Siidelsky with Mandela
Lazer Sidelsky was born on this date in 1911. He was a white-Jewish South African lawyer and activist.
Sidelsky was born in Ermelo, South Africa, in the former Eastern Transvaal province, where his parents farmed. Like most Jewish families in South Africa, they were refugees from the early 20th-century pogroms in Lithuania and the other Baltic States. He graduated in law from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg after helping finance his studies by playing the violin in a jazz band. His life of activism was directed through his business dealings.
“Laz” Sidelsky’s reasons for financing Black homes were not philanthropic or politically motivated. He was a shrewd businessman and, at one stage, chairman of the former Union Stock Exchange. He believed strongly in dealing fairly with nonwhite people and was appalled at how some big law firms in Johannesburg exploited their Black clients. When he engaged Nelson Mandela in his first legal job as an article clerk, he advised him and gave him a suit that he’d wear for the next five years.
In his autobiography “Long Walk to Freedom,” Mandela described Sidelsky as one of the first white people to treat him respectfully. Sidelsky lent Mandela money to start his law firm. Lazer Sidelsky, a mentor to former South African President Nelson Mandela, died on May 17, 2002, at 90 years old.
Mandela was shocked to learn of the death of a longtime friend and said, “Sidelsky employed Black people in Johannesburg at a time when the country was in racial turmoil.” Sidelsky was married with two sons and a daughter.
