ABSTRACT
The Quota Act ushered in popular antisemitism, ensuring a prominent position for the “Jewish Question” on the public agenda. Its emergence can be tied directly to the brief interregnum between the moribund “Pact” Government – an alliance between the National and Labour Parties that governed after 1924 – and the birth of the United South African Party, better known as the United Party, in June 1934. By 1942, mainstream National Party leaders were unequivocally rejecting National Socialism as an alien import into South Africa. Nonetheless, as late as 1944, an investigation into antisemitism demonstrated a continuing hostility toward Jews. Quite clearly, accounting for the ebb and flow of antisemitism is complicated. Pluralism, multiculturalism, and “rainbowism” – the very antithesis of ethnonationalism – take the sharpness out of ethnic conflict and militate against antisemitism. The “rainbow” nation celebrates diversity and difference. Anti-Jewish hostility cannot be reduced to a single cause. In and of itself, this anti-Zionism cannot axiomatically be considered antisemitism.
