The son of a rabbi, Leslie Rubin was born on 5 August 1909 in District Six, Cape Town, Cape Province (now Western Cape), then a multiracial district of the city. He was educated at Durban High School in Natal (now KwaZulu-Natal), before attending the University of Cape Town (UCT), the University of the Witwatersrand, Transvaal Province (now Gauteng), and the University of South Africa (UNISA) respectively.

A tireless advocate for justice and equality in South Africa, the United Kingdom (UK), and all over the world, Babette Brown was born in 1931 in Johannesburg, Transvaal Province (now Gauteng), the daughter of Annie and Lipman Kotkin (who were cousins). Her mother arrived in Cape Town, Cape Province (now Western Cape) in 1903 on a ‘poor ship’ from Lithuania, escaping the Russian pogrom against the Jews.