Image by wikimedia

A proud bastion of anti-apartheid, the University of the Witwatersrand, found itself the target last week after the Johannesburg school hosted an Israeli jazz quartet – triggering a round of protests by anti-Israel activists.

During the era of apartheid, the 1960s to the 1980s, Wits University in Johannesburg seethed with protest. The school offered academic studies into apartheid. Anti-apartheid NGOs proliferated, run by students and faculty, many of them Jewish. Students mounted picket lines and police broke up demonstrations and made arrests.

Last Wednesday evening, Wits’ tradition took an ironic twist. Jewish erstwhile activists, now in their 60s and 70s, revisited their alma mater for a concert featuring Israeli saxophonist Daniel Zamir and his quartet in the Great Hall – the venue where they had attended anti-apartheid meetings – and found themselves walking through picket lines manned by demonstrators with white tape over their mouths. Placards condemned ‘apartheid Israel’, and accused the newly appointed Wits’ principal, Professor Adam Habib, of ‘silencing’ them.

Forwarding the News

Thoughtful, balanced reporting from the Forward and around the web, bringing you updated news and analysis each day.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

Five months earlier, during “Israel Apartheid Week” on campus, the Israeli-born pianist Yossi Reshef had abandoned his concert at Wits after 15 minutes as BDS demonstrators stormed the hall. Reshef was escorted out by security. The university had apologized for the debacle and billed last week’s concert as a replacement for it, as proof of its impartiality.

For more, go to Haaretz

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

2X match on all Passover gifts!

$90 → $180 $180 → $360

$360 → $720

Other amount