My father, Arno Rabinowitz, who has died aged 90, was a pioneering educational psychologist and a widely admired mentor, counsellor and confidant. His existence was down to a confluence of luck: his mother, Tilly, was one of three siblings evacuated from eastern Europe in the early 1920s during the pogroms against Jews. These three were “Ochberg Orphans”, fortunate recipients of the philanthropy of another émigré, the industrialist Isaac Ochberg, who enabled Jewish orphans to emigrate to safety in South Africa.

Arno was born in Johannesburg, to Tilly (nee Abrahams) and Danny Rabinowitz, a hotelier. He went to school at Highlands North in Johannesburg and later studied English and politics at the University of the Witwatersrand in the 1950s. There he was involved in clandestine anti-apartheid activities and was briefly a legal intern, in which capacity he saw Nelson Mandela and Oliver Tambo in court.