South African anti-Israel groups are set to protest at the Johannesburg Holocaust and Genocide Centre (JHGC) on Monday and Friday to demand that the museum recognize the situation in Gaza as a genocide and adopt Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) policies.
Palestine Solidarity Campaign Gauteng shared an advertisement for the protest on Thursday, asserting that the JHGC was engaging in genocide denialism and that its “silence” was complicity.
“It is an injustice and insult to all victims of genocide that the Johannesburg Holocaust and Genocide Centre has remained silent on the genocide being committed against Palestinians,” PSC said in a collaborative Instagram post with South African Jews for a Free Palestine, Palestine Solidarity Alliance, and South African BDS Coalition.
A mid-October letter to the JHGC, published by anti-Israel activists on social media, detailed the demands of over a dozen anti-Israel groups.
The groups demanded that the center define and oppose the “genocide in Gaza,” recognize Israeli “apartheid and settler colonialism,” support the prosecution of South Africans serving in the IDF, call for the closure of the Israeli embassy, and endorse BDS.
The letter argued that the center could not claim to be a neutral body because it issued a statement on October 7 condemning the Hamas-led massacre in Israel.
“If the center is to be credible, its mission must evolve. It cannot remain a museum of remembrance while genocides continue in real time,” read the letter. “A center for Holocaust and Genocide Memory that refuses to act in this moment betrays the very purpose of its existence.”
The letter argued that the lessons of the Holocaust should be universal and not focus on Jewry because this could supposedly be used to justify “the destruction of any group perceived as a threat to Jewish safety.”
“If the JHGC wishes to be an antidote to genocide rather than a justification for it, it must publicly affirm that ‘Never Again’ means ‘Never Again for Anyone,’” urged the activists.
The letter followed an October 6 meeting between anti-Israel activists and the JHGC. The activists asserted that the center knew that the war in Gaza was a genocide because there were scholars and legal authorities who claimed as such, but that it was denying the status anyway.
The JHGC said that it met the groups in good faith for an informal meeting and offered to organize a formal event, but this was rejected by the anti-Israel activists.
“During the meeting, we emphasized our mission of education, remembrance, and learning lessons from the past, as well as our commitment to being a space for open dialogue,” said a representative.
“As an acclaimed educational institution teaching about the Holocaust and the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, the JHGC supports the National Curriculum on the study of ‘Nazi Germany and the Holocaust’ and actively collaborates with the city, the province, and partners beyond to educate on the dangers of hatred.”
South African Jewish Board of Deputies condemed the protest
The South African Zionist Federation (SAZF) said that the protest was obscene, accusing Israel of genocide outside a Holocaust memorial in a “grotesque perversion of truth and morality.”
“To exploit a memorial to the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust as a platform to demonize the Jewish state is not activism; it is antisemitism in its purest and most shameful form.
“It trivializes the very meaning of genocide, weaponizing it against the Jewish people and the one state created to ensure it never happens again,” said SAZF national spokesperson Rolene Marks.
“That this protest takes place now exposes what these activists have always been about. It was never about protecting Palestinian lives.
“It is, and always was, about demonizing and dismantling the Jewish state. These are the same people who excuse or support Hamas, a genocidal terrorist movement devoted to Israel’s destruction.”
The South African Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD) also condemned the planned protests against the JHGC, which it asserted was part of a broader anti-Jewish campaign disguised as a pro-Palestinian movement.
“Through coordinated campaigns of harassment and intimidation, they have repeatedly targeted Jewish institutions, businesses, and individuals, attempting to silence or coerce those who do not conform to their worldview,” said SAJBD.
“The JHGC is an institution dedicated to ensuring that the lessons of genocide, intolerance, and hate are never forgotten. To target such an institution under any pretext is deeply anti-Jewish and fundamentally contrary to South Africa’s democratic values.
“To attempt to coerce the JHGC or participating academics into aligning with the political slogans of a single lobby is not activism. It is intimidation.”
The Board further said that the SAJFP’s involvement did not indicate an internal disagreement in the Jewish community but rather the group’s use as a front to legitimize other hostile actors.
The country’s Jewish community was diverse in its opinions, it said, holding both pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian positions, but united in the belief in peace and a two-state solution.
The SAJBD added that “What unites us further is the rejection of hate, intimidation, and the distortion of Jewish institutions and memory for political gain.”