Sydney Harris

Sydney Malcolm Harris (June 23, 1917 – January 17, 2009) was a Canadian jurist and civil liberties advocate who worked as a lawyer, both for the federal government and then in private practice for over 30 years before being appointed to the Ontario Provincial Court in 1976.

Early life and education He was the grandson of Jewish immigrants who immigrated to Canada from the Russian Empire in the 1880s. His father owned a dressmaking business and raised Sydney and his sister in their Yorkville Avenue home in Toronto. Harris won a scholarship as a student of Jarvis Collegiate Institute and attended the University of Toronto before enrolling in Osgoode Hall Law School in 1939.

Personal life He was a prominent opponent of the neo-Nazi movement in the 1960s. At a time when the Jewish community was reticent to publicly oppose anti-Semites, he stood before a congregation of 1,500 at a Toronto's Beth Tzedec Synagogue and read out the names and addresses of three prominent Toronto neo-Nazis and their supporters.

He was active in the Jewish community and served as president of the Canadian Council of Reform Congregations in the 1960s, and as national president of the Canadian Jewish Congress from 1974 to 1977.