(By: Naomi Musiker, Vol. 70, No. 3, Chanukah 2015)
We are greatly saddened by the passing of Professor Marcus Arkin in Durban on 3 September. Professor Arkin was a distinguished academic, specializing in the field of economic history, and also served as Director-General of the SA Zionist Federation from 1973 until his retirement in 1985. His research and prolific writings continued throughout his career, earning him world-wide acclaim. Over many years, he generously contributed many scholarly articles to Jewish Affairs, and was also a long-serving member of its Editorial Board.
Marcus Arkin was born in Cape Town in 1926, matriculating from Sea Point Boys’ High School. He read economics and history at the University of Cape Town (UCT), gaining the degrees of BA and BCom, both with distinction. After further research in London on a British Council Scholarship, he was awarded his doctorate in economics by UCT in 1959. He served successively as junior lecturer (1948-52), lecturer (1955-62) and senior lecturer at UCT (1963-66). His focus during this period was on the history of the English East India Company’s activities at the Cape and resulted in a standard four part economic history: John Company at the Cape (1962, awarded the Founders’ Medal and prize, Economic Society of South Africa); Supplies for Napoleon’s Gaolers (1964), Agency and Island (1965) and Storm in a Teacup(1973). Other publications included South African Economic Development: an Outline Survey (1966), Economists and Economic Historians (1968), Introducing Economics: the Science of Scarcity (1971) and The Economist at the Breakfast Table (1971). He was also a consultant to the Dictionary of South African Biography.
In 1967 Dr Arkin was appointed to the Chair of Economics and Economic History at Rhodes University, Grahamstown, where he also became Dean of the Faculty of Social Science.
In 1973, he took up the position of Director–General of the SA Zionist Federation. His research shifted more to a study of Zionism and Jewish economic themes, resulting in the publication of the collection of essays, Aspects of Jewish Economic History(1975) and the editorship of South African Jewry: A Contemporary Survey(1984). His final book, One People – One Destiny: Some Explorations in Jewish Affairs appeared in 1989.
Besides his numerous contributions to journals, Professor Arkin also broadcast talks on the SABC English Service. Six of these were published by SA Zionist Federation in 1977, under the title The Zionist Idea: A History and Evaluation. In 1973, he became a member of the Jewish Agency’s higher education committee and regularly attended conferences of the World Zionist Organisation and Jewish Agency in Israel. He was the only South African member of the President of Israel’s ongoing seminar on ‘Israel and World Jewry’. He served on the board of directors of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, New York, and was a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Institute for Interdisciplinary Research on the Jewish Family and Communities in Israel and the Diaspora, attached to Tel Aviv University.
After his retirement from the SAZF and relocation to Durban, he served as Professor in the Department of Economics, University of Durban-Westville, from 1986 to 1991 and was also a member of the Durban Transport Management Board. From 1991 to 1995, he acted as Chairman of the Natal Zionist Council. In his final retirement, he took up the position of Chairman of the Editorial Board of the periodical Hashalom, Monthly Journal of the KwaZulu-Natal Jewish Community, to which he contributed a typically erudite column on a broad range of Jewish themes for over twenty years right up to the time of his final illness.
Marcus Arkin married Suzanne Mirvish in 1948. She predeceased him in December 2000. He is survived by his children, Anthony (who likewise became a Professor of Economics) and Glenda.
