MS: What were some of the organizing strategies you used in doing this work?
MF: The training that I had received when I joined the anti-apartheid movement was all about starting at the ground level: at people’s workplaces, churches, neighborhoods. I had been very involved in this kind of work over the years when we were resisting the apartheid state’s Tricameral Parliament [where people of white, Indian, and mixed origin were each organized into separate decision-making chambers and Black people had no representation at all]. We went door-to-door in disenfranchised communities, listening to what people thought about that system.
In white communities, we started using a similar, ground-level model by having what we called “huisbesoek,” which is Afrikaans for “house visits.” We would find somebody well-known, and we would set up a parlor meeting in their house and ask people to bring their friends. At the meeting, everyone would listen to a discussion of the issues—usually related to current political developments and, in particular, how the liberation movement was thinking about these matters—and participants would engage and ask questions. These structures existed in Durban, Cape Town, Johannesburg, and Port Elizabeth. Ideally, these house meetings would then help people get connected to organizing efforts like the End Conscription Campaign, which was a solidarity-minded initiative based in white communities that opposed conscription into the South African military.
We also had other methods of reaching new people. For example, as part of my work with the Durban Democratic Association, we would write and distribute newsletters and pamphlets that focused on arguments against apartheid or explanations of why apartheid wouldn’t ultimately benefit white people’s economic interests in the medium to long term. These publications always tried to reach people where they were at. We knew that there was a lot of fear that stemmed from government propaganda. The government was telling white people that if apartheid were to end, they would be driven into the sea by the supposed terrorists, which of course was completely untrue. But this determined how people saw the world, so it was important to get them to articulate the fear, and then realistically and rationally assess it.
MS: Once you had recruited new people through house visits and other kinds of conversations, how did you connect them to the broader movement?
MF: Although we were reaching out to individuals as white people, or as white Jewish people, we always wanted to eventually bring them into broader anti-apartheid resistance across racial lines. The idea was to encourage those who had been brought in to attend mass meetings held by the United Democratic Front, an anti-apartheid body that consisted of civil society organizations from across the country.
We would sometimes also ask people to take on more difficult tasks, both because it was needed in the movement and to increase their investment in the struggle. For example, if there was a Black activist who needed to be in hiding, we might ask a white person to provide housing for that comrade. But that was, of course, a more difficult ask for a new recruit. It was also risky on a security level; we had to be very sure of the integrity of anyone becoming involved because potential infiltrators could cause serious harm to our Black comrades.
MS: How has your anti-apartheid organizing in white communities influenced how you understand your role as a white Jew doing Palestine solidarity work?
MF: Through my work in the anti-apartheid struggle, I learned that it was strategic for us to listen to the fears of white people and help foster their awareness and capacity for action. In the context of Palestine solidarity, this would mean examining what is keeping Jewish people from supporting Palestinian liberation. There are many in the Jewish community who are barricaded by their pro-Israel beliefs. And in the background of that is our inherited trauma—which is brewed in Jewish schools, synagogues, and other community institutions, and which is now resurfacing in destructive, negative ways. In order to bring Jewish communities into this work, we must have real conversations about these deep-seated fears: discussions where such fears can be articulated, their sources acknowledged, and their relevance to the present moment questioned.
This may be the right time for such conversations within the Jewish diaspora. Many Jews, even if they currently feel alienated by Palestine solidarity work, are also feeling some sort of moral questioning within themselves and are now saying, “I can’t wholeheartedly support what is happening in Israel. I can’t identify with that.” Those people may be a minority, but they are who we must work with, especially since this minority will only grow as Israeli military aggression drags on. In Israel, for instance, people’s economic interests are being increasingly threatened, and it’s in contexts such as this—when people’s privilege is threatened—that they start asking questions. Another reason for this newfound questioning, especially outside of Israel, is that younger people tend to increasingly identify with Palestine, which creates generational schisms in families. And there’s something that happens when your relationship with people close to you is threatened that can lead to a new willingness to understand something from a different perspective.
This is a time when important questions are being triggered. As Jewish activists, we don’t have the luxury of withdrawing ourselves from these communal conversations. There are cracks that exist in our communities, and we need to build from them.
