(Author: Steven Katzew, Vol. 81, #1, Autumn 2026)
Picture the scene: the 27th of July 1974, Ellis Park, Johannesburg, considered the fortress of South African rugby. A crowd of 75 000 predominantly South African supporters hoping for the salvaging of some pride by the savagely wounded Springboks on the back of three consecutive defeats and a series loss to the mightiest British Lions ever to set foot on South African soil, a team who were equally eager for a victory in the final test to achieve a series whitewash and also a perfect win record on the tour.
It is the first half, and the Springboks are up 3-0 courtesy of a penalty by Jackie Snyman. The ball lands in the Springbok in-goal area after a scrum and Springbok winger Chris Pope dots down, hotly pursued by Lions flanker Roger Uttley. Referee Max Baise is momentarily unsighted behind the scrum and doesn’t see Pope dotting down before Uttley falls on the ball. The Lions bay for a try, drowning out Pope’s protest that he had dotted down first.
The referee has a moment to decide, in the days when it was his decision alone.
Max Baise always followed a golden rule, which was to blow his whistle according to what he saw, which was Uttley on top of the ball. He awards the try, amidst the hostile howling of the crowd. Phil Bennet converts, and the Lions lead by 6 points to 3 (a try then was 4 points).
Max re-lived this dark and lonely moment many times before his passing at 93 on Chol Hamoed Sukkot 20 Tishrei 5786 corresponding to Sunday 12 October 2025.
In extra time of the same match, with the score level at 13 all, the Lions launched a characteristic last gasp attack, the likes of which had more than once on the tour snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. It saw their other flanker Fergus Slattery crash over the tryline with Springbok centre Peter Cronje, back to the ground, firmly holding him up with the ball tucked between them.
Baise’s shrill of the whistle was for a five-yard scrum to the Lions, almost as Slattery squeezed the ball down to the ground and claimed the try.
The Lions roared their objections to Baise’s prompt blowing of his whistle to end the controversial maul, and certain players spared no small amount of abuse hurled at him, one even bleating “You cheat” to Max’s great consternation after he blew the final whistle and was trotting back to the tunnel.
The British press continued the lambasting, focusing on the denial of the Slattery score with no mention of the equally disputed try by Uttley.
Max Baise regretted these rare mistakes in a refereeing career spanning 22 years. That career started with school games in 1954 through numerous club games and inter-varsities, Sport Pienaar Cup and Currie Cup inter-provincials to matches between international touring teams and local provinces and finally to the cherry on top – 7 Test matches between 1967 and 1974, placing him fifth on the list of most test matches refereed by a South African as at 1989.
Max hung up his whistle in 1976, mystifyingly without a Currie Cup Final to his credit but with a relinquished opportunity in his last year to referee the 1976 Sport Pienaar Cup Final between Northern Natal and South West Africa in Ladysmith due to its falling on a Jewish holiday.
In later years he was to find comfort in the media and public’s acceptance that his errors in the final Test of the 1974 series cost the Springboks and the Lions equally, and that ultimately justice was done with a 13 all draw being a fair reflection of the game.
Max Baise needed no assurance that he was never a cheat. He blew the game exactly as he saw it with never a hint of bias, so much so that in interviews in the professional era of neutral referees he made no secret of his criticism for the jettisoning of the panel of local referees put up for selection by visiting teams from abroad.
Such was his deep faith and trust in humanity and in himself. Indeed, Max Baise was a glittering jewel in the world of sporting personalities, much loved and respected by the widest spectrum of rugby aficionados, including administrators of the game, fellow match officials, players both local and foreign and thousands of enthusiastic supporters of the game of rugby.
His reputation for fairness knew no bounds – he and his dear wife Dorothy were among the first country innkeepers to open their hotel in Riversdale to all races in previously apartheid ridden South Africa.
