The Johannesburg outpost of a prestigious British independent girls school has been accused of antisemitism after refusing to play a Jewish school at tennis.
Pupils at Roedean School South Africa – a sister school to the original Roedean School, in Brighton – had been due to play a tennis match with girls at Johannesburg’s King David School Linkfield on February 3 as part of a tournament, but pulled out one day before it was scheduled to take place, allegedly because parents “did not want [their children] to play a Jewish school”.
A letter from the chairman of the group of South Africa’s King David Schools, Alan Joffe, and the general director, Rabbi Ricky Seef, seen by the JC, was sent to staff and parents this week.
It states that Lorraine Srage, the principal of King David Linkfield, received a phone call from her counterpart at Roedean, Phuti Mogale one day before the match to explain that a “group of parents” had raised concerns about the fixture, and that they “did not want the match to proceed on the basis that they would be playing a Jewish school”.
During the call, Joffe and Seeff say, Srage described what Mogale had allegedly told her as “extremely distressing”. Mogale agreed and reassured Srage that the match would still go ahead, the King David officials said.
But, just one hour after that phone call, King David received an email from the head of sport at Roedean explaining that the decision had been made to forfeit the match due to “other academic commitments” and that Roedean would concede the points to King David, according to the letter.
However, the letter stressed, in Srage’s earlier phone call with Mogale, “there was no mention made of any ‘prior school commitments’ nor of any ‘academic workshops’ that would conflict with the fixture the following day.”
Later that day, Mogale called Srage again, this time to inform her that issue had been “resolved” and that the match would go ahead after all, Joffee and Seeff continued. It was, they said, on that basis that the King David pupils turned up to play the match the following day – “only to be stood up”.
Srage then phoned Mogale to ask where they were, and was “met with another excuse” – that that the girls were in “geography workshops”, the letter states.
The South African Jewish Board of Deputies, the representative body for the country’s Jewish population of 50,000, said it “condemns the blatant prejudice shown by the Roedean School South Africa”.
In a statement, it added: “This disturbing refusal to play Jewish learners is deeply upsetting for the Jewish tennis players, but also conveys the message that hate and discrimination have become acceptable values at Roedean.”
A meeting has since been held between representatives from both schools, Joffe and Seef said in their letter.
King David had two “simple requests” of Roedean, parents and staff were told: “That we receive an unequivocal apology for the antisemitic actions which resulted in the cancellation of the match, and a commitment to playing each other in the future.”
The letter concluded that it hoped these requests would be honoured and that “for the sake of our girls and for the sake of non-politicised school sport”, the two schools could resume the “positive relationship” they had previously enjoyed.
Responding to requests for comment, Roedean sent the JC a copy of the letter it had distributed to its own staff and parents. The letter said: “Roedean School strongly refutes the allegations of antisemitism arising from the cancellation of an inter-school tennis fixture with King David Linksfield.”
Signed by members of the school’s leadership team, the letter states that “Roedean has engaged an independent party to review allegations that have emerged in news reports and on social media”.
It continued: “Roedean School is an apolitical institution and will continue to remain so.”
The “facts of the matter”, it claimed, were that “we approached King David Linksfield ahead of the scheduled fixture and requested a postponement to resolve issues with students who’d expressed reservations about playing the fixture.”
King David, it said “was unable to accommodate the postponement, so the fixture had to be cancelled. Regrettably, this cancellation was not effectively communicated to the King David team. We apologise unreservedly for this miscommunication.”
The school added: “As an extremely diverse school, with a community that represents virtually every racial, religious and cultural group in South Africa, we deplore all forms of discrimination.”
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