By Jack Aaron, Vancouver, BC, Canada
Sam Aaron, known affectionately as Shmoo, passed away recently in London at the age of 95. He was born in Ficksburg in 1926, and relocated to Muizenberg with his family when he was five.
Sam had a brilliant academic career. He went to Muizenberg High School skipping a class twice, with the result that he matriculated from his later school, Rondebosch Boys High, three months after turning 15. Serious and scholarly, an avid reader, he was widely regarded as a ‘brain’.
He obtained his BA by the age of 18 and went on to study law, obtaining his law degree at age 21. In his final year of his LLB, he won all three class medals for the best student. Modest and self effacing, he neglected to pick up those medals until several months later when the university called to remind him that they were awaiting his collection!
He was an early and devoted Zionist, mentored by the late Mr Justice Joseph Herbstein, with whom he clerked as a registrar for a year following his graduation from law school. He was also an early liberal, in outlook and action. He was one of the founders of the so-called Cape Non-European Night School Association and taught in Retreat and at CAFDA. He was later to become vice-chairman of the South African Liberal Party at the time of its foundation, and was active until it was declared illegal and banned.
Sam’s career at the Cape Town Bar was stellar. His court craft was brilliant and he handled several high profile cases. He was a lawyer for all seasons and would excel in all areas of litigation — construction and commercial cases; matrimonial and political cases. Appointed Senior Counsel (the post-republic version of Queen’s Counsel), he left the Bar to practise as an attorney with the prestigious law firm of Sonnenberg, Hoffmann and Galombik for a couple of years and then returned to the Bar where he resumed his distinguished practice, including appointments as a Judge of the Courts of Appeal in Lesotho and Swaziland.
Sam was 60 when he and his wife Alice emigrated to London, where he was called to the English Bar in 1986. He became a member of Gray’s Inn and had a successful practice as a barrister for a number of years, until retiring to join Stanley Lewis and his family as a legal consultant at their firm, Oceana Investment.
Sam had a dazzling intelligence, with wide ranging interests which included Jewish genealogy and philately. He was a master of puzzles and, at 87, published a book on Sudoko-solving techniques. Up until the day before he died, he was still solving Wordle in 3.
Predeceased by Alice, his wife of almost 60 years, Sam is survived by his son, Colin, who lives in New York City, by his brother and sister in law, Jack and Lolita of Vancouver, Canada, and by Rina Gordon Rosenberg of Palo Alto, with whom he enjoyed a happy five years together until the end of his life, commuting between their respective residences in London and Palo Alto.
• Published in the PDF edition of the July 2022 issue – Click here to read it.
• To advertise in the Cape Jewish Chronicle and on this website – contact us on 021 464 6700 ext. 104 or email advertising@ctjc.co.za. For more information and advertising rate card click here.
• Sign up for our newsletter and never miss another issue.
• Please support the Cape Jewish Chronicle with a voluntary Subscription for 2022. For payment info click here.
• Visit our Portal to the Jewish Community to see a list of all the Jewish organisations in Cape Town with links to their websites.
Follow the Chronicle: Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | LinkedIn
Thanks for sending Rina. A wonderful obituary by Jackie. It was very interesting to read about the remarkable career of Shmoo and the amazing person that he was. I remember him from my teenage years when I spent a lot of time in Muizenberg, but as the older brother of Jackie whom I met through you. Life takes strange turns!
i now understand completely the relationship you must have had with Shmoo and how hard it has been to lose him, but how fortunate to have had the time with him that willl give you wonderful memories. Thinking of you with much love, Selma