of David wrapped around a peace symbol saw little.

I felt privileged in this context to be invited to this gathering of the Durban Jewish community. The evening was opened with a speech by the Israeli ambassador, who offered one simple message for Jews of South Africa: "We've learned, once again, we are alone and have no friends." I was shocked. These were words fueled by exhaustion and despair. How had events taken such an ugly turn, leaving my fellow Jews in such desperate shape?

The conference was certainly marred by anti-Zionism, but most participants were keeping their eyes on the prize: to unite the world in a common struggle against racism. As such, Jews were there in droves, which should come as no surprise, as Jews have always been on the frontline of the struggle for racial justice. But as conference attendees connected the dots between their local struggles against racism and the struggles of others around the world, few learned how anti-Jewish oppression informed the anti-Zionism around them.

Historically, anti-Semitism has been used as a device, blaming Jews for all sorts of social ills as a means for diverting attention from those in power. This blame is then used to disrupt alliances between Jews and other minorities by pitting us against one another. Anti-Zionism plays a similar role. Simply put, tensions were stoked around real issues in the Middle East to keep participants from uniting in common cause against racism, permitting the Arab world and the United States to avoid dealing with their own racist legacies while solutions to Israeli/Palestinian tensions were effectively drowned out.

So what lessons are to be learned from Durban, specifically those that can break us out of this recurring process that targets Jews and pits us against our allies? The first lesson came from that t-shirt pairing the Star of David with the peace symbol. Jewish and Zulu South Africans united around a t-shirt proclaiming "Fight Racism, Not Jews" was the kind of message the conference sorely needed. It said loudly and clearly that Jews cannot fight anti-Semitism without allies and that to garner such support we need to advocate for social and economic justice. It also suggests that if we want to support a Jewish state as an effective tool for our own liberation while simultaneously maintaining our credibility as allies, we must show integrity and recognize the injustices inflicted upon the Palestinians in our names. To do otherwise is hypocritical, feeding ammunition to the anti-Zionist cause.

The Israeli ambassador read the week's events as a sign that Jews were alone in the world, but we are not alone and we do have allies, even in Durban. The three speakers who followed the ambassador emphasized my point and offered a second lesson. The first, an Israeli, described how Palestinians shot her husband to death while he was driving home from work. The second, a French rabbi, organized a vigil after his synagogue was set aflame, attended by local Christians and Muslims who joined in condemning the attack. The third speaker testified about his son, who was stoned to death in Israel just a few months earlier, and how he had responded by creating a summer camp for children whose families had been victimized by terrorism.

Hearing these stories, I couldn't help but think that all Jews could benefit from such a camp, traumatized as we are by the Holocaust, anti-Semitism and the violence in the Middle East. The misinformation we are fed about ourselves and our place in the world leads us to grow defensive, protective and distrustful that non-Jews would ever truly back us.

The absence of hate among the three speakers spoke volumes. Their grief had not turned into calls for revenge, filling me with hope. If they could do it, we too could move beyond the traumas that have been inflicted upon us as a people. Until we learn their lesson, we will resist facing the injustices done to Palestinians and find nothing but insecurity in our struggle to know that we are no longer alone.

At Durban, Jews had a remarkable opportunity to evaluate how far we have come and how far we have to go. While the anti-Semitism knocked us for a loop, leaving us unprepared to fight racism as Jews and anti-Zionism as progressives, we are still a good and beloved people. The more we can remember that when next under attack, the better we will be at creating a world safe for all.

Mr. Joseph is the New Voices Fellow at Global Kids Inc., working in the capacity of human rights and Internet specialist. He is also co-founder of the Alliance for Judaism and Social Justice. He can be reached at bjinfo@globalkids.org.