Last year, at the age of 87 and stricken with cancer, Stephen Lewis demonstrated in the streets of Scarborough, ON, against the Netanyahu regime’s brutal and excessive actions in Gaza.
At the time, his son, Avi Lewis, wrote about the evolution of his father’s views on this issue over many years.
Stephen Lewis had encountered the ugly face of antisemitism many times over his life and was, as a result, loath to criticize anything the State of Israel did.
He never reconciled with the hatred of the Jews so many feel and express, but he did come to believe, over time, that it was, at times, necessary to call the Israeli government to account for its flagrant abuses of human rights.
On the first night of Passover, a festival the celebrates liberation from enslavement, here is what Avi Lewis wrote about his father, the protester, in 2025:
“When he was Canada’s ambassador to the UN from 1984-88, Dad was truly shocked by the regularity of open, vitriolic antisemitism in the cocktail parties and ambassadorial receptions that surround that crucial but flawed institution.
For this reason (among others) he’s always been the one in our family with the deepest atavistic fear of antisemitism. He was sympathetic to the idea of Israel as a refuge longer than the rest of us.
This is no longer the case.
Like so many Jews who for decades adopted the dominant narratives of Zionism, he can no longer defend the current actions of the state of Israel. He now regards Israel as a rogue state, committing genocide and other crimes against humankind, which ought to be opposed by every tool and tactic in Canada’s diplomatic arsenal.
To return to the personal, seven years ago my Dad was diagnosed with a vicious cancer and was given as little as 3 months to live. It’s a sublime understatement to say that he’s a fighter – but he has persevered in life with a tenacity familiar from his political, diplomatic and humanitarian pursuits.
Which brings us to this morning, when at 87 years old, he spent an hour standing at the side of the road in his old riding of Scarborough West. Standing up as a Jew against genocide. Standing up for justice for Palestine. Standing up on the right side of history, where the vast majority of humanity currently stands.
I’ve never been prouder, never more humble before the stubborn principle and insistent moral clarity of the guy I’m so lucky to call Dad.
People of Canada: don’t stop talking about Palestine. Starvation as collective punishment can never be forgiven. Burning and burying children alive can never be defended. Stand up against genocide until we make it stop!”
– Avi Lewis, February 2025
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