[Stewart Meadows]

Longtime human rights activist Irwin Cotler named as Canada’s first envoy in anti-Semitism fight


NOVEMBER 25, 2020 4:44 PM

(JTA) — Irwin Cotler, a former Canadian justice minister and a human rights activist, is Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s choice as his nation’s first envoy to combat anti-Semitism.

Cotler, a lawyer who belongs to Trudeau’s Liberal Party, has long been a leading figure in human rights advocacy. He has worked for a number of prisoners of conscience including Nelson Mandela, who went on to lead South Africa; Andrei Sakharov, the Soviet dissident leader; Natan Sharansky, the prisoner in a Soviet gulag who went on to become an Israeli Cabinet minister and the chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel; and Jacobo Timerman, the Jewish author and one-time prisoner of the Argentine junta.

He has also served as a Parliament member for a Montreal district.

https://www.jta.org/quick-reads/long...semitism-fight