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. 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.

Source: CBC News April 02, 2026 05:09 UTC