Jock Isacowitz
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7 February 1915
Jock Isacowitz | |
|---|---|
| Born | Joseph Louis Isacowitz 7 February 1915 |
| Died | 30 January 1962 (aged 46) |
| Resting place | Westpark Cemetery |
| Citizenship | South Africa |
| Alma mater | University of the Witwatersrand |
| Occupations | Pharmacist, politician |
| Spouse | Eileen Lurie |
| Children | 3 |
| Part of a series on |
| Apartheid |
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Joseph "Jock" Louis Isacowitz (7 February 1915 – 18 June 1974) was a South African Liberal Party politician, anti-apartheid activist and co-founder of the Springbok Legion.[1][2]
Isacowitz was born in Benoni in the province of Transvaal in 1915 to Jewish parents, Sarah Leah Bear and Israel Isacowitz.[3][1] His father, Israel died at the age of 34-35 in 1921 when Jock was six-years-old. He attended Benoni High School and later the University of the Witwatersrand, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Pharmacy (Hons).[3] He was of Lithuanian Jewish descent.[1]
At university he befriended Jewish students Rusty Bernstein and Kurt Jonas. He was influenced by Jonas, who introduced him to Marxism.[4][5][6] For a time he was a member of the South African Communist Party and identified as an atheist.[7][5] He resigned from the party in February 1946, writing that its totalitarian character "offended my conscience."[2]
He fought in the Second World War with South African forces in East and North Africa, where he was a sergeant-major and was wounded in action.[3][1] The horrors of the Holocaust led to his rejection of anti-Zionism and joined a socialist Zionist organisation.[5][1] He joined the South African Jewish Board of Deputies, serving as a delegate on the national executive and went on missions to visit Holocaust survivors in Displaced persons camps in post–World War II Europe and absorption centres in Israel.[1]