Teach­able moment lost by lead­ers of Roedean and King David

Until two weeks ago, the majority of South Africans had never heard of two elite high schools in Johannesburg, one an Anglican school called Roedean and another a Jewish school named King David Linksfield. And yet these two institutions blew open all the cracks and fissures that run just below the surface of polite society. For that reason alone, what happened on February 3 deserves another look.

A sports team from King David showed up at Roedean for a scheduled tennis match. Except, the home team was nowhere to be seen. Earlier, the principal of Roedean had called her counterpart at King David to “pick your brain” about discomfort by some of her parents about playing the Jewish school.

The audio of the conversation was leaked and the discussion is tense but collegial, with the calling principal wanting to know whether King David was aware of other incidents of this kind. There was at this stage no suggestion that Roedean would not play their rival school as had happened in the past. In fact, the recorded audio of the two principals in conversation has the Roedean head saying: “I am going to be at the fixture anyway, basically going there to make sure my parents behave.” Then the obfuscation began.

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Roedean said their girls were unavailable because of a timetable clash (geography, then academic programmes). King David called them out and accused their competitors of antisemitism: ‘because the kids who will be walking onto the courts are Jewish’. At no stage was such a claim made: if anything, the Roedean principal was concerned about some parents not wanting to play against King David because of their declared association with the goals of the state of Israel.

It was, after all, the South African government that filed a case against Israel at the International Court of Justice alleging violations of the genocide convention in Gaza. The more than 200 students in my education policy class understood those two tensions well as we debated the case of Roedean vs King David: the right not to be discriminated against on grounds of religion and the right to protest. Both are values inscribed in the Constitution.

So which is it? Their clumsy response to the crisis notwithstanding, there is no evidence that Roedean did not show up because the school or the girls were Jewish. Antisemitism is real throughout the world and we have a long history of hatred towards Jews in South Africa; it is a deadly disease.

I felt sorry for the learners of the two schools. Nobody dwelt on their interests, let alone the fact that they had to watch well-paid adults splutter in public because of (political) management incompetence and institutional deceits. But just as we blacks can sometimes levy the charge of racism at the first sign of discord with whites, antisemitism can be used to paralyse those with whom we disagree.

Watch how the Roedean governors scrambled to respond. The fact that I disagree with the genocide being perpetrated by the government of Israel against the people of Gaza does not make me antisemitic; just as my condemnation of the horrific attack of Hamas on October 7 does not make me a Zionist. These are dangerous language games that cloud the issues.

Roedean’s parents have the right to protest a sports event on grounds of King David’s unapologetic association with the Benjamin Netanyahu government that has caused the death and disablement of more than 30,000 children in Gaza. Where the Anglican’s school’s case fell apart was when they appeared to lie about the no-show arrangement but more importantly, did not state more clearly and upfront why their girls would not play, and that therefore the match was off. With the stench of antisemitism hanging heavily in the air, the Roedean governors took the corporate route (individual school fees run north of R200,000 per annum for higher grades) because they needed the problem to go away as soon as possible.

The principal is said to have resigned (I am prepared to wager big money that she was pushed, a sacrificial lamb for a bigger cause) and an unconditional apology was rushed to the media. It worked, as this headline in the South African Jewish Report concluded: “Roedean apology brings antisemitic school saga to a close.” Just like that. What was lost by the leaders of both schools, not only the principals, was a teachable moment, an opportunity for all sides to learn some vital lessons in our still young democracy.

Lessons like the following: antisemitism is real and non-violent protest is honourable. That leadership honesty matters: leaking an audio and apparently lying about not showing up are also lessons that we teach, albeit negative ones.

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