Small wonder that when it came to the first black team in world rugby to play a touring international side, the Leopards against England in 1972, the SA Rugby Board specifically requested the appointment of Max as referee due to the African Board’s reservation that its own referees might not be experienced enough to handle a game involving an international team. This historic match took place at the Isaac Wolfson Sports Stadium in New Brighton in Port Elizabeth (now Gqeberha) and was won 36-3 by England.
True to his universal character, Max Baise was also the prototype Boerejood (a term used to describe members of the Jewish faith who embrace the Afrikaans language and culture primarily by virtue of upbringing and schooling in predominantly Afrikaans-speaking areas). He flourished in the company of Afrikaans people, his rugby prowess a key factor in the mutual embrace and did so without the slightest infraction of the open-mindedness through which he engaged with the world.
Amidst the elite rugby fraternity first at Hoopstad Primary and later Kroonstad High School (known as Die Blouskool of renowned rugby prowess), Max captained the first teams, and in 1950 was selected to represent Free State Schools.
His rugby playing pedigree was in keeping with the highest standards, well within the purview of senior provincial and possibly even national honors. However, an ankle injury put paid to his aspirations and moved him to refereeing.
After Max’s tragically losing his mother Rachel to a stroke when he was 11 his father Barney, in deep mourning for his dear wife and partner in imbuing Jewish values in their three children beyond the embrace of mainstream Jewish communities, sent him to Hillel High School in Johannesburg, a school for Jewish children. There, in addition to instruction in secular subjects, Hebrew was taught especially to help Jewish boys prepare for their barmitzvah readings. The school, together with its hostel for pupils from out of town, was housed on the site of present-day Temple Emanuel at 38 Oxford Road, Parktown North, Johannesburg.
The leap from the platteland ethos of Hoopstad Primary School to Kashruth and Shabbat was an enormous challenge for young Max, but most of all he longed for rugby, so much so that he became the catalyst for a makeshift team of young boys, of which he was the scrumhalf and captain. The team played a game against the fourth team of a formidable rugby playing school and received a 46-3 thrashing, which was one bridge too far for young Max to accept.
The end of the year holiday was Max’s opportunity to escape. Once back in Hoopstad he realized that he could never go back to Hillel High School, even if it meant missing out on a barmitzvah due to there being no one in Hoopstad to teach him his Torah readings. He thus pleaded with his father not to send him back. One can imagine the torment for Barney Baise, this quintessential country Jewish shopkeeper and farmer torn between his devotion to Judaism on the one hand and on the other the idyllic life that he and Rachel had created for their children in the fresh open spaces of the Orange Free State amidst communities, pastimes and endeavors they had all come to love as dearly as their own.
Rugby was the winner, and Max never did have a barmitzvah. Instead, he went on to captain every school team he represented through primary and high school in Hoopstad and matric in Kroonstad until the capping of his illustrious schoolboy career by selection for Free State Schools – a steppingstone for many schoolboys to provincial and national honors in the old amateur era. Max’s career as a referee took him to an epiphany years later when he attended Wynberg Shul on Shabbat 17 Tammuz 5728 corresponding to 13 July 1968 with his wife Dorothy to celebrate the barmitzvah of their son Ronald (who read from Parashat Balak), followed by Max, Dorothy and children Ronald and Bernice all trooping off to Newlands where Max refereed the Third Test between the Springboks and the Lions – more on this later on.
After completing matric, Max continued playing rugby for Odendaalsrus on the Orange Free State Goldfields in the Northern Free State league until the injury to his ankle ended his career. For a while he pondered his sporting future, and the answer came one afternoon while having a few beers with his cousin Solly Baise at the Outspan Inn Hotel in Odendaalsrus. Max asked the barman the reason for an unusually large number of cars in the parking lot outside the hotel and the latter answered that there was a rugby referees meeting upstairs.
