Archie Bennett, a businessman, Jewish journalist and leader in Canadian Zionism and the Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC) died yesterday at the age of 89. Born in Russia, he was raised in Kingston, Ontario where he graduated from Queen’s University with a degree in philosophy. He moved to Toronto where with his brothers he went into real estate and development, building Canada’s first suburban shopping plazas.
Bennett had a lifelong interest in journalism, Zionism and Jewish culture. He was editor of the Canadian Jewish Times in Montreal in 1912 and later contributed a regular column to the Jewish Chronicle, the Canadian Jewish Review and from the 1940s to the 1970s to the Jewish Standard of Toronto.
In 1919, Bennett was among the delegates to the first Assembly of the CJC where he delivered a paper on minority rights. In 1934 he helped reorganize the CJC and during World War 11 he was president of the Ontario region involved in refugee work, resettlement, community relations and the war effort. He become the CJC’s publications chairman and in that post encouraged Jewish authors. In 1922 he introduced the first Karen Hayesod campaign in Ontario.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
