Photo by Dave Chan
Generous donations from alumni and friends will endow a new chair in justice and equality in honour of the lifetime contributions of retired Supreme Court of Canada Justice Rosalie Silberman Abella (BA 1967 UC, LLB 1970, Hon. LLD 1990) and her late husband, Canadian historian Irving Abella (BA 1963 UC, MA 1964, PhD 1969, Hon. LLD 2014).
“We are tremendously grateful to all those who chose to honour Irving’s and Rosie’s collective contributions to justice and equality,” said University Professor and Dean Jutta Brunnée, James Marshall Tory Dean’s Chair. “The Irving and Rosalie Abella Chair in Justice and Equality strengthens our research and teaching, reinforcing our standing in the global vanguard of this all-important terrain.”
Irving Abella (1940-2022) was a history professor at Glendon College and York University for 45 years until his retirement in 2013. He was Chair of Canadian Studies and the J. Richard Shiff Chair for the Study of Canadian Jewry. He served as chair of the Canadian Jewish Archives, chair of the Governor General’s Literary Awards for Non-Fiction, and was a Governor of York University. He also served as president of the Canadian Historical Association, the Academy of Arts and Humanities of the Royal Society of Canada, Vision TV, and the Canadian Jewish Congress.
Abella, who graduated from U of T’s University College and completed his master’s and doctoral studies at U of T, was the founder of two academic disciplines: Canadian Labour History and Canadian Jewish Studies.
He is the author of hundreds of articles and many books, including A Coat of Many Colours: Two Centuries of Jewish Life in Canada and co-author of None is Too Many: Canada and the Jews of Europe 1933–1948, winner of the National Jewish Book Award (Holocaust Category), the Canadian Historical Association’s John A. Macdonald Prize and named one of Canada’s Most Important Books by the Literary Review of Canada.
A fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, Abella was the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Order of Ontario and the Order of Canada. He received several honorary degrees, including a Doctor of Laws honoris causa from U of T in 2014.
Rosalie Silberman Abella, who holds the Samuel and Judith Pisar Chair at Harvard Law School, was born on July 1, 1946 in a displaced persons camp in Stuttgart, Germany. The family came to Canada as Jewish refugees in 1950.
Abella graduated from both U of T’s University College and the Faculty of Law. In 1970, she was one of only seven women in her graduating class of 150 law students.
At the age of 29, she became the first pregnant woman appointed to the judiciary in Canada . She was also the first refugee appointed to the bench in Canada, as well the first Jewish woman appointed to Canada’s Supreme Court. She was the first woman in the Commonwealth to Chair a Labour Relations Board and a Law Reform Commission. She subsequently served on the Ontario Court of Appeal for 12 years and for 17 years on the Supreme Court.
Her many contributions to legal thought and jurisprudence includes creating the term and concept of employment equity when she was the sole commissioner of the 1984 federal Royal Commission on Equality in Employment. Her definition of equality and discrimination was adopted by the Supreme Court of Canada in its first decision under Section 15 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Among the distinctions Abella has received is Germany’s Knight Commander’s Cross of the Order of Merit, one of the country’s top honours. She was inducted into Canada’s Walk of Fame for humanitarianism and has been recognized with several honorary degrees, including an honorary Doctor of Laws from U of T in 1990.
The Abellas were married for 54 years and have two sons, Jacob and Zachary, both lawyers.