Max and Solly needed no further persuasion – they gulped their drinks, settled the tab, and rushed up the stairs to join. The gathering consisted of mainly aspirant referees. Interestingly, the only two who went on to become provincial referees were Max and Solly. Years later in 1969 Max and Solly officiated in a Test match together between the Springboks and the Wallabies in Durban, Max as the referee and Solly as a touch judge (it would be interesting to know whether there have been any other rugby Tests where the match day officials were from the same family).
Max was a committed Jew all right. He inherited this from parents Barney and Rachel, sturdy first-generation immigrants from Lithuania who during the early part of the last century were drawn to the country areas of South Africa where Jewish communities then thrived. A synergy developed between the staunchly Calvinistic Afrikaners and the many Jewish shopkeepers and hoteliers in their midst, although the mutual admiration generally stopped short of marriage across the religious divide.
But occasionally love so strong overcame the hurdles of difference. The marriage of Max to childhood sweetheart Dorothy Roos, then aged 16 and from a Methodist family, speaks volumes for their undying love, commitment, and admiration for each other, so much so that Dorothy later embraced Judaism and converted orthodox. It led to their second wedding under the canopy of a chuppah in the Welkom synagogue.
With Dorothy’s support Max was able to find the balance between remaining committed to his Faith while realizing his potential for higher honors on the rugby field through his exceptional talent as a rugby referee. The epiphany alluded to already of their son Ronald’s barmitzvah in the Wynberg shul followed by the family watching Max referee the Third Test between the Springboks and the British Lions at Newlands in the afternoon is testament to this seamless coalescence of life’s passions, commitments, and adherence to traditions.
Max’s trademark style of refereeing included gesturing explanations for his free kicks, penalties, and scrums with rapid movements of his arms directed not only to inform the players but the press and the crowd as well. He also had uncanny instinct for playing advantage, thereby allowing the game to flow. His style of refereeing did not always enjoy universal appeal, however, with the 1970 All Blacks being a surprise lacuna in Max’s record of refereeing at least two Tests in every Test series played in South Africa between 1967 and 1974. Speculation at the time was that the All Blacks disapproved of Max’s eccentrically elaborate arm movement gestures made to indicate the reasons for his decisions.
In stark contrast, the French, British Lions and Wallabies touring teams of the era all rated Max the best referee in South Africa.
As Max himself was heard to say, “You can’t please them all”.
I just missed getting to know Max Baise personally. After the publisher of Soul Sport, Rav Ilan Hermann, asked me to write an article on him for the December 2025 edition, I asked that he clear it with Max that he was happy to have an article written about him. Rav Hermann got the necessary approval and gave me Max’s number.
I decided to wait before contacting Max for an interview until I had done my own reading about rugby refereeing. Alas, the wait proved costly when I received news that Max had passed away on 12 October this year before I had got round to contacting him for the interview.
The decision was then made for me to write this obituary.
I enjoy the benefit of familiarity with Max’s extended family, having grown up in Virginia in the old Orange Free State alongside Max’s brother Louis, his wife Vivienne and their children Desiree, Gary, and Nadine. They were close family friends of my parents, my siblings and I and moved in with us after they sold their home in Virginia in the early 1970s in preparation for their Aliyah to Israel.
I have a vivid memory of Louis’ recall of his own impressive sporting prowess as a former Springbok wrestler at the Olympic Games in Helsinki in 1952 and of winning gold medals for South Africa at the Maccabi Games in 1953 and at the Empire Games in Vancouver in 1954, skills and achievements which he shared with his brother.
Many boys and young men, children of the hardy and durable Virginia mining fraternity, were coached by Louis at the Virginia Wrestling Club. I had the privilege of watching him on the mat during some of these coaching sessions bringing down men bigger than him and half his age through expertly executed Greco-Roman grips and throws.
As such, even without the benefit of having met Max, I am able to write about him with a sense of familiarity and identification, which is always a help in trying to portray a character.
