Zale Newman

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Zale Newman is a Jewish community activist and former public official in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Contents 1 Early life and career 2 School trustee 3 Community leader 4 Footnotes

[edit] Early life and career

Newman is a graduate of Yeshiva University, later did graduate work at McGill University in Montreal, and holds a Master of Business Administration degree in Marketing and Corporate Strategy from York University in Toronto. He has held executive positions at General Mills, and has been involved with several companies in the financial services industry.^[1] Newman was described in 1979 as being affiliated with the Lubavitch movement of Hasidic Judaism.^[2]

[edit] School trustee

Newman ran for election to the North York Board of Education in the 1978 and 1980 municipal elections. He called for a "back to basics" approach to education in the latter campaign along with a tougher approach to drugs and vandalism, and was endorsed by the North York branch of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation.^[3] He lost both times to Frances Chapkin.

He was elected on his third attempt in 1982, and re-elected in 1985. Newman served on a special board committee on drug and alcohol abuse, and was a vocal promoter of The Open Flame, a thirty-minute production on drug use written by Toronto-area students.^[4] He also supported free breakfasts for low-income students.^[5]

In May 1988, Newman brought forward a motion which would have permitted trustees to reassign teachers with AIDS out of classroom situations. He argued that these teachers should be reassigned to comparable jobs out of the classroom, rather than provoking what he described as "a moral issue with parents". The motion was rejected.^[6] Newman did not seek re-election in the 1988 municipal election.

[edit] Community leader

Newman is a prominent figure within Toronto's Jewish community, and has been especially active in producing music. He worked as record producer for Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach on nine albums, and helped create the group Uncle Moishy and the Mitzvah Men in 1979 to educate children about the Jewish religion. Newman has said that he provided the voice of Uncle Moishy on early albums.^[7] He is no longer active with the group.

He was appointed as the National Director of the Orthodox Union's National Conference of Synagogue Youth in 2003, after thirty-five years of working within the organization. Newman was forty-seven years old at the time of his appointment, and was a partner with Panfinancial in Toronto. He announced that he would use modern marketing techniques to reach out to a teenaged audience, and work against assimilation and intermarriage. He also focused on strengthening ties between Canada's Jewish community and Israel.^[8]

In 2006, Newman raised funds to help former residents of Gush Katif in Gaza relocate to a new settlement within Israel.^[9]

Currently, Newman teaches classes and occasionally leads services at Aish HaTorah's southern Toronto location, the Village Shul synagogue and Jewish education centre.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Footnotes