Richard Goldstone will attend his grandson’s upcoming bar mitzvah in South Africa, following an agreement with local Jewish groups.
The South African Jewish Board of Deputies brokered a deal between Goldstone and community organizations that were angry over Goldstone’s authorship of a U.N. report on Gaza war. Many Israel supporters viewed the report as grossly unfair to the Jewish state.
Under the agreement, Jewish groups agreed not to protest during the bar mitzvah celebrations, and Goldstone agreed to meet with leaders of South African Jewish communal organizations, according to an e-mail released late last week by both Goldstone and the Board of Deputies.
At the meeting, to be hosted by the South African Zionist Federation, the parties will discuss the Jewish community’s reaction to the Goldstone report, which accused Israel and Hamas of war crimes and possible crimes against humanity.
“My whole family feels joyful that we’ll be able to celebrate the bar mitzvah together,” Goldstone said following the agreement.
The Board of Deputies said it “respectfully requests, in light of the agreement reached, that all parties immediately desist all public activities on this matter so that the young man’s bar mitzvah celebration can be returned to the privacy and dignity that it deserves.”
Goldstone originally had planned to skip his grandson’s bar mitzvah next month after the Zionist Federation threatened to protest outside the synagogue.
Meanwhile, Berkeley Rabbi Michael Lerner announced that his magazine Tikkun will give its 15th annual ethics award to Goldstone next year.
Lerner told JTA that the decision to recognize Goldstone was made prior to the bar mitzvah brouhaha, but that the timing of the announcement was tied to the “outrageous” treatment from his fellow South African Jews.
Goldstone is doing a service “for the Jewish people in reinforcing the notion that our ethical judgments are not tied to blind support for any government,” Lerner said.
He said the award stems from Goldstone’s record on human rights and is a “reflection on his contribution to the Jewish people in affirming the independence of loyalty to the policies of the State of Israel.”
Before the bar mitzvah situation was resolved, Lerner issued an invitation last week to Goldstone to relocate his grandson’s bar mitzvah to Lerner’s Berkeley congregation, Beyt Tikkun.
JTA staff and Ari Bidner of JTA contributed to this report.