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Jews and the struggle for human rights interview Series

This collection of oral history interviews were conducted by Journalist Jonathan Ancer with 7 Jewish community members, all of whom contributed towards the fight against the Aparthied government in South Africa.

In this collection you will find 6 minute audio clips with the interviewees, as well as transcripts from all the interviews.

Whenever possible research has been conducted to enrich the information in these collections, if you would like to add any additional information please contact us.

Jews and the struggle for human rights, "David Lewis interview"

David Lewis was born in Klerksdorp in the North West Province in 1949. He received his training in economics from the universities of the Witwatersrand and Cape Town. After graduating he became involved in the trade union movement, he headed up the General Workers’ Union and was appointed national organiser of the Transport and General Workers Union. He was detained at the start of the meat workers’ strike in Cape Town in 1980 and spent three months in detention.
In 1990, he directed UCT’s Development Policy Research Unit, which specialises in trade and industrial policy. Between 1994 and 1996, he was special adviser to the Minister of Labour and co-chaired the Presidential Commission on Labour Market Policy. Later, he was a member of the task team that advised the Minister of Trade and Industry on the development of competition policy. Lewis participated in the drafting of the Competition Act, was a member of the Competition Board, and was appointed chairperson of the Competition Tribunal in 1999.
He was appointed an extraordinary professor at the Gordon Institute of Business Science and is the author of Thieves at the Dinner Table. In 2012 he became the executive director of Corruption Watch, a non-governmental organisation dedicated to combating corruption.

In this interview David Lewis talks about growing up in a liberal Jewish family in the conservative town of Klerksdorp in the North West Province. He describes his integration into opposition politics, how he became part of the “cultural left” at the University of the Witwatersrand and why he was drawn to the Wages Commission of the National Union of South African Students (NUSAS). He also talks about his time as a conscript in the South African Defence Force in 1967. Lewis reflects on his parents’ attitude to his involvement in opposition politics. He explains the different political factions of the developing labour movement and the role of the General Workers Union - and his own role as the general secretary, which involved recruiting African workers in Cape Town. He discusses the political environment of Cape Town in the 1980s, referring to the meat strike in the Western Cape in 1980 and his arrest 10 days after the strike was launched. He recalls the three months he spent in detention. Lewis talks about his work after the unbanning of the ANC, which included joining UCT’s Development Policy Research Unit, where he led the Industrial Strategy Project to determine the country’s economic policy. He also discusses his Jewish identity, his views on Israel and gives insight into the issues facing South Africa 26 years after democracy [Written by: Jonathan Ancer].

Jonathan Ancer

Jews and the struggle for human rights, "Taffy Adler interview"

Taffy Adler was born in 1950 and grew up in the eastern suburbs of Johannesburg. His parents were from Lithuania and arrived in South Africa in the early 1920s. His father was a communist and, for Adler, getting involved in opposition politics was a natural progression. After matriculating from Athlone Boys in 1967 he studied at the University of Witwatersrand where he joined the Human Rights Society, which was on the radical left of university politics. He also became involved with the National Union of South African Students (NUSAS), and was appointed the organisation’s local chairperson. He became president of the Student Representative Council (SRC) in 1971 and led the last legal march in Johannesburg and the first illegal march in Johannesburg.
Adler graduated from Wits and went to Sussex where he failed to earn a master’s degree, abandoning academic studies and an academic career for trade union organising. He returned to South Africa to lecture and then become a trade union organiser in the Federation of South African Trade Unions (FOSATU), which was the predecessor to COSATU, and the National Union of Automobile Workers. He left the union movement in the late 1980s to set up the Land Investment Trust (LIT), and in 1994 set up the Johannesburg Housing Company (JHC) – a social housing company providing affordable accommodation in reclaimed buildings in the Johannesburg Inner City, and then the Housing Development Agency, a state owned company acquiring land for development by various government agencies. He remains involved in various development projects.

In this interview Taffy Adler talks about growing up in a politicised Jewish family and the important influence his brother, David, who was banned for educational activism in 1977 as well as his aunt, Ray Harmel, who worked in the garment industry and was involved in trade union activity, had on him. He discusses his progression into opposition politics, his role in the student movement in the 1970’s and getting involved in the trade union movement from 1976. He describes the work he did as a union organiser and how the union movement developed in an environment that was politically hostile. He also provides insight into the relationship between the union and employers who started to recognise and work with the unions, and sometimes even sided with the union against the security police. He discusses how some of the unions began to make contact with the ANC and how COSATU started to move much more into the political arena. He describes his relationship with Judaism and his position on Israel and reflects on his experiences in opposition politics and how these experiences shaped him [Written by: Jonathan Ancer].

Jonathan Ancer

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