Louis Babrow
Louis Babrow (24 April 1915 – 26 January 2006) was a South African rugby union player and medical doctor. He was Jewish, and his great-granddaughter is Sarah Levy, a South African-born American Olympic bronze medalist in rugby union and rugby sevens.
Babrow studied at Grey College in Bloemfontein and the University of Cape Town, and trained as a doctor at Guy’s Hospital in England. He played for Western Province and for South Africa as a centre.
In 1937, Babrow faced the dilemma of whether to play a game against New Zealand on Yom Kippur, the Jewish holy day. He chose to play, arguing that he was in New Zealand, not in his homeland. He was the youngest member of the touring party at 22. During the tour, a cross-kick he executed helped Ferdie Bergh score a try. He recalled that some Springbok teammates were Greyshirt sympathisers, but he did not experience anti-Semitism on the tour.
He was the cousin of Morris Zimerman, the first Jewish Springbok. A lifelong opponent of apartheid, he campaigned for the release of Bram Fischer and spoke against the whitewashing of the Steve Biko affair. In 2004 he expressed concern that rugby was becoming mainly an Afrikaner sport in South Africa.
Babrow served as an elected member of the Medical and Dental Council for 21 years and sat on the University of Cape Town council for 25 years. He died in 2006 in Rondebosch, Cape Town, at the age of 90.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 19:50 (CET).