Esack is being recognized for his “brilliant contribution to academic research and to the fight against race, gender, class and religious oppression.”

Despite accusations of being sympathetic to Holocaust denial and antisemitism, BDS South Africa board chairman Prof. Farid Esack is to be awarded the Order of Luthuli (Silver), it was announced late last week. BDS refers to the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israel.

The award is considered the highest that South Africa bestows on its citizens and eminent foreign nationals who have made a “meaningful and significant contribution to the struggle for democracy, human rights, nation-building, justice, and peace and conflict resolution,” according to the prize committee’s website.

The award is being given to Esack for “his brilliant contribution to academic research and to the fight against race, gender, class and religious oppression,” and will be bestowed upon him by the South African President Cyril Ramaphosa.

Esack is a prominent University of Johannesburg professor who heads up the Religion Studies Department. He is also a well-known anti-apartheid activist.

While visiting Berlin in 2016, Esack was recorded as making several comments that bordered on antisemitism: “In many ways, what is happening here [with the Israeli ‘occupation’] is both a combination of economic interests – and in the case of the United States – particularly the power of the Israeli lobby. So it is economic interests, the Israeli lobby, and in Europe, in a country particularly like Germany, it is the guilt of the past and a very simplistic owning of that guilt.”

He added: “You know, the heavens will fall apart if you are caught not making the distinction between Israel and Jews. If once you slip, the heavens will fall apart, you will lose your job, you will be kicked out of parliament… What the hell is this?”

Read More: Jerusalem Post