SOUTH AFRICA (VINnews) — The Chief Rabbi of South Africa, Rabbi Dr. Warren Goldstein, has rewritten the Shabbos tefilla recited in shuls for peace in the country, in response to the South African government’s public support for Hamas,
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As reported in the South African Jewish Report, Jews will pray for the people of South Africa, not the government. The original prayer read: “L-rd we beseech You, bestow Your guidance and protection upon THE PRESIDENT AND THE DEPUTY PRESIDENT AND ALL MEMBERS OF THE GOVERNMENT.”
The revised version says: “L-ord we beseech You, bestow Your guidance and protection upon all the people of this country.”
Rabbi Goldstein discussed the historic change with a number of Rabbis and sent a letter to explain the reasoning.
Rabbi Goldstein wrote, “You may recall a similar instance a few years ago, at the height of state capture, when I changed the prayer so that we would not be praying for President Jacob Zuma who was inflicting suffering on 60 million people for the purposes of self-enrichment. Such a change is reserved for extreme situations, for government violations of morality so grotesque they undermine the integrity of praying. This is an issue of being true to our Torah values. We mean what we pray for; our prayers reflect our deepest hopes and aspirations, and our deepest values.”
The letter continued, “The [current] change is, clearly, due to the South African government’s ongoing support for Hamas. How can we pray for a government that supports an organization responsible for the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust – an organization whose official policy is to murder Jews and which poses an ongoing threat to the safety of the Jewish people and the State of Israel?”
“It’s not a decision that was taken lightly,” Rabbi Goldstein added. “In any democracy there will be government policies certain population groups will vehemently disagree with. And we certainly can’t change the text of our tefillot [prayers] every time the government makes a decision we don’t like. But when the government crosses the line and adopts a stance this immoral, we can’t in good conscience pray for them.”
“Note the main difference in the prayer is that from now we will be praying only for the country and the people of South Africa, and not for the government. When explaining this to your congregants, it’s important to emphasize the critical distinction between the South African government and the South African people,” wrote Rabbi Goldstein.
The current prayer was composed by the late Chief Rabbi Cyril Harris in 1994, reflecting the formerly apartheid country’s transition to democracy.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa recently took to X (formerly Twitter) to pledge his country’s solidarity with “the people of Palestine.” During the video, Ramaphosa said , “All of us standing here, [are] pledging our solidarity with the people of Palestine. We stand here because we are deeply concerned about the atrocities unfolding in the Middle East, and we have passed our condolences to the people of Israel as we are passing out condolences to the people of Palestine.”
Very important move.
SA had a very close strategic & trading relationship with Israel during the “Real” Apartheid period which many black / indigenous Africans still resent – eventhough many Jews were very vocally anti-racist & pro-Mandela. When the Apartheid ended, the first multination antiZionist conference was in Durban. Fast forward today, still no bygones. You wanna stop the prayer for the govt, go a ahead. This is as good as reason as it gets, but down publicize it in their Galus. You don’t like it, pick up and leave Mukiwa!
Why are the South Africans publicizing this.
Being in Golus we try and endear ourselves to the leaders.
The Jews in SA (0.1% of the population) need the government more then the government needs them