{{Short description|South African politician and doctor (born 1943)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2023}} {{Infobox officeholder | party = Inkatha Freedom Party | office1 = Member of the National Assembly | term_start1 = 1997 | term_end1 = May 2009 | birth_date = {{birth date and age|1943|10|09|df=yes}} | office2 = Member of the Senate | term_start2 = May 1994 | term_end2 = 1997 | constituency_AM2 = KwaZulu-Natal | alma_mater = University of the Witwatersrand <small>(MBBCh)</small> | birth_place = Springs, Transvaal<br />Union of South Africa }}
'''Ruth Rabinowitz''' ({{Nee|Zilibowitz}}; born 9 October 1943) is a South African politician and medical doctor who represented the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) in Parliament from 1994 to 2009. She served in the Senate from 1994 to 1997 as a delegate from KwaZulu-Natal, and thereafter she was a member of the National Assembly.
A doctor by profession, Rabinowitz became involved in political activism during the democratic transition as a supporter of federal proposals for post-apartheid South Africa. Through her activism, she encountered Mangosuthu Buthelezi and his party, the IFP, which nominated her as a candidate in the 1994 general election, South Africa's first under universal suffrage. Throughout her three terms in Parliament, Rabinowitz served as the IFP's spokesperson on health and was a consistent critic of President Thabo Mbeki's HIV/AIDS policies. During her third term, she established a non-partisan grouping of MPs to lobby for improved policymaking on renewable energy. She failed to gain re-election in the 2009 general election.
== Early life and career == Rabinowitz was born on 9 October 1943<ref name=":02">{{cite magazine |date=11 June 1999 |title=General Notice: Notice 1319 of 1999 – Electoral Commission: Representatives Elected to the Various Legislatures |url=https://gazettes.africa/archive/za/1999/za-government-gazette-dated-1999-06-11-no-20203.pdf |magazine=Government Gazette of South Africa |location=Pretoria, South Africa |publisher=Government of South Africa |volume=408 |issue=20203 |pages= |access-date=26 March 2021}}</ref> in Springs in the former Transvaal.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal |date=2009 |title=The Other 'Doctor Ruth' – Ruth Rabinowitz and the Inkatha Freedom Party |url=https://www.sajbd.org/uploads/Articles/Jewish-Affairs/Rosh-Hashanah-2009.pdf |journal=Jewish Affairs |publisher=South African Jewish Board of Deputies |volume=64 |issue=2 |pages=7–9 |issn=0021-6313 |access-date=26 April 2023}}</ref> She is Jewish and the daughter of Lithuanian immigrants.<ref name=":0" /><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Reisenberger |first=Azila |date=1998 |title=Status of Jewish Woman in South Africa: With Special Reference to Apartheid and Post-Apartheid Eras |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/24764103 |journal=Journal for the Study of Religion |volume=11 |issue=2 |pages=52–61 |issn=1011-7601}}</ref> She completed a MBBCh from Witwatersrand University, as well as a diploma in drama teaching from the London Academy of Dramatic Arts. She is a medical doctor by profession,<ref name=":0" /> and also practices homeopathic medicine.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2006-05-08 |title=Scandal dogs council for alternative health |url=https://mg.co.za/article/2006-05-08-scandal-dogs-council-for-alternative-health/ |access-date=2023-04-25 |website=The Mail & Guardian |language=en-ZA}}</ref>
After her children finished school and moved overseas, during the early stages of South Africa's democratic transition, Rabinowitz became active in political activism, working under the Democracy Trust to lobby for a federal constitution in post-apartheid South Africa. Her relationship with Mangosuthu Buthelezi of Inkatha (later the IFP) began when he sent her a letter to thank her for her activism.<ref name=":0" />
== Parliament: 1994–2009 ==
