Cyril Edel Leonoff

Who is Cyril Edel Leonoff?

Cyril Leonoff' is a civil engineer by profession and a historian and author.

He has authored and edited a number of books and papers on engineering and historical topics. He remains one of the preeminent historians on Jewish history in British Columbia. In 1971 Leonoff became the founding president of the Jewish Historical Society of British Columbia. His 1985 publication The Jewish Farmers of Western Canada, was awarded the Margaret McWilliams Medal of the Manitoba Historical Society. In 2007, he received the Distinguished Service Award of the Association for Canadian Jewish Studies. In 2007, the Cyril Leonoff Fund for the Jewish Historical Society of British Columbia was established.

Cyril E. Leonoff was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, in 1925. He is the grandson of Edel Brotman, a homesteader and rabbi of the Wapella, Saskatchewan, farm colony, 1889–1906.