I regard myself as privileged to have become a chronicler of the life of an icon of the Jewish Diaspora. Only three Jewish South Africans have got to referee rugby Tests, Max Baise (seven Tests), Solly Baise (one Test) and more recently Jonathan Kaplan (70 Tests, all but one, the Springboks against Namibia in 2007, between teams other than the Springboks in the professional era). Efraim Sklar of Argentina is another Jewish referee who got to referee Test rugby, including at the 1995 Rugby World Cup in South Africa.
I don’t know of any others, but I would welcome being enlightened if I have overlooked anyone.
Other Southern African Jewish referees who have refereed matches between international touring teams and provincial line-ups include R. Lazarus from Rhodesia (two games, the 1963 Wallabies against Border and the Junior Springboks), D. Katzenellenbogen (one game, the 1974 British Lions against the South African Rugby Federation XV) and M.D. Kessel (Mike – former headmaster of Herzlia School in Cape Town) one game, the 1976 All Blacks against Western Transvaal). These other South African Jewish referees also officiated in many local interprovincial fixtures at age-group and senior levels.
A suitable epitaph I can bestow on Max Baise is to reveal the honour of his name being used as a nickname for a legendary SARU Apartheid era referee, Moegsien “Max Baise” Davids, who, but for the denial of opportunity during the years of Apartheid, like many of his kinsmen would have made a name for himself at the highest level. I quote from pages 60 and 70 of SCRUMMING AGAINST ALL ODDS Voices of SARU Legends edited by Omar Esau, about which Prof Andre Odendaal said “A remarkable collection of SARU rugby heroes getting their just acknowledgement”:
“Davids acquired the nickname “Max Baise” after his rugby-playing days were over and he had become a referee. … Max Baise was one of South Africa’s greatest and internationally recognized rugby referees, and Moegsien had Max Baise’s demonstrative and flamboyant style. By using his hands, feet and body to express and explain his decisions a referee adds to the rugby knowledge of players and spectators. In those days, a referee’s decision was final. Today the touch judges and, at a higher level, the third match officials assist the referee in coming to a final decision…. Davids’s style of controlling a match reduced the possibility of conflict…“
Moegsien Davids’ likeness to Max Baise is the reason for his nickname. But there is a deep significance in the embrace of the nickname, apparent, I believe, to those sensitive at the time to living under Apartheid in South Africa but untrammeled by the racial prejudices except to the extent of conscience and of awe for the magnanimity of the victims of Apartheid.
Max Baise’s life in South Africa was untrammeled by the racial prejudice of Apartheid, but he was clearly a man of conscience with an appreciation for right and wrong. Moegsien “Max Baise” Davids must have recognised this in his extreme act of magnanimity in taking on the nickname of a referee who was free to officiate in all matches which Moegsien was not.
Referees are solitary and independent-minded. Max Baise was a vintage member of this class without forfeiting his sensitivity to his religion and commitment to his family. He was the iconic allrounder who suitably qualifies as a role model for the multitudes seeking examples of leadership and strength to go by.
Through writing this obituary, I have personally learnt some valuable life lessons from Max Baise.
- Steven Mark Katzew is a Johannesburg-based advocate. He grew up in Virginia and attended High School in Welkom, going on to study Law at Rhodes University, Grahamstown. His articles on South African Jewish sporting personalities have appeared in Soul Sport and Jewish Affairs.
REFERENCES
The author and publisher are indebted to Burnet Media for permission to reproduce the extract from SCRUMMING AGAINST ALL ODDS Voices of SARU Legends edited by Omar Esau
Other references:
A STATISTICAL HISTORY OF SPRINGBOK RUGBY Players, Tours and Matches Teddy Shnaps First Edition 1989
SPRINGBOK SAGA 100 YEARS OF SPRINGBOK RUGBY Chris Greyvenstein Third edition 1989
CALL IT LIKE IT IS THE JONATHAN KAPLAN STORY AS TOLD TO MIKE BEHR 2014
MISTER REF Test referee Max Baise’s story, 2016