=== Senate: 1994–1997 === In South Africa's first post-apartheid elections in 1994, Rabinowitz stood as a candidate on the party list of Buthelezi's IFP. According to Rabinowitz, she was not a member of the IFP at the time and did not intend to go into politics, but accepted an invitation to appear on the party list in order to signal her "endorsement" of the party.<ref name=":0" /> She was nonetheless elected off the IFP's list to represent the KwaZulu-Natal constituency in the Senate, the upper house of the new South African Parliament.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/read/13429370/south-africa-campaign-and-election-report-april-26- |title=South Africa: Campaign and Election Report April 26–29, 1994 |publisher=International Republican Institute |year=1994 |access-date=13 April 2023 |via=Yumpu}}</ref>
{{Quote box | quote = We worked closely together. I would say that he was the most significant person I've met in my life, outside my personal family. It was such a privilege to meet someone who had been through what he had, with his faith and his deep roots in traditional Zulu culture, which most Whites understand in the most superficial way. I learned so much about the Zulu traditional structures, their values and what they could teach us – its similarity to Judaism. I learned more about the value of being part of a Jewish community through being associated with Zulu people than I had through my conventional, middle-class Jewish life... Buthelezi always called me a Julu – a Jewish Zulu – and often asked me to open [IFP] National Council meetings in Ulundi, by reciting a psalm of David. | source = – Rabinowitz on her relationship with Buthelezi<ref name=":0" /> | align = right | width = 25em }}
In the middle of the legislative term, in 1997, Rabinowitz was transferred to the National Assembly, the lower parliamentary house,<ref name=":1">{{Cite web |date=1998-06-03 |title=Members of the National Assembly |url=http://www.parliament.gov.za/mps/mps.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/19980628034746/http://www.parliament.gov.za/mps/mps.html |archive-date=1998-06-28 |access-date=2023-04-12 |website=Parliament of South Africa}}</ref> where she filled a casual vacancy arising from Walter Felgate's resignation.<ref name=":0" /> According to Rabinowitz, she had been deeply disappointed with the content of the final post-apartheid Constitution, adopted in 1996, and, while taking sick leave, had told the IFP that she was not prepared to return to the Senate under the new Constitution, which she believed disempowered the upper house.<ref name=":0" />
=== National Assembly: 1997–2009 === Rabinowitz remained in the National Assembly until 2009, gaining election full consecutive terms in 1999<ref name=":02" /> and 2004;<ref>{{cite magazine |date=20 April 2004 |title=General Notice: Notice 717 of 2004 - Electoral Commission – List of Names of Representatives in the National Assembly and the Nine Provincial Legislatures in Respect of the Elections Held on 14 April 2004 |url=https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201409/262770.pdf |magazine=Government Gazette of South Africa |location=Pretoria, South Africa |publisher=Government of South Africa |volume=466 |issue=2677 |pages=4–95 |access-date=26 March 2021}}</ref> she stood as a candidate on the IFP's national party list. In December 2000, Rabinowitz was one of the prominent white figures who signed an open letter which admitted white complicity in apartheid, acknowledged its harms, and acknowledged a "debt to fellow black South Africans", committing the signatories to promoting redress.<ref>{{Cite news |date=13 December 2000 |title=Top South Africans sign 'atonement list' |work=IOL |url=https://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/top-south-africans-sign-atonement-list-56184 |access-date=26 April 2023}}</ref>
Throughout her tenure in Parliament, Rabinowitz served as the IFP's parliamentary spokesman on health, a position she had held since 1994.<ref>{{Cite news |date=2009-04-29 |title=You don't have to be born in UK to hit its rich list |work=IOL |url=https://www.iol.co.za/business-report/companies/you-dont-have-to-be-born-in-uk-to-hit-its-rich-list-703499 |access-date=26 April 2023}}</ref> In that capacity, she was a consistent critic of President Thabo Mbeki's unscientific policies during the HIV/AIDS epidemic.