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  1. Museum of Jewish Montreal
  2. Kalmen Kaplansky
  3. Kalmen Kaplansky - Jewish Labour Committee of Canada (4848 Boul. St. Laurent)

Kalmen Kaplansky - Jewish Labour Committee of Canada (4848 Boul. St. Laurent)

file1946-1957

Description only — contact the archiveView at source ↗

Where

4848 boulevard Saint-LaurentCorrect the locationNearby on the big map
Held by
Museum of Jewish Montreal via Museum of Jewish Montreal — map of Jewish Montreal
Creator
Sarah Woolf
Dates
1946-1957 (indexed as 1946–1957)
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 Boul. St. Laurent; 4848 boul. St. Laurent
Location
  • 4848 boulevard Saint-Laurent · address · confidence 90% · address:exact · found as “4848 Boul. St. Laurent”
  • McGill University · landmark · confidence 60% · landmark:geonames · found as “mcgill university”
Correct the location
Subjects
Communal; Political
Language
English
Harvested
2026-10-17T06:33:28Z · source datestamp n/a · mjm
Original metadata as harvested (mjm)