Happy 100th birthday Max

Happy 100th birthday Max Levitas. The legendary anti-fascist campaigner and IBMT supporter became a centenarian on 1 June, and living proof that, as many on the left say, the struggle keeps you young. 

Born in Dublin in 2015 to Latvian and Lithuanian Jewish parents, Max and the rest of the family emigrated to London in 1927. Along with his brother, Maurice, who served in the British Battalion in Spain, Max took part in the Battle of Cable Street in October 1936, when local residents and anti-fascists prevented the police from clearing a way through the Jewish area of the East End for a parade of anti-semitic Blackshirts. 

Among the birthday greetings that were read out at a party for him in Whitechapel on Sunday 31 May was one from Irish President Michael Higgins. It was delivered in person by IBMT Ireland Secretary Manus O’Riordan. Also present at the celebration were TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady and local Labour MP Rushanara Ali.

Max served for 15 years as a Communist Party local councillor in Stepney and last year once again laid a wreath at the International Brigade memorial on London’s South Bank. We hope to see him again this year on 4 July.

For more about Max see: http://spitalfieldslife.com/2015/06/02/happy-100th-birthday-max-levitas

Pictured: Max Levitas (left) and Monty Goldman lay a wreath at the International Brigade memorial in July 2014 (photo: Andrew Wiard).