SAJBD expresses condolences on the passing of Julius Browde
31 May 2016
Early this morning, the South African Jewish community lost one of its most loved and respected members with the passing, at the age of 98, of Advocate Jules Browde, an eminent member of the Johannesburg Bar and a long-serving human rights activist and Jewish communal leader.
In the course of a career stretching over more than half a century, Browde acted for Nelson Mandela and Oliver Tambo, as well as other as number of other anti-apartheid activists, and was a founder member of Lawyers for Human Rights. His Jewish communal involvement included serving for 25 years as national president of the Habonim youth movement.
Jules Browde was born in Johannesburg in 1919. After obtaining a BA from Wits University, he enlisted in the Union Defence Force in the early months of World War II. After the war, he continued his studies at Wits, where he first met Mandela, a fellow law student. The two men established a warm and enduring friendship, one interrupted by Mandela’s 27 years of imprisonment but renewed shortly after his release. In 1996, Mandela’s appointed Browde to investigate irregularities in the appointment of certain public servants posts during the transition to democracy period.
Browde was married for over sixty years to Professor Selma Browde, who has also achieved considerable eminence, in her profession as a senior Radiation Oncologist at the University of the Witwatersrand and Johannesburg group of hospitals.