EXCLUSIVE: Guilty! Leaked Audio Reveals Roedean Did Not Want to Play Against Jews

An audio recording in the possession of The Common Sense shows that Roedean School misrepresented the reasons for cancelling tennis fixtures with King David Linksfield. The recording contradicts the school’s claim that the cancellation was due to scheduling constraints and rather that the school community did not wish to compete against Jews.

Roedean School is an elite Anglican girls’ school in Johannesburg. King David Linksfield is an elite Jewish school, in the east of the city.

Multiple sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told The Common Sense that the recording captures a conversation between the respective senior staffers of Roedean and King David.

You can listen to the recording here.

The controversy emerged over the weekend after a scheduled tennis fixture between the two schools did not go ahead as planned. A King David staff member subsequently alleged that the cancellation stemmed from antisemitism.

In response, the King David Schools Foundation said it was treating the matter with the seriousness it deserved and would act in every instance to protect its students against antisemitism and all forms of discrimination.

The South African Jewish Board of Deputies condemned what it described as “blatant prejudice” by Roedean.

Roedean, however, disputed the allegation.

In a note to parents, the school said it had formally notified King David that it could not field a team because of prior commitments, including compulsory academic workshops, and it had requested either a postponement or, failing that, cancellation of the fixture. Roedean said it was engaging directly with King David Linksfield and the Independent Schools Association of South Africa.

The release of the audio recording suggests these explanations were false and that the school came under pressure not to allow a fixture against Jewish children to proceed.

The incident has now also revived scrutiny of a 2023 controversy in which Roedean sought to engage a radical Islamist group to provide what it described as “holistic Islamic enrichment”.

In a 2023 email exposed by investigative author Richard Wilkinson, the school said it was appointing Ummah Heart as an external service provider for pupils, offering a tailor-made curriculum integrated into the school timetable alongside activities such Choir, Hymn Singing, and Chapel.

Ummah Heart was described by terrorism and radicalisation expert Benji Shulman, who runs the Middle East Africa Research Institute, as an extremist group that promoted hostility toward Jews and Israel.

Social media posts by Ummah Heart in 2023 included quotations from Islamist figures promoting martyrdom and imagery widely interpreted as referencing the paragliders used by Hamas during their 7 October murderous slaughter of Jews in Israel.

Shulman said the posts were widely interpreted as incitements to violence against Jews and reflected patterns common in radicalisation efforts globally.

According to Shulman Islamist radicalisation is the process which turns Islam from a personal faith into a rigid political ideology that divides the world into believers and enemies and justifies coercion or violence in God’s name. This is widely seen as a precursor to jihad and terrorism. It reframes murder as duty, and demands loyalty to the movement over family, conscience, or law. It is dangerous because it deliberately targets civilians, destabilises societies far beyond the size of the radical group itself, radicalises young people through grievance and identity politics, and provokes heavy-handed state responses that erode civil liberties. It is about power and control, not faith, and ignoring or soft pedalling it makes the problem worse, not better.

He said that while antisemitism has historically surfaced during inter-school competitions globally, usually involving individual misconduct, the Roedean case was different as: “The concern is not individual misconduct but that the institution itself may have sought to avoid fixtures with King David because it is a Jewish school.”

Legal experts told The Common Sense that civil and potentially criminal charges could be pursued against those responsible for the decision. At the time of publication, such action was understood to be under consideration.

The Common Sense approached both King David and Roedean for comment. Any responses will be added once received.