Cape Town - Western Cape Cosatu head and senior ANC office-bearer Tony Ehrenreich on Tuesday laid “charges” with police against the Jewish Board of Deputies.
This comes after the board reported on Thursday that Ehrenreich wrote on his Facebook page on Wednesday: “The time has come to say very clearly that if a woman or child is killed in Gaza, then the Jewish board of deputies, who are complicit, will feel the wrath of the people of SA with the age-old biblical teaching of an eye for an eye.
“The time has come for the conflict to be waged everywhere the Zionist supporters fund and condone the war killing machine of Israel.”
On Thursday night, the board said it was laying criminal and civil charges against Ehrenreich “for hate speech and incitement to violence against the elected, representative leadership of the SA Jewish community”.
Ehrenreich was at Cape Town police station at 11am, laying charges of his own - “against the Jewish Board of Deputies and its directors and office bearers”.
Ehrenreich stressed this was in his “personal capacity”.
He explained: “The charges can be summarised as follows: The Jewish Board of Deputies are funding and providing moral justification to the Israeli army genocide in Gaza.”
Next: “The Jewish Board of Deputies are encouraging and recruiting young men from South Africa to break the law and go and fight in the Israeli army.”
Then, Ehrenreich alleged: “The Jewish Board of Deputies acts against the stated policy of SA to promote peaceful dialogue as the mechanism to end conflict by refusing to condemn the killing of women and children in Gaza.”
Ehrenreich reported “victimisation and death threats” since his call last week, received via telephone, email, Facebook and in tweets.
“The craziest death threat via cell phone was from 082 900 8973 and went as follows; ‘Tony you are an anti-Semitic c*** and I am going to kill you, you piece of s***’.”
“Whilst these threats are taken with a pinch of salt, the Jewish Board of Deputies are the ones who are portraying me as being anti-Semitic, and so they must be held complicit in these threats. Those making the threats must realise that this is not Palestine, where people are not able to respond with an equal reaction to aggression,” Ehrenreich said.
Cape Argus