South African Pro-Israel Leader Gunned Down In Johannesburg
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(JTA) — An outspoken Jewish advocate of Israel was gunned down at his workplace in South Africa by unidentified assailants, who left behind his car, wallet and cellular phone.
Sergio Kowensky, the chairman of the Likud South Africa Jewish group, was gunned down Tuesday in a southern suburb of Johannesburg at his air-conditioning firm, according to the South African Jewish Report.
The shots, fired at around noon, alerted workers in his factory and others in surrounding businesses.
“The initial fears were that this could have been the work of anti-Israel fanatics, given that Kowensky spent his entire life dedicated to Zionist ideals, with an intense passion for the well-being of the State of Israel,” the newspaper article’s author wrote. But with the investigation into Kowensky’s death only in its initial phases, his slaying could be “just another senseless act of urban violence on the crime-ridden streets of Johannesburg,” the author also wrote.
Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Kowensky grew up in the small town of Moisés Ville in the province of Santa Fe, which was founded by Eastern European and Russian Jews escaping persecution in 1889.
Kowensky, 67, is survived by his wife Alison, and their three children, aged 32 to 42.
The incident closely followed warnings by representatives of South Africa’s Jewish community who said they are seeing an uptick in anti-Semitic rhetoric in real life and on social media.
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