Ben Turok
Chairperson of the Joint Committee on Ethics and Members' Interest
In office
8 February 2011 – 6 May 2014
Serving with Buoang Mashile
Preceded byLuwellyn Landers
Succeeded byAmos Masondo
Member of the National Assembly
In office
1994 – 6 May 2014
Personal details
Born
Benjamin Turok

(1927-06-26)26 June 1927
Socialist Soviet Republic of Byelorussia
Died9 December 2019(2019-12-09) (aged 92)
Cape Town, South Africa
CitizenshipSouth Africa
Political partyAfrican National Congress
Other political
affiliations		Congress of Democrats
South African Communist Party
SpouseMary Turok
Children3, including Neil Turok

Benjamin Turok (26 June 1927 – 9 December 2019) was a South African anti-apartheid activist, politician, and economics professor. He represented the African National Congress in the post-apartheid National Assembly from 1994 to 2014.[1]

Early life and activism

Turok was born to poor working-class Jewish parents in Byelorussia in 1927, who were radicalized by the secular Jewish socialist Bundist movement;[2] his parents migrated to Libau, Latvia when his father became involved in the Jewish labor movement. Later, seeking safety, Turok's father moved the family to the then Union of South Africa in 1934.[3] Jewish identification in his household was mostly cultural and his parents were involved in Yiddish theatre: "There were play readings, poetry evenings, political debates and a host of similar events all focusing on the Jewish way of life". His parents were not religious and he did not have a bar mitzvah, however he was obliged to attend Hebrew school.[4]

Turok graduated from the University of Cape Town in 1950. Returning to South Africa in 1953, he joined the South African Congress of Democrats and in 1955 became its secretary for the Cape Western region, acting as a full-time organiser for the Congress of the People.[5] With Billy Nair, he drafted the economics section of the Freedom Charter.[3][1] He was also the African representative on the Cape Provincial Council[5] and served time in police detention,[6] including as a defendant in the 1956 Treason Trial.[1]

Personal life and death

Turok married Mary Butcher, a politician and activist. They had three sons together: Fred Turok; Ivan Turok; and Neil Turok, a cosmologist and founder of the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences in Muizenberg, South Africa.[7]

He died on the morning of 9 December 2019 at his home in Cape Town. He was 92 years old.[7][8]

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Parliament deeply saddened by the passing of former MP Prof Ben Turok". Parliament of South Africa. 9 December 2019. Retrieved 14 May 2023.
  2. ↑ Shimoni, Gideon (1980). Jews and Zionism: the South African experience (1910-1967). Cape Town: Oxford University Press.
  3. 1 2 Thamm, Marianne (10 December 2019). "Ben Turok, rebel, revolutionary, thinker, truth-teller — one of the last of The Struggle greats". Daily Maverick. Archived from the original on 26 June 2020. Retrieved 26 June 2020.
  4. ↑ Justice and identity : the 'non-Jewish Jew', cosmopolitanism and anti-apartheid activism in twentieth century South Africa University of Cape Town. 2008
  5. 1 2 Kiloh, Margaret; Sibeko, Archie (2000). A Fighting Union. Randburg: Ravan Press. p. 43. ISBN 0869755277.
  6. ↑ "Non-vote: MP faces ANC wrath | IOL News". Retrieved 8 January 2018.
  7. 1 2 ANC veteran Ben Turok has died
  8. ↑ Ben Turok’s commitment to liberation, non-racialism and equality


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