34th Annual Luncheon
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
12:00 p.m.
The Fairmont Winnipeg
With guest speaker

Justice Rosalie Silberman Abella

Justice Rosalie Silberman Abella To Speak at Foundation Luncheon

The Jewish Foundation of Manitoba is proud to welcome the Honourable Madam Justice Rosalie Silberman Abella as the featured speaker at the Foundation's 34th Annual Luncheon.

Justice Abella has set a number of firsts in her distinguished career. At age 29 she was appointed to the Ontario Family Court, becoming the youngest - and first pregnant - judge in Canadian History. She is the first Jewish woman to be appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada. Active in judicial education, she organized the first judicial seminar in which persons outside the legal profession were invited to participate, the first national education program for administrative tribunals, and the first national conference for Canada's female judges. She is also the first, and only, woman to receive the Distinguished Alumnus Award from the University of Toronto Faculty of Law.

After graduating from the University of Toronto Law School in 1970, Abella practised civil and criminal litigation until 1976 when she was appointed to the Ontario Family Court. She was appointed to the Supreme Court in 2004 after 12 years as a justice on the Ontario Court of Appeal. She is considered one of Canada's foremost experts in human rights law and, among other positions, has chaired the Ontario Labour Relations Board, the Ontario Law Reform Commission, and the Study of Access to Legal Services by the Disabled. She was a member of the Ontario Human Rights Commission and the Canadian Judicial Council's Inquirt on Donald Marshall, Jr.

Along with countless articles and innumerable lectures and speeches both in Canada and abroad, she has written or co-edited four books on a variety of legal topics. She was also sole Commissioner and author of the 1984 federal Royal Commission on Equality in Employment, in which she created the term and concept of "employment equity", a new strategy for reducing barriers in employment faced by women, aboriginal peope,

non-whites, and persons with disabilities.

Abella has 24 honourary degrees, and was awarded the 2003 International Justice Prize of the Peter Gruber Foundation and the 2004 Walter S. Tarnopolsky Award for Human Rights by the Canadian Bar Association and the International Commission of Jurists. She was selected as the 2004-2005 Robert Anderson Fellow at Yale Law School, and is an Honourary Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She has been a judge of the Giller Literary Prize, and is a graduate of The Royal Conservatory of Music in classical piano.

Justice Abella was born in a Displaced Persons Camp in Germany and came to Canada as a refugee in 1950. She is married to Canadian History Professor Irving Abella and they have two sons, Jacob and Zachary, both lawyers.

The Jewish Foundation of Manitoba is pleased to extend an invitation to all community members to hear Justice Abella speak at its Annual Luncheon, to be held at The Fairmont Winnipeg on Wednesday, October 29, 2008. Tickets for the luncheon are $35.00 and are available at the Foundation office or from ticket sellers, as listed on the back of the invitation. For more information or to reserve your tickets, please call us at (204) 477-7520.

Click here to view the 34th Annual Luncheon invitation.