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Podcast: North Star with Ellin Bessner
Episode: Monte Kwinter, record-breaking politician who ‘championed’ the Jewish community, dies at 92
Description: Funeral services will be held Tuesday, July 25, for Monte Kwinter, the long-serving Toronto politician who set the record as the oldest sitting MPP in Ontario’s legislature. Kwinter, who came from a family of Polish immigrant butchers in Kensington Market, was re-elected nine times for the Liberals in the heavily Jewish riding of York Centre—and, before that, Wilson Heights, as it was previously named.
Kwinter held five cabinet posts in his 33-year career. A proud Jew, he brought Holocaust remembrance and Jewish observance into Ontario’s parliament, and fought for extending government funding for Jewish private schools, although it was...