David Jacobson, the executive director of the SA Jewish Board of Deputies, is “deeply shocked” at the “grossly anti-Semitic and racially inflammatory views” propagated by Stephen Goodson, a non-executive director of the SA Reserve Bank.
In a statement, Jacobson welcomed the fact that the SA Reserve Bank distanced itself from Goodson’s “noxious” views.
A Mail & Guardian article last week about Goodson’s nine-year term at the bank coming to an end in July, quoted extracts from a radio interview last year by US talk show host Deanna Spingola where Goodson expressed pro-Nazi views.
Goodson claimed the Holocaust was a “huge lie” created to get compensation from Germany. He spoke about his admiration for Hitler’s economic policies saying he transformed the country and reduced the unemployment rate from 30 percent to zero in six years.
Jacobson said: “It is regrettable that someone responsible not just for holding but for actively publicising views of so deeply offensive a nature held office within one of South Africa’s most important public institutions.”
The Reserve Bank said Goodson would not be eligible for re-election in terms of the King 3 code on corporate governance because of his length of service.
The national chairman of the SA Jewish Board of Deputies Mary Kluk said: “In a country like ours, which stands for tolerance and understanding and which utterly repudiates racial prejudice on any kind, there is no place for the kind of repellent views held by Stephen Goodson and others like him.”
David Hersch from the SA Israel Affairs Committee
said it was “not good enough” for the Reserve Bank to say that Goodson’s term ended in July.
“Goodson should be fired or made to resign immediately. The Reserve Bank should be ashamed.”