Levendel, Lewis : Born in Ottawa, Lewis Levendel obtained degrees in Arts and Journalism from Carleton University before going on to a career as a writer-editor at newspapers, and for The Canadian Press in Toronto, Ottawa and London, England bureaus from 1966-1970. From 1971-1978 he served as Associate Editor and an award-winning reporter of The Canadian Jewish News of Toronto and Montreal.
In the 1980s while working as a freelance communicator, he received funding, researched and wrote his book A Century of the Canadian Jewish Press: 1880s-1980s. Using his knowledge and connections within the Jewish community newspapers in Canada, he conducted interviews with prominent Canadian Jewish leaders, community officials, academics and journalists. In addition to the history of the Jewish press in Canada, the book delves into 20th century events and issues such as anti-Semitism in Canada between the World Wars; Canadian Jewry's reaction to the Holocaust; the birth of Zionism and later Israel; the election of the Parti Quebecois and the Jewish "exodus" from Quebec; communal disputes on representation to governments, and Canadian Mideast foreign policy during the Trudeau and the Clark governments.
The interviewees for the book included: Sol Littman; Stephen Speisman; Erna Paris; Judge Phil Givens; Adolf Wantroff; Rabbi Stuart Rosenberg; Frank Dimant; Toba Korenblum; Jack Cowan; Rabbi W. Gunther Plaut; Prof. Harold Troper; Sam Lipshitz; Ben Kayfetz; Ben Nobleman; Ralph Hyman; Judge Sydney Harris; Joe King; Michael Solomon; David Novek; Doug and Gila Wertheimer; Martin Levin; AJ Arnold; Harold Markusoff; Leo Lezack; Dan Nimrod; Rabbi Reuben Slonim; Professor Yaacov Glickman; Sam Kaplan; Holocaust Remembrance Committee; J.B. Salsberg; Michael Wollock; Rabbi Harry Stern; Jack Jacobson; Freda Charles; Temi Rosenthal; Norm King; Julius Hayman; Myer Bick; William Abrams; Mark Medicoff; Monty Berger; Professor Harold Waller; David Rome; Leon Kronitz; Rabbi Arthur Bielfeld; Stanley Shenkman; Donald Carr; Prof. Robert Brym; Prof. Arnold Ages; Prof. Ruth Wisse; M.J. Nurenberger; Joe Gershman; Maurice Lucow; Suzann Cohen Hutner; Prof. Irving Abella; Alan Borovoy; Harold Buchwald; Naïm Kattan; and Larry Zolf.
From 1989 to 1999, he served as Director of Communications of the Canadian Jewish Congress, Ontario Region. In 1997, he initiated and served as a consultant to the National Library of Canada exhibit "A Century of the Canadian Jewish Press 1897-1997," curated by the Lowy Collection librarian Cheryl Jaffee.
Lewis Levendel currently resides in Toronto.
