ACTIVISM

Clive Mashishi

Activist

South African community organizer Clive Mashishi has made the fight against antisemitism his own, combating Holocaust denial, conspiracy theories blaming Jews for the COVID-19 pandemic and comparisons of Israel to South Africa’s former apartheid regime. In an extensive interview with The Algemeiner in March, Mashishi talked about his political journey and his embrace of Jewish causes underpinned by his Christian faith. His visit to Israel in 2018 persuaded him that the Jewish state was nothing like the white minority regime in South Africa. “I was a child during apartheid and my parents lived under it. We were segregated by law. If you rode a bus, you would see written, ‘Blacks only’. Signs were written only in Afrikaans and English. In Israel, the signs are written in Hebrew, Arabic and English.” As part of his effort to combating poverty in South Africa’s black communities, Mashishi runs a small foundation with about 15 volunteers providing children with free school uniforms, operating a soup kitchen and distributing food parcels to families in need. (Photo: Cuerius Mosala)