From a Zionist youth to an anti-Zionist adulthood
JVL Introduction
Diana Neslen describes how she became an anti-Zionist Jew even before the 1967 Six Day war. Born in South Africa in 1939, as she learned about the Holocaust she began to question the privilege she enjoyed as a white South African compared with those of Black people in the same country where people were treated differently for who they were and not for what they had done. She later saw distinct echoes of this on visits to Israel in the late 1950s and early 1960s when she saw how Palestinians were treated and talked about and also by the heavy militarisation. Everything she has seen and learned since has compounded her view.
Diana’s concerns about what would follow the 1967 Six Day War were, sadly, all too accurate. Diana is a courageous woman, disgracefully harassed by the Labour Party with allegations of antisemitism (which is not discussed in this video.) We thoroughly recommend this, not least because as well as showing one woman’s experience, also shows that people can and do change and this is a cause for hope.
LL
This article was originally published by YouTube on Sun 24 May 2026. Read the original here.
Israel, The Golem and the Mark of Cain
The film explores Diana Neslen’s journey from a Zionist youth to an active campaigner against the apartheid state of Israel. Diana Neslen was born in South Africa in 1939. The formative influences in her early life were her special needs sister, the Holocaust and Apartheid. These public and private influences instilled in her a passion for justice and equality which never wavered. She bought this passion to her activism, first against South African and the against Israeli apartheid. A retired social worker, Diana states that she rejects both white privilege in South Africa and Jewish privilege in Israel. Diana is co-chair of Redbridge PSC.
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