Last week, Israel paid its last respects to Olga Meshoe-Washington, a powerful advocate and ally. In what may have been a unique show of what Judaism calls chesed shel emet (loving kindness in truth), her family’s request to bury her in the Holy Land was honored.
Meshoe Washington passed away suddenly in New Jersey on 6 January 2025, a month after being diagnosed with lupus. She was 43 and survived by her husband and two sons, Ezra and Judah; her father, Kenneth Meshoe; in-laws Dumisani and Valerie Washington; and two siblings.
Meshoe Washington was buried in Darchei Shalom (ways of peace) Cemetery in Tel Regev Haifa, at the request of her family. David Nekrutman, Executive Director of The Isaiah Project, was a close personal friend who worked with Meshoe Washington in her Israel advocacy and attended the funeral.
“You would say, a spirit of God moved in both of the families, both in South Africa and in the United States,” Nekrutman said. “They wanted to do a memorial service for her in Israel but then decided to bury her in Israel. When they made that decision, Jews from South Africa, Israel, and the United States all came together to work out the details and make it happen. They even fundraised for the families.”
Nekrutman described the effort as chesed shel emet.In Jewish tradition, participating in someone’s funeral is a Biblical obligation known as a “chesed shel emet,” an act of loving kindness at its purest because it can never be repaid.
The Jewish laws pertaining to the preparation of the body for burial are punctilious, focused on showing the most profound respect for the deceased. The preparations, considered a holy mitzvah, are carried out by the chevra kadisha. Such preparations are rarely carried out for non-Jews as such matters are taken care of by the deceased’s faith community.
“The chevra kadisha were extremely respectful and understood the magnitude of what was going on,” Nekrutman said. “Perhaps the most touching aspect was that it was all facilitated by Jews to show their respects and bid farewell to a remarkable woman who had stood by the Jews and Israel.”
The President of Israel, Isaac Herzog, helped facilitate the process and streamline the bureaucratic procedures to allow the burial.
“I have been working to connect Christians and Israel for over two decades,” Nekrutman said. “I have never seen Jews go to such lengths to show respect and love for a Christian Zionist.”
Olga was a South African attorney known for her work in interfaith relations and Israeli advocacy, founding the pro-Israel Christian lobby group DEISI (Defend, Embrace, Invest, Support Israel) and was the COO of the international Zionist youth organization Club Z. Meshoe Washington was the eldest daughter of South African politician Reverend Kenneth Meshoe, parliamentary leader of the African Christian Democratic Party. Like her father, Olga argued publicly that Israel was not an apartheid state. She called such accusations “slanderous” and “deceptive,” emphasizing that these claims trivialized the word. She said that such comparisons were “woefully ignorant” and “trivialized what Black South Africans went through; they’re erasing our experience.”
Her husband, Joshua Washington, is the son of Dumisani Washington, the founder and CEO of the Institute for Black Solidarity with Israel (IBSI). The couple’s love of Israel and the Jewish people was profoundly personal and a part of their love for each other.At their wedding, tables were divided to provide kosher offerings as well as non kosher menu items.
