The AJC Africa Institute provides a sounding board on advocacy matters of Africa’s most significant Jewish community. Although Jews played an important role in the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, the governing ANC party has long identified with the Palestinian cause, and its leaders have often sided with the movement to boycott, divest from, and sanction Israel (BDS). As a longtime partner of the South Africa Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD), the umbrella agency for the country’s Jewish groups, we connect SAJBD’s friends in government to AJC’s friends in the U.S., and routinely join SAJBD in taking South African journalists to Israel on AJC Project Interchange seminars.
The Institute also partners with the South African Union of Jewish Students, and has funded programs taking non-Jewish leaders to Israel. In addition, it has approached the leadership of South African universities in connection with incidents of violence or hate speech by BDS and other groups that affect the well-being of Jewish students.
