Tag Archives: South Africa

Jew of the Week: Helen Suzman

The Woman That Ended Apartheid

Helen Suzman

Helen Gavronsky (1917-2009) was born near Johannesburg, South Africa to Jewish immigrants from Lithuania. She studied at Witwatersrand University, first commerce and then economics and economic history after marring Dr. Moses Suzman. During World War II, she worked as a statistician for the War Supply board, and assisted the Governor General’s War Fund. When the war ended she returned to university as a lecturer. She soon joined the South African Institute of Race Relations, and went on to study the conditions of black communities. It was then that she realized how much they suffered, and became an anti-apartheid activist. In 1953, Suzman was elected to the South African Parliament. Unhappy with how little her own party was doing for the cause, she co-founded the Progressive Party in 1959 with a platform to end segregation, and bring equal rights for all. By 1961, all other members of her party lost their seats, leaving Suzman as the only anti-apartheid MP for the next thirteen years. Throughout this time, she ate alone in the parliamentary lunchroom. Nelson Mandela would later say that she was “undoubtedly the only real anti-apartheid voice in parliament.” Suzman experienced tremendous anti-Semitism from her colleagues, as well as harassment from police, and threats on her life. She remained unyielding. In 1974, she finally got some support as six other anti-apartheid MPs joined the government. A year later, her party merged with the Reform Party, run by another Jewish anti-apartheid activist, Harry Schwarz. Together, the Progressive Reform Party became the official opposition by 1977. Suzman worked tirelessly to bring equal rights for all, including women and minorities. She regularly visited Nelson Mandela and other prisoners, and worked hard to improve their conditions. All in all, she served as an MP for 36 years, and continued to work in Mandela’s government afterwards. She served on the Human Rights Commission, and was twice nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. She was awarded 27 honourary degrees, was knighted by the Queen in 1989, and given the golden Order of Merit by Mandela in 1997. Suzman was voted among the greatest South Africans in history. Later in life, she did admit that South Africa did not go in the direction she thought it would, and strongly criticized the African National Congress, who did little to improve the country. The party that Suzman founded, now known as the Democratic Party, is currently the official opposition in South Africa.

What Separates Judaism from Other Religions?

Words of the Week

He who restrains his anger will not see his enemies rule over him.
– Rebbe Nachman of Breslov

Jew of the Week: Irwin Cotler

Irwin Cotler

Irwin Cotler (b. 1940) was born in Montreal and studied law at McGill University. After continuing his education at Yale, he returned to McGill as a law professor, and directed its Human Rights Program for over 25 years. As an expert on international and human rights law, Cotler served as a counsel for famous political prisoners like Nelson Mandela, Maher Arar, and Natan Sharansky. He has advised the Middle East peace process, and was involved in the Camp David Accords that brought peace between Israel and Egypt. In the 1980s, he served as President of the Canadian Jewish Congress, while also working to combat apartheid in South Africa. In 1999, he was elected as a Canadian Member of Parliament with a landslide victory that gave him 92% of the vote, described as “the most stunning electoral victory in this century.” Between 2003 and 2006, he served as Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, and has been lauded for his work in ensuring human rights and citizen privacy, particularly in the face of increasingly restrictive anti-terrorism legislation. He has worked against discrimination, anti-Semitism, and racism, appointing two women to the Supreme Court (making Canada’s the most gender-representative in the world), and appointing the first aboriginals and visible minorities to appellate courts. He issued the first national initiative against racism, worked to bring justice to victims of the Rwanda massacres, and even to indict former Iranian President Ahmadinejad for inciting genocide. Cotler reverted more wrongful convictions than any other minister in history. Having been re-elected as MP no less than 5 times, Cotler recently announced that he will not seek further re-election, and is ready to retire, though he intends to remain very active in social justice and peace activism. Awarded ten honourary degrees and the Order of Canada, Irwin Cotler is described as a key global player “in the struggle for justice, peace and human rights.”

Words of the Week

And God said: “. . . Abraham shall be a great people . . . Because I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him that they shall keep the way of God, to do righteousness and justice.”
– Genesis 18:17–19

Jew of the Week: Elie Wiesel

Messenger to Mankind

Elie Wiesel

Eliezer Wiesel (b. 1928) was born in Romania in a home that regularly spoke Hungarian, German, Romanian, and Yiddish. During the Holocaust he suffered in multiple labour and concentration camps, including Buchenwald and Auschwitz, and lost both parents and a younger sister. After the war, he resettled in Paris, studied at the Sarbonne, and worked as a journalist. In 1949, Wiesel became the Paris correspondent (later the international correspondent) for Yediot Ahronot. Though originally not wanting to write at all about the horrors of the Holocaust, he was convinced by a friend and published Night in 1958 – a shortened French version of his 900-page memoir in Yiddish. Though it took a while to hit the mainstream, the book now sells hundreds of thousands of copies every year and has been translated into 30 languages. Wiesel has subsequently authored many more publications, and has become an internationally-renowned speaker. In 1986, he won the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts against racism, violence, and genocide, and was called a “messenger to mankind”. He has also won the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Congressional Gold Medal, and was knighted, among many other awards. He has even been nominated as President of Israel, but did not wish to take up the post. Wiesel has taught at Boston and Columbia Universities, the City University of New York, and served as a visiting scholar at Yale. He has spent a great deal of his life as a political activist for international causes. He stood strongly against apartheid South Africa and raised support for intervention during the Bosnian genocide, and more recently in Darfur. He has assisted the plight of Kurds, Native Americans, Argentinian Desaparecidos, as well as Soviet and Ethiopian Jewry. Wiesel remains a vocal supporter of Israel, and Jerusalem as its undivided capital. For the past 58 years, he has lived in the US and to this day has authored 57 books.

UPDATE: Sadly, Elie Wiesel passed away on July 2, 2016.

Words of the Week

For me, the Jew that I am, Jerusalem is above politics. It is mentioned more than six hundred times in Scripture – and not a single time in the Koran.
– Elie Wiesel