Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

South African Pro-Israel Leader Gunned Down In Johannesburg

(JTA) — An outspoken Jewish advocate of Israel was gunned down at his workplace in South Africa by unidentified assailants, who left behind his car, wallet and cellular phone.

Sergio Kowensky, the chairman of the Likud South Africa Jewish group, was gunned down Tuesday in a southern suburb of Johannesburg at his air-conditioning firm, according to the South African Jewish Report.

The shots, fired at around noon, alerted workers in his factory and others in surrounding businesses.

“The initial fears were that this could have been the work of anti-Israel fanatics, given that Kowensky spent his entire life dedicated to Zionist ideals, with an intense passion for the well-being of the State of Israel,” the newspaper article’s author wrote. But with the investigation into Kowensky’s death only in its initial phases, his slaying could be “just another senseless act of urban violence on the crime-ridden streets of Johannesburg,” the author also wrote.

Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Kowensky grew up in the small town of Moisés Ville in the province of Santa Fe, which was founded by Eastern European and Russian Jews escaping persecution in 1889.

Kowensky, 67, is survived by his wife Alison, and their three children, aged 32 to 42.

The incident closely followed warnings by representatives of South Africa’s Jewish community who said they are seeing an uptick in anti-Semitic rhetoric in real life and on social media.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.