(Author: Reuben Musiker, Vol. 67, No. 2, Rosh Hashanah 2012)
When the distinguished Jewish American composer George Gershwin died of a brain tumour in 1937 at the unacceptably young age of 38, the eminent music critic John O’Hara remarked: “George Gershwin may be dead but I don’t have to believe it if I don’t want to”. That sentiment sums up in a nutshell exactly how I feel about the passing of Phillip Tobias on 7 June 2012.
Unlike Gershwin, Phillip died just four months short of his 87th birthday. In fact, I drew attention to his longevity in the last letter I penned him just prior to his passing. I asked him how it came about that some of the world’s most renowned anatomists and palaeo-anthropologists, including himself and his predecessor at the Wits Medical School, Raymond Dart, and his peer, Nobel Laureate Sydney Brenner (still active) had managed to ‘architect’ their longevity genes. Regrettably, my letter was too late, and one can only conjecture how, with his inimitable wit, he would have responded.
Phillip was born on 14 October 1925 in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, and grew up there. In his autobiography Into the Past (2004), he describes this period of his life in these terms:
The Durban years saw the beginning of my Jewish education. Although my parents were not deeply religious in the sense of observance, there had been a long history of involvement of the Vallentines with Jewish affairs. My greatgreat-grandfather, Isaac Vallentine, was born in Belgium in 1793. Shortly afterwards his family moved to London, where they established a bookshop which soon metamorphosed into an Anglo-Jewish publishing house. Apart from publishing Hebrew and English prayer books, Isaac Vallentine founded the Anglo-Jewish magazine, the Jewish Chronicle of London, which has been published continuously since inception to the present time. This record makes it the oldest Jewish periodical in the Vernacular. Religion and my Jewish affiliation have nevertheless remained a vital part of my consciousness throughout my life. For over half a century I have remained a member of the Great Synagogue, formerly in Wolmarans Street and more recently in Glenhove Road, Illovo, Johannesburg, serving for a time on the Internal Management Committee.
I am aware of two major occurrences in his life when Phillip was brought to tears. On the first occasion, there were tears of disappointment when the head of the Durban Hebrew Congregation, Rabbi Freedman, who was experiencing disillusionment with his congregation, strongly discouraged the young Phillip from pursuing training for the Rabbinate. The other was the death of his sister, Valerie, at the age of twentyone. Deeply grieved by this, Phillip decided to pursue a medical career, specialising in the field of genetics and the study of chromosomes, the material basis of heredity.
When I heard the devastating news of Phillip Tobias’ passing, it marked the end of a sixty-two year association which began in the early 1950s. Following my matriculation, I conceived the illadvised notion of becoming a dental student at SA Jewish Board of Deputies National President Marlene Bethlehem presenting Phillip Tobias with the SAJBD’s Human Rights Award, August 2001. efforts on my behalf that this complex situation was facilitated. Thereafter, Phillip was my mentor, as he of course was to some 10 000 medical students. His tutelage was a turning point in my life and also to those many students whose names he was able to recall due to his amazingly retentive and photographic memory. He was able to hold an audience of academics, students and the public spellbound by his powerful oratory, delivered in the most eloquent language.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row] SA Jewish Board of Deputies National PresidentMarlene Bethlehem presenting Phillip Tobias withthe SAJBD’s Human Rights Award, August 2001.
One of Phillip’s most distinguished students was Dr Robert Simmons, educated at St Vincent’s School for the Deaf. Despite his handicap, he achieved academic success and was appointed as a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Anatomy.
Phillip’s interest in Makapansgat first arose when, as a Wits student in 1945, he participated in a third year science class initiative under the tutelage of Raymond Dart. The requirement for third year students to participate in the July expedition to the Makapan caves was continued when Phillip became head of the Department of Anatomy. For him it was the highlight of his teaching year. For many of us ‘city dwellers’, it became a feat of endurance as Tobias’ stamina and feats of athleticism in scaling rock faces in order to explore the caves, left us far behind. It was equally difficult to accustom ourselves to the sharp reality of bitterly cold nights spent camping on the open Highveld.
Another memory of my student days is of my assignment to write an essay for the South African Journal of Science on the facial features of the Ovambo Bushman. Phillip was preparing for a journey to England at that time, but very kindly offered to meet me on the cruise liner prior to departure in order to edit my rough draft. From this experience, I learned that Phillip was a master
Wits University. I was, after all, a man of the arts and humanities, most certainly not suitable for this discipline and, half-way through, I aborted my dental studies. The only course of action open to me was to ‘salvage’ my tertiary education by completing a BSc degree, with major subjects Human Anatomy and Histology (Microscopic Anatomy). It was largely due to Phillip Tobias’
Reuben Musiker, a veteran contributor to Jewish Affairs and a long-serving member of its editorial board, is Professor Emeritus of Librarianship and Bibliography, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg and Library Consultant, South African Jewish Board of Deputies. He has published widely on issues of Jewish and general interest.
