- Museum of Jewish Montreal
- Kalmen Kaplansky
- Kalmen Kaplansky - Workmen's Circle / Arbeiter Ring (4848 St. Laurent)
Kalmen Kaplansky - Workmen's Circle / Arbeiter Ring (4848 St. Laurent)
file1940-1943
Description only — contact the archiveView at source ↗
Where
- Held by
- Museum of Jewish Montreal via Museum of Jewish Montreal — map of Jewish Montreal
- Creator
- Sarah Woolf
- Dates
- 1940-1943 (indexed as 1940–1943)
- Level
- file (source: Exhibit)
- Scope & content
- Described as the zayde (grandfather) of the Canadian human rights movement, Kalmen Kaplansky (1912-1997) began his human rights and trade union activism in Montreal soon after arriving in Montreal from Poland in 1929. Turned away from McGill University due to the institution’s quotas on Jewish enrolment, Kaplansky got his start as a member of the International Typographical Union. After steady work as a trade union executive, Kaplansky enlisted as a sergeant in the Canadian Army (1943-1946). Kaplansky’s most significant contributions occurred after the war, during his tenure as national director of the Jewish Labour Committee (1946-1957). In this position, he led the Jewish workers’ movement towards a human rights focus that was committed to fighting racial and ethnic discrimination in addition to antisemitism. As a sort of protégé to labour activist Moishe Lewis, the duo spearheaded the “Tailor’s Project”, which employed Jewish refugees in Canada’s textile industry after World War II. In his later years, Kaplansky was influential in the International Labour Organization, the Canadian Labour Congress, and the 1968 International Year for Human Rights. He was awarded the Order of Canada in 1980. Politically, Kaplansky had close ties to the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), the NDP’s predecessor. He was a candidate in two elections: provincially in 1944 and federally in 1950. Compiled by Sarah Woolf
- Places
- 4848 St. Laurent; 4848 rue St. Laurent
- Location
- 4848 boulevard Saint-Laurent · address · confidence 90% · address:exact · found as “4848 St. Laurent”
- McGill University · landmark · confidence 60% · landmark:geonames · found as “mcgill university”
- Subjects
- Communal; Political
- Language
- English
- Harvested
- 2026-10-17T06:33:28Z · source datestamp n/a · mjm