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NEWS
South African Jews Mourn As Violence Hits Close To Home
by D. Saks, South Africa
A memorial service was held in Johannesburg this week for
three young South African victims of the Middle East
violence. The three, who died within a fortnight of each
other, were the first South African-born casualties of the
seventeen-month long Palestinian uprising. Many bereaved
family members and friends flew to Israel to attend the
funerals, and the killings received substantial coverage in
the local South African press.
The most poignant of the three tragedies was that of Michel
and Ruthi Malka from Glenhazel in Johannesburg, who arrived
in Israel with five children and departed with only four,
after their nine-month-old daughter Aviva Malka was amongst
those killed in the terror attack on motzei Shabbos
Parshas Vayakhel-Pekudei. The family had been visiting
Israel to attend a chasunah.
Michel Malka was also seriously injured in the attack, which
was carried out by two Palestinian terrorists who tossed
grenades and sprayed gunfire on guests in the Jeremy Hotel in
Netanya as they were leaving. Both terrorists were
subsequently killed by Israeli police after fleeing the
scene.
A few days earlier, two South African-born army officers,
Sergeant Steven Koenigsberg and Lieutenant David Damelin,
were killed in separate Palestinian ambushes. 19 year-old
Koenigsberg, who immigrated to Israel with his father in
1999, was killed when Palestinian gunmen opened fire near the
Kissufim crossing in the Gaza Strip. Damelin, 29, of Kibbutz
Metzar in the Golan Heights, was one of ten soldiers and
civilians shot dead by a sniper at an IDF roadblock north of
Ofra.
After a relatively quiet start to the year, anti-Israel
activity in South Africa is once again intensifying, with a
number of protest marches on the American and Israeli
embassies taking place in Cape Town and Pretoria. The Muslim
Judicial Council, formerly regarded as representing the
moderate wing of the country's million-strong Muslim
community, last week issued a statement in support of Hamas,
Hizbullah and Islamic Jihad. The statement was condemned by
the Jewish Board of Deputies, which expressed dismay at the
fact that a hitherto respected mainstream Muslim organization
in South Africa should endorse the activities of such
extremist and antisemitic groups that have even been declared
terror organizations by the United States.
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