Benjamin Pogrund - Biography

Benjamin Pogrund (born 1934) is a South African-born author currently living in Israel.

Brought up in Cape Town, he began a career as a journalist in 1958, writing for the Rand Daily Mail in Johannesburg, where he eventually became deputy-editor. The Rand Daily Mail was the only newspaper in South Africa at that time to report on events in black South Africa townships. In the course of his work he came to know the major players in the Apartheid struggle and gained the respect and confidence of leaders such as Nelson Mandela. Pogrund's reporting of police conduct in the Sharpeville massacre in 1960 was considered a "breakthrough. He was chief author of a 1965 series on beating and torture of black inmates. During his career reporting on Apartheid in South Africa he was put on trial several times, put in prison once, had his passport revoked and was investigated as a threat to the state by security police".

When the Rand Daily Mail ceased publication in 1985, Pogrund left for London in 1986. There he was chief foreign sub-editor of The Independent, London.

Pogrund immigrated to Israel in 1997 to found Yakar's Centre for Social Concern in Jerusalem. He currently lives in Jerusalem with his wife Anne, an artist.

He was a member of the Israeli delegation to the United Nations World Conference against Racism in Durban and a recipient of the 2005-06 Dr. Jean Mayer Global Citizenship Award

Selected bibliography

Books

• How can man die better: The life of Robert Sobukwe ISBN 1868420507
• Shared Histories: A Palestinian-Israeli Dialogue (Left Coast Press, 30, 2005) ISBN 1-59874-012-1
• War of Words: Memoir of a South African Journalist (Seven Stories Press,2000) ISBN 1-888363-71-1
• Sobukwe and Apartheid (New Jersey:Rutgers Univ Press,1991) ISBN 0-8135-1693-5

Children's books

• Nelson Mandela: Leader Against Apartheid (World Peacemakers) (Blackbirch Press, 2003) ISBN 1-56711-978-6

Articles (a small selection available on the Web)

• Why depict Israel as a chamber of horrors like no other in the world?
• Palestinians and Israelis must be able to meet to talk peace (from the Lebanese Daily Star)

External links

• Benjamin Pogrund Papers at Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library
• Yakar's Center For Social Concern
• Inside Apartheid: The Benjamin Pogrund Collection of Southern Africa Materials
• Collection of historical papers on Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe donated to The University of the Witwatersrand Library by Benjamin Pogrund
• Israel is a democracy in which Arabs vote
• The Journalism that Midwifed the New South Africa