SA Jewish Board of Deputies National President Marlene Bethlehem presenting Phillip Tobias with the SAJBD’s Human Rights Award, August 2001. efforts on my behalf that this complex situation was facilitated. Thereafter, Phillip was my mentor, as he of course was to some 10 000 medical students. His tutelage was a turning point in my life and also to those many students whose names he was able to recall due to his amazingly retentive and photographic memory. He was able to hold an audience of academics, students and the public spellbound by his powerful oratory, delivered in the most eloquent language.
Phillip’s academic career spanned sixty years and never really ended. He was never in denial about this. In one of his last letters to me, he mentioned that he had to give up using his computer. This must have been a painful step in the inevitable ageing process for one who was so prolific.
One of Phillip’s most distinguished students was Dr Robert Simmons, educated at St Vincent’s School for the Deaf. Despite his handicap, he achieved academic success and was appointed as a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Anatomy.
Phillip’s interest in Makapansgat first arose when, as a Wits student in 1945, he participated in a third year science class initiative under the tutelage of Raymond Dart. The requirement for third year students to participate in the July expedition to the Makapan caves was continued when Phillip became head of the Department of Anatomy. For him it was the highlight of his teaching year. For many of us ‘city dwellers’, it became a feat of endurance as Tobias’ stamina and feats of athleticism in scaling rock faces in order to explore the caves, left us far behind. It was equally difficult to accustom ourselves to the sharp reality of bitterly cold nights spent camping on the open Highveld.
Another memory of my student days is of my assignment to write an essay for the South African Journal of Science on the facial features of the Ovambo Bushman. Phillip was preparing for a journey to England at that time, but very kindly offered to meet me on the cruise liner prior to departure in order to edit my rough draft. From this experience, I learned that Phillip was a master of the English language. He was a stickler for grammatical perfection and we stayed up until the early hours of the morning as he guided me through the intricacies of my first scientific pages. It was largely due to his editing efforts that the editors of the Journal expressed admiration for the final result.
After my appointment as Wits University Librarian in January 1975, I recall that during one of my visits to his then apartment at 602 Marble Arch, Hillbrow, he showed me a small hardcovered note books giving an inventory of no less than thirty-six publications in progress simultaneously. I was later to feel the effect of this extraordinary productivity when some years after being appointed , I arranged for the University Library’s fine craftsman binder and restorer, Arthur Budd, to bind in a special binding all of Phillip’s copies of his own publications as well as cuttings about himself. The project had to be abandoned, partly because of financial constraints but mostly because it proved impossible to keep up with his prolific output.
I was delighted to discover that Phillip shared my passion for bibliography and was a dedicated bibliophile. He was a relative of the renowned Jewish South African author, Sarah Gertrude Millin, and possessed a complete collection of all her works, in full edition and variants, and in perfect condition.
Phillip was a man of incredible vision and foresight. In my own half century career as a university librarian, I found him to be the only distinguished academic and researcher to personally collate and organize everything authored by himself during his lifetime, for eventual deposit in the University’s Archives and not to entrust this arduous, but hugely important task to the custodians of his collection.
What was to be a most significant event and crowning achievement of his career was the discovery, by one of his former students, Professor Lee Berger, of the hominid fossils
Australopitchecus sediba at the Malapa Caves.
This discovery vindicated earlier research by
Raymond Dart and Tobias on early australopithecines and early members of the genus Homo.
During his later years, Phillip produced for his legion of friends and associates seventeen annual newsletters, each averaging twenty pages and chronicling the highlights of the year. These made fascinating reading and were by no means limited to good news e.g. an ever expanding necrology section!
Phillip was certainly not a reclusive hermit. A classic example of his extroverted, outgoing nature is a party invitation of some twenty-five years ago, which is one of my treasured possessions.
It became a thrilling experience for me and a great honour to be the recipient of many of his publications, personally inscribed for me. An example is when Stella Stricke completed her bibliography (225 items) of the Published Works of Phillip V. Tobias, 1945-1969. Phillip warmed the cockles of my heart in these words: “To Reuben Musiker – my former student, loyal friend and now cherished colleague. Affectionately Phillip Tobias.”
Phillip Tobias was a great credit to South Africa, to Jewry (in general and South Africa in particular), to the worlds of science and medicine and specifically palaeo-anthropology and anatomical genetics. He deserves to be remembered as unique a person as it is possible for a human being to be.
Reuben Musiker, a veteran contributor to Jewish Affairs and a long-serving member of its editorial board, is Professor Emeritus of Librarianship and Bibliography, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg and Library Consultant, South African Jewish Board of Deputies. He has published widely on issues of Jewish and general interest.