<ref>{{Cite news |date=8 March 2000 |title='Aids could be leading killer in KZN' |work=IOL |url=https://www.iol.co.za/news/south-africa/aids-could-be-leading-killer-in-kzn-30524 |access-date=26 April 2023}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |date=8 October 2000 |title=Mbeki tripped up by new Aids shocker |work=IOL |url=https://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/mbeki-tripped-up-by-new-aids-shocker-50186 |access-date=26 April 2023}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=2005-11-30 |title=Speak out about Aids, IFP tells Mbeki |url=https://mg.co.za/article/2005-11-30-speak-out-about-aids-ifp-tells-mbeki/ |access-date=2023-04-25 |website=The Mail & Guardian |language=en-ZA}}</ref> In 2003, she called for doctors to boycott the government's AIDS policy "so that we are not found guilty of complicity with genocide";<ref>{{Cite web |date=2003-08-04 |title=SA doctors 'guilty of genocide'? |url=https://mg.co.za/article/2003-08-04-sa-doctors-guilty-of-genocide/ |access-date=2023-04-25 |website=The Mail & Guardian |language=en-ZA}}</ref> In 2005, she said that Mbeki had a "denialist attitude" towards the epidemic.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2005-02-14 |title=President an HIV/AIDS "denialist" – IFP |url=https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/news/2005/02/14/president-hivaids-denialist-ifp |access-date=2023-04-25 |website=The New Humanitarian |language=en}}</ref> She also argued for greater recognition of practitioners of indigenous medicine.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2004-09-09 |title=Traditional healers formally recognised |url=https://mg.co.za/article/2004-09-09-traditional-healers-formally-recognised/ |access-date=2023-04-25 |website=The Mail & Guardian |language=en-ZA}}</ref>
During her third term in Parliament, Rabinowitz formed a multi-party lobby, the e-Parliament Renewable Energy Activists, which lobbied government to develop a progressive renewable energy policy.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2009-03-10 |title=New energy laws may scare off investors |url=https://mg.co.za/article/2009-03-10-new-energy-laws-may-scare-off-investors/ |access-date=2023-04-25 |website=The Mail & Guardian |language=en-ZA}}</ref> In November 2008, the group introduced a private member's bill on feed-in tariffs, sponsored by Rabinowitz, which led the government to promise that it would propose its own strategy within months.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2008-11-20 |title=Govt caught napping on renewable energy |url=https://mg.co.za/article/2008-11-20-govt-caught-napping-on-renewable-energy/ |access-date=2023-04-25 |website=The Mail & Guardian |language=en-ZA}}</ref>
Although Rabinowitz had been in the IFP's ten highest-ranked national candidates in the 2004 election,<ref>{{Cite web |last=Pressly |first=Donwald |date=12 March 2004 |title=IFP lists its top contenders |url=https://www.news24.com/news24/ifp-lists-its-top-contenders-20040312 |access-date=2023-04-25 |website=News24 |language=en-US}}</ref> she was demoted from the party list in the 2009 general election and did not secure re-election to her seat.<ref>{{Cite news |date=29 April 2009 |title=DA whiz Coetzee leads party race for top role |work=IOL |url=https://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/da-whiz-coetzee-leads-party-race-for-top-role-441707 |access-date=26 April 2023}}</ref>
== Personal life == Rabinowitz married one of her university professors, a surgeon at Baragwanath Hospital in Johannesburg; they had three children.<ref name=":0" />
== References == {{Reflist}}
== External links ==
* [https://www.dafkadotcom.org/home/the-matter-with-the-myths-buthelezi-is-the-obvious-ally-for-the-jewish-community "The matter with the myths – Buthelezi is the obvious ally for the Jewish community"] (2019)
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Rabinowitz, Ruth}} Category:Living people Category:1943 births Category:People from Springs, South Africa Category:University of the Witwatersrand alumni Category:South African people of Lithuanian-Jewish descent Category:Jewish South African politicians Category:21st-century South African women politicians Category:20th-century South African women politicians Category:Members of the National Assembly of South Africa 1994–1999 Category:Members of the National Assembly of South Africa 1999–2004 Category:Members of the National Assembly of South Africa 2004–2009 Category:Women members of the National Assembly of South Africa Category:Members of the Senate of South Africa Category:Inkatha Freedom Party politicians