David Lewis was a Canadian labour lawyer and social democratic politician. Lewis’ politics were heavily influenced by the Jewish Labour Bund, which contributed to his support of parliamentary democracy. He was elected the NDP’s national leader and served from 1971 until 1975. After his defeat in the 1974 federal election, he stepped down as leader and retired from politics. He spent his last years as a university professor at Carleton University.
About David Lewis (politician) in brief
David Lewis was a Canadian labour lawyer and social democratic politician. Lewis’ politics were heavily influenced by the Jewish Labour Bund, which contributed to his support of parliamentary democracy. He was an avowed anti-communist, and while a Rhodes Scholar prevented communist domination of the Oxford University Labour Club. In Canada, he played a major role in removing communist influence from the labour movement. In 1962, he was elected as the Member of Parliament, in the House of Commons of Canada, for the York South electoral district. While an MP, He was elected the NDP’s national leader and served from 1971 until 1975. After his defeat in the 1974 federal election, he stepped down as leader and retired from politics. He spent his last years as a university professor at Carleton University, and as a travel correspondent for the Toronto Star. After suffering from cancer for a long time, he died in Ottawa in 1981. The Lewis family has been active in socialist politics since the turn of the twentieth century, starting with David Lewis’ father’s involvement in the Bund in Russia, continuing with David, and followed by his eldest son, Stephen Lewis, who led the Ontario NDP from 1970 until 1978. David Losz was born in Russia sometime after Svisloch’s first snowfall in October 1909 to Moishe Losz and his wife Rose. His official birth date of June 23 was the one he gave the immigration officer when he arrived in Canada. Lewis’s political activism began in the shtetl he lived in from 1909 until 1921.
Unlike many of the otherShtetls in the Pale, it had an industrial economy based on tanning. Its semi-urban industrial population was receptive to social democratic politics and the labourmovement, as embodied by theJewish Labour Bund. The Bund was an outlawed socialist party that called for overthrowing the Tsar, equality for all, and national rights for the Jewish community; it functioned both as a political party and labour movement, and was secular humanist in practice. David would bring this philosophy to the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation and New Democratic Party ; in clashes between the parties’ideological missionaries and the power pragmatists when internal debates raged about policy or action. When the Russian Civil War and the Polish-Soviet War were at their fiercest, Poland invaded, and the Red Bolshevik army counter-attacked. The Bolsheviks would later be jailed by the Jews for their opposition. By August 25, 1920, they executed five Jewish citizens as “spies” under either the Polish or the Soviet regime. David was a secular Jew, as was his brother-in-law Charlie and his siblings, including David and Doris Lewis, and he was a Jew as well as a secular lawyer. He and Stephen Lewis became one of the first father-and-son-teams to simultaneously head Canadian political parties. When David was elected to be the NDP’s national leader in 1971, he and Stephen became oneof the first fathers and sons to simultaneously lead the party.
You want to know more about David Lewis (politician)?
This page is based on the article David Lewis (politician) published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 09, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
