Moishe Lewis (1888-1950) was a Jewish labour activist in eastern Europe and Canada. A tanner

Tanning

Tanning is the making of leather from the skins of animals which does not easily decompose. Traditionally, tanning used tannin, an acidic chemical compound from which the tanning process draws its name . Coloring may occur during tanning...

 by trade, he was born and raised in the Svisloch shtetl

Shtetl

A shtetl was typically a small town with a large Jewish population in Central and Eastern Europe until The Holocaust. Shtetls were mainly found in the areas which constituted the 19th century Pale of Settlement in the Russian Empire, the Congress Kingdom of Poland, Galicia and Romania...

 in the Russian Empire

Russian Empire

The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...

 (later part of Poland

Poland

Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

 and now Belarus

Belarus

Belarus , officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered clockwise by Russia to the northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Its capital is Minsk; other major cities include Brest, Grodno , Gomel ,...

). Moishe Losz was the chairman of the Jewish Labour Bund in Svisloch The Bund was both an active political party and a Jewish, Socialist labour movement. It was preoccupied in changing the system that was at the roots of low pay and dangerous, harsh working conditions.

When the Russian Civil War

Russian Civil War

The Russian Civil War was a multi-party war that occurred within the former Russian Empire after the Russian provisional government collapsed to the Soviets, under the domination of the Bolshevik party. Soviet forces first assumed power in Petrograd The Russian Civil War (1917–1923) was a...

 and the Polish-Soviet War

Polish-Soviet War in 1920

The Polish–Soviet war erupted in 1920 in the aftermath of World War I. The root causes were twofold: a territorial dispute dating back to Polish-Russian wars in the 17–18th centuries; and a clash of ideology due to USSR's goal of spreading communist rule further west, to Europe...

 were at their fiercest, in the summer of 1920, Poland invaded, and the Bolshevik

Bolshevik

The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....

 Red Army

Red Army

The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...

 counter-attacked. Svisloch was on the Polish-Russian border and was occupied by the Soviets July 1920. Moishe Losz openly opposed the Bolsheviks and would later be jailed by them for his opposition. He barely escaped with his life. When the Polish army recaptured Svisloch on August 25, 1920, they executed five Jewish citizens as “spies.” This was a false charge and was more of a tactic to keep the locals scared and discourage them from participating in counter insurgency. Seeing that he wasn't safe under either regime, and the prospects for the future of his family were bleak, he left for Canada in May 1921, to work in his brother-in law's clothing factory in Montreal

Montreal

Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...

.

Losz anglicized the family name to "Lewis" and saved up enough money to send for his family within a few months.

Lewis resumed his activism in Canada becoming involved with the Arbeiter Ring (Workmen's Circle). He was Secretary of the Canadian Jewish Labour Committee, a labour and civil rights

Civil rights

Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from unwarranted infringement by governments and private organizations, and ensure one's ability to participate in the civil and political life of the state without discrimination or repression.Civil rights include...

 organization, for several decades.

In 1947, Lewis and Kalmen Kaplansky

Kalmen Kaplansky

Kalmen Kaplansky, CM was a civil, human rights and trade union activist in Canada. Alan Borovoy described Kaplansky as "the zaideh" of the Canadian human rights movement....

 spearheaded "The Tailors Project" by the Workmen's Circle and Jewish Labour Committee to bring European Jewish refugees to Montreal to work in the needle trades They were able to do this through the federal government's "bulk-labour" program that allowed labour intensive industries to bring European displaced person

Displaced person

A displaced person is a person who has been forced to leave his or her native place, a phenomenon known as forced migration.- Origin of term :...

s to Canada, in order to fill those jobs. For Lewis' work on this and other projects during this period, the Montreal branch was renamed the Moishe Lewis Branch, after his death in 1950. The Jewish Labour Committee also honored him when they established the Moishe Lewis Foundation in 1975.

His son David Lewis

David Lewis (politician)

David Lewis, CC was a Russian-born Canadian labour lawyer and social democratic politician. He was national secretary of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation from 1936 to 1950, and one of the key architects of the New Democratic Party in 1961...

 would become a labour lawyer and leading figure in the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation

Co-operative Commonwealth Federation

The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation was a Canadian political party founded in 1932 in Calgary, Alberta, by a number of socialist, farm, co-operative and labour groups, and the League for Social Reconstruction...

 and then leader of the federal New Democratic Party

New Democratic Party

The New Democratic Party , commonly referred to as the NDP, is a federal social-democratic political party in Canada. The interim leader of the NDP is Nycole Turmel who was appointed to the position due to the illness of Jack Layton, who died on August 22, 2011. The provincial wings of the NDP in...

. His grandson Stephen Lewis

Stephen Lewis

Stephen Henry Lewis, is a Canadian politician, broadcaster and diplomat. He was the leader of the social democratic Ontario New Democratic Party for most of the 1970s. During many of the those years as leader, his father David Lewis was simultaneously the leader of the Federal New Democratic Party...

 was leader of the Ontario New Democratic Party

Ontario New Democratic Party

The Ontario New Democratic Party or , formally known as New Democratic Party of Ontario, is a social democratic political party in Ontario, Canada. It is a provincial section of the federal New Democratic Party. It was formed in October 1961, a few months after the federal party. The ONDP had its...

 in the 1970s and later Canada's ambassador to the United Nations

United Nations

The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...

. His great-grandson is Avi Lewis

Avi Lewis

Avram David "Avi" Lewis is a Canadian documentary filmmaker, host of the Al Jazeera English show , and former host of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation current-affairs program On the Map.-Family:...

, political journalist, who has made documentaries with his wife Naomi Klein

Naomi Klein

Naomi Klein is a Canadian author and social activist known for her political analyses and criticism of corporate globalization.-Family:...

.