Some of you might say I’m pulling this topic out of thin air, but when I sat down to research it I discovered that the world’s leading “anti-Semitism fighter” will fly into Sydney and Melbourne this week to “investigate a rising number of attacks on the Jewish community and people of other religions”, according to last weekend’s Sunday Age.

“Dr Gregg Rickman, the US State Department’s special envoy to monitor anti-Semitism [said] he was acting on reports of increased incidents in Australia,” writes Jason Dowling, where Jews “are four times more likely to be victimised than Jews in Britain.”

Jews have always copped a hard time in this country but, most of them, save the Orthodox followers and those who choose to wear skullcaps tend to “blend in”, which may placate assimilationists but also makes it harder for bigots to spot them from the safety of their mini-bus, shout abuse and beat them.

South African Jews? Well, they have that accent, which makes them easily identifiable, and for many Aussies, the flattened “i” and confused “t” and “d” is enough to assume the speaker hates black people, is rich, intolerably rude and deserving of contempt.

For the record, my father was South African, but I am not Jewish; I was born in this country and feel no particular affinity with Africa, north or south, its denizens, immigrants or rugby union players.

The South African accent actually kind of bugs me, and I’m never shy about asking a Jaapie to repeat the following sentence for a Friday night giggle: “This is an illegal gathering. You have one minute to disperse.”

What bugs me even more, however, is being prejudged, which the etymologists amongst you will note is the root of the word prejudice; defined as “an unfavourable opinion or feeling formed beforehand or without knowledge, thought or reason”.

This is also the root of racism: when the bigot sees a person of a certain racial type or religion, they assume characteristics (usually negative) about that individual despite not knowing a single thing about them other than their skin colour, nationality, the sound of their voice or that they wear a skull cap or headscarf.

Most racists choose their audiences carefully, with only the most stupid (or drunk) uttering epithets about Asians, blacks or Muslims in mixed company, yet South Africans Jews, because they are white perhaps, seem an open target.

I reckon I must hear at least one person a week make some kind of sweeping statement about South African Jews, accusing them of of rudeness or an imperious nature brought on by “having black servants when they were in South Africa”.

One girl I know who works in hospitality told me a few weeks ago: “I won’t serve South African Jews because they are obnoxious. As soon as I hear the voice, I tell my boss to send someone else to their table because I won’t be able to control myself.”

When I asked her to replace the phrase “South African Jews” and “obnoxious” in the sentence, with say “Aboriginals” and “drunken” or “Chinese” and “sneaky” or “Muslim” and “terrorist” – she told me I didn’t understand, because I didn’t have to deal with “them”.

I have no doubt there are many rude South African Jews in Australia, as there are Aborigines who are overly fond of a drink, Chinese who’ll sell you a seafood stick pretending it’s lobster and Muslims who know their way around a timing device.

But saying “all” South African Jews are “this” or “that”, well we need to call a spade a spade and it’s prejudice, which is a convenient method for angry, lazy or stupid people to pour their own resentments about life onto one group or another.

Thinking for yourself is not easy, I admit, and I achieve it with varying degrees of success every day of my life and have battled my own prejudices (particularly towards women) all my life.

As I noted in a post back in 2006, a doctor friend of mine once sent me an email that said in part: “It’s one of the most difficult things to do, but I don’t think you can judge whole races because of bad experiences you’ve had.”

“Jesus was pretty good at it, and while I’m not in his class, I was once assaulted by an Asian gang, but I still eat Chinese food. I’ve been beaten up by a jockey (it was a pretty close fight), but I still go to the races. I’ve been manhandled by Islanders on the football field, and I still hug most bouncers when I walk into their pubs.”

I’m pretty sure Dr Rickman would agree.

If you’d like to email me with a topic suggestion or just vent, try here. I now have too many unanswered emails to catch up on, so I’m instituting a no-reply policy (unless you’re hot). In advance, I thank you for your email.

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