Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis has condemned pro-Palestinian activists for comparing Israel to apartheid South Africa, saying the description was a “grave insult” to black South Africans and a “tragic obstacle to peace”.

Writing in the New Statesman about the annual “Israel Apartheid Week” student campaign, he recalled his own first-hand experience of apartheid growing up in Cape Town in the 1960s.

He cited the legal segregation and racial hierarchy of apartheid, with black South Africans being “denied the vote…required by law to live, work, study…even go to the lavatory separately”. In stark contrast “Israel [is] a country whose Arab, Druze, Bedouin, Ethiopian, Russian, Baha’i, Armenian and other citizens have equal status under the law”.

Calling Israel an apartheid state was a “slur” that “provides fuel for those who seek to polarise and it obstructs those who seek peace”, he said.

Rather than attack Israel, activists should host a week dedicated to a Palestinian “awareness” week, “which might focus on the well-being of the Palestinian people”.

Rabbi Mirvis said he was meeting former South African leader F W de Klerk — the man who freed Nelson Mandela — in London this week. They were due to attend a charity event raising money for underprivileged children in Israel.