GANDHI o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-07-25 published
A patriarch of the Jain community
He raised funds for the first Jain centre in Canada, and helped
North Americans to understand an ancient faith
By Carol COOPER
Special to The Globe and Mail Friday, July 25,
2003 - Page R13
During the preparation of the Toronto Jain community's new centre,
a trustee became too busy to accept a delivery of carpet. He
called Bapuji.
Mohanlal MEHTA, known to everyone as Bapuji, which means father
in Gujarati, then in his 70s, drove through pouring rain to help.
"He came to my office and picked up the key. He was right there,
getting the carpet unloaded, made sure it was done and gave me
back the key," said Ramesh
JAIN, a close friend of Mr.
MEHTA
for more than 20 years.
"That was a typical example of his dedication." Mr. Jain said.
"He never shirked the responsibilities given to him or that he
took on voluntarily."
Mr. MEHTA, a founding trustee, leader and patriarch of the Toronto
Jain community, which sought his blessing for its ventures, died
recently at the age of 88.
Originally from Zanzibar, but of Indian origin, Mr.
MEHTA was
addressed as Bapuji by his immediate family as its patriarch,
but also by the Jain community, Friends, Canadian neighbours
and clients of his sons' businesses out of respect for his role
as a community elder. In the same tradition, Mahatma Gandhi was
also referred to as Bapuji.
Jainism originated in the Indus Valley between approximately
3000 and 5000 British Columbia and is one of the world's oldest
religions. Among its traditions, it holds that local members
run their communities and carry out many of its rites. Jainism's
precepts include non-violence, non-attachment to possessions
and the acceptance of all points of view. Throughout his long
life, Mr. MEHTA lived his religion.
In contributing to the North American Jain community, he translated
Jain texts into English, travelled to centres in Ontario and
the northern United States to say wedding prayers, conducted
ceremonies for the dead, visited members in hospital and explained
the Jain philosophy to other faith communities.
And until 1988, he represented the Jain community on the Ontario
Multi-Faith Council on Spiritual and Religious Care, which consults
with and advises public institutions and government on different
faiths.
"He was a very noble, spiritual and divine person, free from
prejudices, biases and anger. These are the qualities a real
Jain would have and he had them," said Prakash
MODY, a Jain community
volunteer and representative on the Council. "He was a very nice,
helpful person. He would give guidance any time and help as much
as possible, even going out of his way to contact people and
get things done, not only for Jains, but for any other person."
In 1980, Mr.
MEHTA helped raise funds to establish the first
Jain centre in Toronto, also the first in Canada. Previously
the 150-member community had gathered in apartment buildings,
basements, libraries and schools.
When the community, which now numbers 450, outgrew its first
quarters, Mr.
MEHTA was again among those who canvassed door
to door to raise funds. With the money, the community helped
pay for a $1-million building, which was soon mortgage-free.
"Wherever we went, people would not refuse or deny him," Mr.
JAIN said. "His vision was for the community at large and he
had no agenda. His agenda was strictly servicing the community."
Mr. MEHTA was born in Zanzibar, then a British protectorate,
off the east coast of Africa on October 15, 1914. His parents
had left their homeland in Gujarat province in India by dhow
for Zanzibar in their early teens. There, the elder Mr.
MEHTA
changed the family name of
NAIDA to
MEHTA to reflect his profession
of bookkeeper.
The youngest of six children, at the urging of an elder brother,
Mr. MEHTA learned English and graduated from the School of Commerce
in Zanzibar in 1932. Married in 1935 to Dhanlaxmi
GANDHI, he
worked as a government administrator, first for the health department
on the island of Pemba. There he lived in two small rooms with
his wife and their newborn son and the community's only artificial
light.
Upon returning to Zanzibar, Mr.
MEHTA joined the police department,
again as an administrator and rose to assistant superintendent
in 1963. Required to wear a gun, he complied, but said he would
never use it.
Mr. MEHTA placed high value on education and emphasized that
his four children should attend university. One became a doctor,
another an electrical engineer and a third received a B.A. The
fourth became a successful businessman. At home he spoke fluent
English to them.
Following the death of his eldest brother in 1942, Mr.
MEHTA
raised one of the surviving eight children and helped him start
a business.
During the Second World War, Mr.
MEHTA headed Zanzibar's field-ambulance
unit. Although the island went untouched by bombing, during drills,
Mr. MEHTA checked the streets for casualties. For his services,
he was awarded a government commendation.
After the Zanzibar Revolution in 1964, Mr.
MEHTA arrived at work
to find a new commissioner, installed by the revolutionary government.
Fortunately, Mr.
MEHTA knew his new boss well and kept his job.
In 1967, Mr.
