LOUIS ROZENBERG

LOUIS ROZENBERG (June 1893-1987)

            He was born, with the Jewish given names Shiye-Leyb, in Goniondz (Goniądz), Poland.  In 1896 he moved with his parents to Leeds, England.  He studied in religious elementary school and went on to graduated from the University of Leeds as an economist and demographer.  In 1915 he emigrated to Canada.  He initially worked there as a teacher, later as an agronomist.  Over the years 1934-1945, he was vice-president of the Canadian Jewish Congress.  He debuted in print in 1919 with an article in Winnipeg’s Dos yidishe vort (The Jewish word).  He also published there a long work entitled “Yidishe farmer in kanade” (Jewish farmers in Canada).  In Keneder odler (Canadian eagle) in Montreal, he published articles under the title “Idishe gemeyndes in kanade” (Jewish communities in Canada), and other works of research in: Yivo-bleter (Pages from YIVO), Gedank un lebn (Thought and life) in New York (1944), Algemeyne entsiklopedye (General encyclopedia), and Universal Jewish Encyclopedia, among others.  Pamphlet: Shprakh un muter shprakh bay kanader yidn (Language and mother tongue among Canadian Jews) (Montreal, 1958), 35 pp. + 34 pp.  In English he published: Canadian Jews (Montreal, 1939), 418 pp.  He also wrote a great deal for Anglophone Jewish publications.  He was last living in Montreal.

Sources: D. Rom, in Viewpoints (Montreal) (1967), pp. 25-36; The Jewish Community in Canada (Toronto, 1971); Yeshurin archive, YIVO (New York).

Khayim Leyb Fuks