Revered community leader Batshaw turns 100

Manny Batshaw prepares to blow out the candles on his 100th birthday cake with the assistance of Beverlee Ashmele. JANICE ARNOLD PHOTO
Manny Batshaw prepares to blow out the candles on his 100th birthday cake in April 2015, with the assistance of Beverlee Ashmele. JANICE ARNOLD PHOTO

MONTREAL — His entry into the world as the fourth child of an impoverished Russian immigrant family was unexpected – and, he always felt, not entirely welcome. 

His school days were torturous and he feared he was stupid. No one at that time recognized learning disabilities.

Labouring under those early insecurities no doubt propelled Manny Batshaw to become one of the most memorable Montreal Jewish professional leaders, and gave him the will to see his 100th birthday.

Family and many friends gathered at Congregation Shaar Hashomayim on April 17 to toast Batshaw, whose time as executive vice-president of Allied Jewish Community Services (AJCS, forerunner of Federation CJA) are today referred to as the “Batshaw era.”

He was additionally immortalized in the Montreal community with the naming in 1992 of the new merged social services agency serving English and French in Montreal as the Batshaw Youth and Family Services Centre.

His was a career that included serving both as trusted adviser to the wealthiest and most powerful, and as an advocate for the young and most vulnerable.

The years from 1968 to ’80, when Batshaw was at the helm of AJCS, were a transformative period for the Montreal community. Nine agencies were gathered under one umbrella, Cummings House was built, Jewish Family Services was created, the Montreal Holocaust Memorial Centre opened, women took on leadership roles and the funds raised through Combined Jewish Appeal tripled.

During the same period, Batshaw was chosen by the Quebec government to investigate abuses in the child detention system, eventually producing an 11-volume report that paved the way for sweeping reform and, ultimately, the introduction of the Youth Protection Act.

Batshaw could empathize with disadvantaged children.

Retirement was not a word in Batshaw’s vocabulary. When he left AJCS, he became Charles Bronfman’s director of Jewish affairs, staying in that post well into his 80s. Then, he was a fundraiser for Mount Sinai Hospital until his mid-90s.

Batshaw, who overcame his childhood learning problems and earned a social work degree at McGill University after serving in the army during World War II, returned to his native Montreal after two decades working at various Jewish agencies, mainly in the United States.

Bronfman noted that Batshaw led the community with a steady hand through the good and bad times, from “its heyday during the pinnacle of Montreal after Expo 67 to its nadir with the Parti Québécois coming into power [in 1976] when so many left for Toronto.

“Somehow, he steered the community in his quiet but determined way” and can take credit for keeping it as strong as it is, Bronfman said.

Judy Martin, president of Batshaw Youth and Family Centres since 1993, said the 17 recommendations made in the Batshaw Report in 1975 calling for a more humane child welfare system are still valid today, and “we try to stay true to them on a daily basis.”

Batshaw’s concern for kids is genuine, she said, and they always reciprocated. “It’s magic when he walks into a room.”

All of the children currently in the centres’ care made cards and wrote letters to Batshaw, which were delivered in a box. 

The centres have an Order of Batshaw pin that’s awarded to a staff or board member with at least 20 years of exemplary service.

Federation CJA president Susan Laxer announced that the federation is establishing the Manny Batshaw Award for longstanding community service, to be bestowed annually to volunteers within the federation or the broader community.

Batshaw, who is widowed and lives in a seniors residence, is frail, but his mind is sharp and he eagerly acknowledged the well-wishers who lined up to greet him.

His only child, Mark Batshaw, is a pediatrician who serves as director of the Children’s Research Institute and physician-in-chief of the Children’s National Health System in Washington, D.C.

The young Batshaw said he is astonished and grateful that, at almost 70 himself, he still has his father, whom he remembers “working all the time.”

 “Dad remarked to me, ‘So, I guess you’re at mid-career.’”

While his father did not speak at the party, his son said his message is that “everyone has special gifts that they can share… Tikkun olam has a very strong meaning for him.

“He believes we are all put in this world to use our talents… If something needs to be fixed, find those who can fix it.

“Mentorship was also important because he knew one person can only do so much…

“He also had a vision of the Jewish community, that it should be self-sustaining, and that means that the young must learn about Judaism so that new people are brought in.”

To Batshaw’s “special friend,” Beverlee Ashmele, the new centenarian is “kind, wise, gentlemanly, generous, determined, pragmatic and full of grace and love.”