Kalmen Kaplansky

Who was 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.

Kaplansky was born in Białystok in what is now Poland and emigrated to Montreal after graduating from high school in 1929. He attempted to enroll at McGill University but the university's registrar told the young Jewish immigrant that "my job is to keep people like you out of the university."

He was a printer by profession and worked as a linotype operator and typesetter from 1932 to 1943. He was an active member of the Montreal Typographical Union serving on its executive and as the local union's delegate to the Montreal Trades and Labour Council and to the Trades and Labour Congress of Canada.

From 1936 to 1938 he was the secretary of the Montreal council of the Labour Party of Canada. He was also a leading activist in the Jewish community serving as chairman of the Workmen's Circle in Montreal from 1940 to 1943. He served with the Canadian Army from 1943 to 1946.

In August 1939, as World War II loomed, Kaplansky returned to Białystok in an unsuccessful attempt to persuade his father and brothers to come to Canada. He boarded SS Athenia to cross the Atlantic on his return trip in September 1939 and was one of the survivors when it became the first British ship to be sunk by the Germans after Britain declared war.