Giller Prize founder Jack Rabinovitch’s death ‘a huge loss’

Jack Rabinovitch, founder of the literary Giller Prize, died Aug. 6, 2017

Jack Rabinovitch, who grew up hawking books and newspapers in the streets of Montreal and went on to found the prestigious Giller Prize to support Canadian authors, passed away on Aug. 6, after suffering a “catastrophic fall” in his home. He was 87.

Tributes poured in for the Montreal-born and Toronto-based businessman, who was one of the Canadian literary community’s most well-regarded champions.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Twitter that, “Jack Rabinovitch changed the lives of countless Canadian authors with The Giller Prize. His legacy will live on in their work.”

Toronto Mayor John Tory also took to social media to say that Rabinovitch’s death was “a huge loss for us all.

“Jack Rabinovitch, business leader, philanthropist, arts supporter extraordinaire and gentleman. We will miss him.”

Jack Rabinovitch, left, with 2014 Giller Prize winner Sean Michaels, and Brian Porter. TOM SANDLER PHOTO, GILLER PRIZE WEBSITE

Speaking at his funeral, former Ontario premier and federal Liberal leader Bob Rae, a family friend, said that the Giller Prize “coincided with the explosion of Canadian literary talent in the past three decades and has without a doubt helped Canadian writers and the publishing industry immeasurably.

“The annual dinner and lunch with the winner have become an unforgettable event; and at the heart of it all is the affection and the support that people feel for Jack.”

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Rae went on to note Rabinovitch’s humble origins and said that, “He cared about his friends, he cared about all of us. And it was never a club with a closed door. He was always curious about new ideas, new books, new people. He never stopped learning and asking questions.”

Rabinovitch was raised and educated in Montreal, where he graduated from McGill University in 1952 with a B.A. in English. He worked as a reporter, speechwriter and later as a real estate developer. He moved to Toronto in the 1980s and in 1986, he was named executive vice-president of Trizec Corp., a property development company. He later became president of Nodel Investments, a real estate and venture capital firm.

Elana Rabinovitch, one of Jack’s three daughters, told The CJN that her father was a “voracious reader” and a “largely self-made man. He was an intellectual, as was his brother, Sam.”

“He married Doris, who he had known all his life. He was always a big reader. The love of books brought them together,” she said.

Doris Giller, a literary editor with the Montreal Gazette and the Toronto Star, died in 1993 at age 62.

In a 2014 interview with the McGill Reporter, Jack Rabinovitch said Giller’s death was devastating.

“After a few months, I decided that she should not go gently into that last good night without some special tribute. Everybody who knew her knew she was an exceptional person and an exceptional literary journalist.

“I met with my friend Mordecai Richler at Woody’s, a pub on Bishop Street in Montreal, in August of that year. I told him I wanted to start a literary fiction prize in Doris’s name and I wanted him to help. Mordecai knew and adored Doris. He agreed immediately. Mordecai suggested that we include David Staines, an eminent English professor and scholar, and over chopped liver at Moishes on The Main, the Giller Prize took form. David then suggested we include Alice Munro in the founding group, and after Alice agreed, we went public. We called it the Giller Prize because we considered it Doris’s prize.

“The Giller is, more than anything else, a celebration of literature and writers,” he said.

At first, the Giller Prize provided awards of $25,000. Since 2005, when it became known as the Scotiabank Giller Prize, the winner has received $100,000 and finalists have taken home $10,000 each. The award ceremony is televised on CBC.

Viewers of the event will recall Rabinovitch’s signature line: “For the price of a dinner in this town, you can buy all the nominated books. So eat at home and buy the books.”

The award for excellence in Canadian fiction has boosted the careers – and sales – of many fiction writers.

Ironically, Elana Rabinovitch said that her father’s love of the written word trended not towards fiction, but to current affairs.

“He instilled in us a love of information, current affairs, news and their importance,” she said.

“He read five newspapers a day (and) he loved the New Yorker,” which he read practically cover-to-cover, she said.

One of his favourite authors was his friend Mordecai Richler and he considered himself one of St. Urbain’s horsemen, a reference to a Jewish area of Montreal where he grew up and which became the title of one of Richler’s novels.

Rabinovitch’s father, Isaac, ran a diner and a newsstand in Montreal. He joked that he learned math selling newspapers with his father at the corner of Ontario and St. Lawrence streets.

In addition to his business pursuits, Rabinovitch was a volunteer advisor in the construction of the Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto. He was also the recipient of the Order of Canada and the Order of Ontario.

He is survived by his partner, Judy Clarke, his sister, Shirley Edith Coleman, his daughters, Elana, Noni and Daphna, and grandchildren, Jacob, Saffi and Luca.