Catching up with South Africa’s Chief Rabbi Warren Goldstein
After overcoming my envy of Chief Rabbi Goldstein’s ordered work environment, which could not be in starker contrast to my own, we discuss the role the chief rabbi played in the 2016 campaign to oust President Jacob Zuma, who had turned the country into his personal fiefdom for the enrichment of himself and close cronies during his ten-year rule. He penned an op-ed in South Africa’s leading paper, the Sunday Times, calling for Zuma’s ouster and addressed a 20,000-person rally at Union House in Pretoria organized by leading black businessman Sipho Pityano.
We watch a video of the speech together. The chief rabbi begins by telling the mostly black crowd that it is only a few days before Pesach and asking them if they remember what Moses told Pharaoh. They answer with a resounding, “Let my people go.”
Next, the normally mild-mannered Rabbi Goldstein leads the crowd in a chant: “What do we want?” To which they respond, “Freedom.” Each call for freedom enumerates another ill of the Zuma government from which they wish to be free: corruption, state capture, personal enrichment, reaching a crescendo, “Freedom to all the people of South Africa. Let my people go.”
Next, the normally mild-mannered Rabbi Goldstein leads the crowd in a chant: “What do we want?” To which they respond, “Freedom.” Each call for freedom enumerates another ill of the Zuma government from which they wish to be free: corruption, state capture, personal enrichment, reaching a crescendo, “Freedom to all the people of South Africa. Let my people go.”
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