MEHTA retired, and he and his wife left to live
in India with one of their three sons, accompanying him to Canada
in 1971.
Mr. MEHTA loved his new, adopted country.
"He saw the Canadian values of live-and-let-live and the freedom
of choice and he said, 'This is our country. We are Canadians,'
said son, Chandrakant
MEHTA.
Intelligent, curious and strong-willed, Mr.
MEHTA owned little.
Throughout his life, he never owned a house or car, or held a
bank account or insurance policy. He owned two suits and four
shirts.
Mr. MEHTA died on June 25. He leaves his wife
Dhanlaxmi, daughter
Tarla, sons Surendra, Chandrakant and Navin, plus grandchildren
and great-grandchildren.
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GANTMAN o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-10-29 published
A champion of Canadian textile workers
By Barbara
SILVERSTEIN,
Special to The Globe and Mail Wednesday,
October 29, 2003 - Page R5
A pioneer in the labour movement within Toronto's once-vibrant
garment industry and an early advocate of basic social-welfare
programs has died at the age of 105.
As a union activist, William (Velvl)
KATZ survived blacklisting
in the 1920s to establish the embroidery local of the International
Ladies Garment Workers Union and later went on to co-found the
Labour League, a Jewish radical left-wing mutual-benefit society
that later evolved into the United Jewish People's Order.
"He was a man of integrity, intelligence and idealism," said
his daughter Ida
ABRAMS. "He held... an exacting moral standard.
If he gave his word, he meant it."
Mr. KATZ, who died in April of heart failure, was born in 1897
in a small Polish town just north of Krakow. He and his three
younger siblings were raised in the sheltered communal life of
Hasidism, an ultra-Orthodox Jewish sect. Mr.
KATZ studied at
a religious school and later apprenticed as a cobbler and had
almost no exposure to the secular world until 1918, when he fled
to Germany to avoid military conscription. In 1997, he told the
Canadian Jewish News that his life changed dramatically. In Poland,
the only books were religious, he said. "Suddenly there were
books on every subject imaginable."
By all accounts, Mr.
KATZ became caught up in the intellectual
fervour ignited by the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. "He thought
communism would bring an end to anti-Semitism and all other forms
of discrimination and injustice," said Ida
ABRAMS. "He believed
the revolution was just around the corner."
In 1920, a cousin who was suddenly unable to travel offered Mr.
KATZ a free boat ticket and he arrived in Toronto with the address
of the relatives of a German friend. Mr.
KATZ became their paying
boarder. In the course of his stay, he courted their daughter
Bluma and married her in 1922. Two years later, he brought his
brother Ben and then his sisters Lil and Eva to Canada. Similar
efforts to bring his half-sister Esther failed and she did not
survive the Holocaust.
Around that time, Mr.
KATZ quit shoemaking and turned to the
garment industry where he took up union organizing. Eventually,
his reputation as a "lefty" alienated bosses and by 1924 he was
unemployed. Ida
ABRAMS recalls vivid memories of May Day parades
she attended with her father. "People marched with banners and
flags and sang union songs. There was always the threatening
presence of policemen on horseback."
His job problems ended in 1930 when Mr.
KATZ became a partner
in a modest embroidery shop on Adelaide Street. Although he was
an employer himself, he continued to support the efforts of the
labour unions. In those years, Mr.
KATZ campaigned for basic
social-welfare programs -- such as old-age pensions and unemployment
insurance -- through the Labour League Mutual Benefit Society,
a Jewish radical socialist organization he co-founded in 1926.
Mr. KATZ had initially belonged to the Workmen's Circle, an established
left-wing Jewish proletariat benefit society but in the mid-20s
it ruptured over ideological differences. Mr.
KATZ was among
a radical group that broke away to establish the Labour League
which, in later years, even ran political candidates. In 1945,
the league was renamed the United Jewish People's Order.
In its formative years, the Labour League established several
cultural institutions that still exist today: the Morris Winchevsky
School, the Toronto Jewish Folk Choir (formerly the Freedom Singing
Society), and Camp Naivelt, a collective of 90 cottages near
Brampton, Ontario The camp was a popular venue for folksingers
Pete SEEGER and Phil
OCHS performed there -- and it was where
the Canadian folk group The Travellers got its start.
United Jewish People's Order flourished until 1956, when Mr.
KATZ learned of the atrocities of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin
and disenchantment set in. Instead, he supported institutions
in Israel, and the preservation of Yiddish culture. Through this
he became Friends with Canadian Yiddish poet Simcha
SIMCHOVITCH,
whose latest book Toward Eternity: Collected Poems, is dedicated
to Mr. KATZ.
Mr. KATZ, whose wife died in 1972, leaves his daughter Ida
ABRAMS
and his sister Eva
GANTMAN.
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